Puget Sound's first Taiwan Culture Night brings Chinese community together

Aimee Roseberry ’21 stepped off the plane in Taiwan and panicked. As a double major in sociology and anthropology and Chinese, she had two years of Chinese language classes behind her, but was still overwhelmed by the sudden immersion into the language. “I just remember thinking, “Oh my God, I don’t know Chinese,” she recalls. “It felt like I was totally lost.”

It was June, and she was heading to Tunghai University for Puget Sound’s Taiwan Summer Program—an eight-week language-intensive study abroad experience. From the next two months, Aimee and her four Puget Sound classmates would be immersed in Chinese language and culture. They would speak and hear only Chinese in the classroom, room with native Taiwanese students, and experience the culture firsthand.

“It became way easier with the immersion,” Roseberry says. “It was intimidating, but I loved it.”