Travel Credit & Solidifying Knowledge

I came across yet another great article on the NY Times website. This one is about encouraging acting on college students' wanderlust and encouraging learning about the world on a one-on-one basis. The best way to solidify any of our knowledge is through experience and interaction. For instance, a college diploma or a degree are not worth as much without any previous experience and the application of the information learned over the past years of primary, secondary and post-secondary education. Check out Kristof's column http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/opinion/31kristof.html.

For anyone interested in studying abroad in Asia, I highly recommend that you start reading everything and anything now about the history and geopolitics of all these complex countries. I have started reading voraciously while here about North Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India. I have learned so much, primarily because once I read something I am able to discuss most of it with a couple friends and often with people who have first-hand experiential knowledge. This is, in essence, a crash course in Asian economics and geopolitics. Also, I recommend attending all of the events offered on the NTU campus possible, including all of the speakers and field trips. I attended an economic symposium through one of my courses focused on 'The Lessons Learned from the Current Economic Crisis'. Paul Krugman was the keynote speaker and other leaders from neighboring Asian nations with a sprinkling of European economic advisers. Although, I did not agree with all of the speakers, I was introduced to other perspectives I would not have heard at home in the U.S. These experiences are invaluable and have taught me so much about the global geopolitical environment.

"The Chinese Language, Ever Evolving"

I came across a NY Times blog today discussing how written Chinese has changed and is changing. I am sure a good percentage of people know that mainland China's system is based on simplified characters introduced in the 1950s to substantially increase literacy, and that Taiwan still uses the traditional system. The KMT were adamant in retaining important parts of Chinese culture, which included the written language. I find the traditional characters much easier to understand, because even if I do not know the character I can guess its meaning based off of context and if I know one of the radicals. I find this to be invaluable as a student, because it allows me to connect to the culture much faster while learning Chinese. I do not have many memorized and would be useless in mainland China. Check out the article below:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/chinese-language-ever-evolving/