Our memories in Taiwan, Taipei ( credits to Yide for the photos)

In Changi Airport... Feel like super star!!!

The night scenery of Taipei city

Say hi to Jianguo students!

Their beautiful garden

Nice drawings by Jianguo students

Yum yum... Lunch in the classroom

Interesting math lesson!

Group photos

Sky lanterns, may our wish come true...

Trying hard to complete the mission

On the way...

WE ARE 2HOT4U!!!! 2H fighting!

Our presentation on same same but different

 yu qi: Good morning everyone, we are Make You Shy! I'm.......... Today, we are presenting on the theme, same same but different. This is what you will be expecting today, the brief outline of the trip, the differences and similarities between Taiwan and Singapore, in terms of cultures and heritage, education system, and lastly, physical location and economics. Following that, we will share about the top 10 things we like and learnt before ending off with our personal reflection.

First, you can have a glance at the brief out line of the trip.

Now, I will start with preservation culture and heritage. 

During the OELP trip, all of us went to the one of the oldest night markets in Taipei which is Raohe night market! Alined with numerous stores selling a variety of items, it reminds us of the pasar malam in Singapore.

However, there is a noticeable difference between Taiwan and Singapore when it comes to the culture of night markets or pasar malam. In Taiwan, night markets are a cherished cultural phenomenon that embraces past traditions while remaining contemporary with quick-stepping fashionably dressed young people who flood them. night markets offer a wide variety of authentic Taiwanese food and drink as well as unique Taiwanese products. They are both practical and inexpensive, and play an important part in the lives of Taiwanese people. Night markets in taiwan are a cultural institution, showcasing an enormous variety of traditional Taiwanese snacks, delicacies, and other products to overflowing streets filled with market-goers. 

However, as Singapore continues to modernise, we are seeing fewer pasar malams in the urban areas.  It makes us wonder why the pasar malam in Singapore is dying out when Taiwan's night market is thriving? A pasar malam often takes place only a few weeks out of a few months, as it moves around different neighbourhoods from time to time. However, large scale night markets like raohe and shihlin night markets in Taiwan are permanently there, which make the night markets more available. Perhaps this might be a reason why the night markets can thrive better than Singapore's pasar malam.  Another reason is that the ways of life die out while the country modernise. More and more shopping centres, where most of the youngsters go to, are built in Singapore so more people would rather go to the shopping centres as there is air-conditioner in the mall. There are also fewer young generations who are willing to shop at the pasar malams. The people that we see in the pasar malam are normally middle-aged aunties or uncles who wants to get a good bargain at the pasar malam. In contrast, during our trip to Taiwan, we could see many youngsters roaming around the night market, enjoying themselves with the delicacies.

In our opinion, we think that as the society advanced, we ought to never forget our roots and preserve the traditions that have been passed down by our ancestors for generations. Our ancestors have grown up following the traditional ways without fail. It is part of our religion and culture, and it cannot be forgotten so easily. Also, it's reliable. After years and years of reuse, traditions become familiar and expected. The rituals and customs have instilled a sense of respect into the people. Now, we call it 'old-fashioned', and we spite the followings that our ancestors have worshipped. To us, in this fast-paced world, we have to adapt accordingly. But, as we reject the way of life that our elders have tried to teach us, we are also rejecting the meaning behind traditions. Hence we think that we, the youngsters nowadays should visit the pasar malams more so that this precious culture would not die out.

Hui shi: we visited many historical sights in Taiwan that has been kept for several decade, which included extensive and grand museums to memorial halls. although they have already been built for a long while, they are always abounded with people. the local Taiwanese commemorate the deaths of two national heroes by building memorial halls, in memory of what they had contributed in establishing Taiwan. These two memorials are considered heritage sights in Taiwan and shows how Taiwan has been treasuring their local heritage. These memorial halls are referred to as heritage sites and this clearly shows how Taiwan has been preserving and treasuring their heritage. besides museums and memorial halls, even schools have their own historical values. Jianguo High School is an example. The red brick building was built in 1909 during Japanese rule and was considered one of Taipei's historical buildings. It was kept and preserved till now, still maintaining the original colour of red and white of the building when it was first built. currently in Singapore, there are also historical sites and efforts of preserving the culture and heritage of Singapore. heritage sites such as the Civil Defence Heritage Centre and the Chinatown Heritage Centre reflects the history of Singapore. besides, events such as chingay held in Singapore emphasize the culture of our multi-racial society. however, as much as technology brings us convenience, it leads us to slowly forget our traditions, and the old ways of life, which makes up our country's history. because of the hustle and bustle of our occupied and busy lives which have been taken over by technology leads to less people visit museums and heritage sites in Singapore nowadays. Hence, we think that we should have more learning journeys to the museums. If not, the future generations wouldn't be able to know the olden singapore. we won't even know about the cultures from before, maybe just a vague idea, and we won't be able to even get a first hand experience. 

During our OELP trip, we visited JianGuo High School for immersion programme. Both River Valley High School and JianGuo High School have similarities and differences. 

For an instance, both of the schools are prestigious high school whereby only the top 1% of scorers on the Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students receive admission to JianGuo High School while River Valley High School has entry cut-off point at an aggregate of at least 250 for the Primary School Leaving Examinations, which is a very high score in Singapore.     

However, they have different education systems. 

Jianguo High School is different from schools in Singapore as it focuses on freedom. It has very lenient rules and the students are given a lot of freedom. In contrast, River Valley High School has strict rules and there is no room for freedom. For example, Jianguo students have one hour lunch breaks and they are allowed to buy food outside of school compound. Whereas in River Valley High, we only have thirty minutes of recess and lunch break and are only allowed to buy food within our school compound.

During the immersion programme, we were given the opportunity to attend lessons with the Jianguo students. What we envied were the short breaks after each lesson they had. The students of Jianguo High School have a ten minute break after each lesson but students in River Valley High School are given 15 minutes break for only a few times in a week and they are taken by teachers to teach sometimes. The students in Jianguo High School will be able to rest after every lesson to keep their mind clear for next lesson by having the chance to stretch themselves and ask friends questions about what was taught in class previously while students in River valley high school will feel stress and bored after continuous hours of lessons as the pace was too fast for them.

Additionally, Jianguo high school also provides lessons whereby the students will learn other languages like French and German which is compulsory. In our school, we also have an optional third language Programme and learning malay in year 1 and year 2. It is good to learn other languages as there will be a chance of being able to communicate using those languages we have learnt in the future.

Not forgetting, the students in Jianguo High school also have co-curricular activities after school, like River Valley High School. however, they have more co-curricular activities that are cool like magic club, juggling club, beatbox club and many more which will interests many students while river valley high school only has those common co-curricular activities that most students are not really interested in. Moreover, we only have limited options and that often causes us to end up in a co curricular activities that we might not be so keen to be in.

Szemin: Furthermore, the students in Jianguo high school are allowed to eat their food in the classrooms but students in river valley high school are not allowed to eat in the classroom and is against the school rule. Food bought by students in our school are always restricted to the canteen boundary but Jianguo high school trusts the students to be able to exercise self-discipline by not dirtying the classroom while eating in the classrooms. Compared to river valley high school, students are not trusted by the teachers and they just wants to prevent us from dirtying classrooms.

Whats more, both Taiwan and Singapore have compulsory educations where Taiwan has a 9-year Compulsory Education system of which 6 years are for elementary education and 3 years for junior high school but Singapore has a Compulsory education up to Primary 6 as this is considered the minimum period of education for all Singapore children. 

Also, we observed that the lessons taught in Taiwan are in Chinese but the lessons taught in Singapore are in English. English language is our main concern in Singapore but Chinese is the main language in Taiwan.  Likewise, the other subjects like mathematics and sciences are also taught in Chinese. Similarly, River Valley High School has a Special Assistance Plan,which has a very strong Chinese environment where Chinese language, culture and history are often emphasized in the School too. We feel that the SAP programmes benefited us as it enhance our Chinese language standard which helped us to cope with the lessons in Taiwan. 

See these chimneys of the factories? Many of these can be found in Taiwan. You may wonder would a small country build so many factories? Same as Singapore, both countries export goods to other countries. The cost of the exports to other countries in Taiwan is estimated as $307.0 billion and in Singapore, it's estimated as $414.8 billion. Both countries have main export partners such as China, Hongkong, United States and Japan.

What do you see in common between this two pictures?

As we can see from the maps, both Taiwan and Singapore are surrounded by the sea. This is an advantage as it's much easier to export and import goods to and from other countries. 

However, even though Singapore's land area is much smaller than Taiwan, 716.1 km^2 to 36193 km^2, it is still more developed in terms of economic. This is due to to high quality equipments and advanced technology. With these, Singapore can export especially in electronics, chemicals and services including the posture that Singapore is the regional hub for wealth management provide the main source of revenue for the economy, which allows it to purchase natural resources and raw goods which she lacks. 

Also, we could see windmills in Taiwan occasionally during the trip. As Taiwan has a large area of land, it has the required space needed to built these windmills. With the windmills, Taiwan is able to use wind to make energy and create electricity. It benefits Taiwan as they lower the cost needed for electricity. in contrast, singapore's constrained land area makes it unable to build windmills to generate electricity.  hence, as Singapore has no indigenous energy resources, and she is dependent on energy imports to support her overall energy needs, the cost needed to spend on energy resources is greater.

Yi Meng: For the 10 things we learnt, we would like to focus more on what we see in the trip itself and bring it back to the topic 'Same same but different'

The first thing that we found out was Taiwanese people have facebook too. We were surprised to find out the fact that they could have assess to Facebook in Taiwan.  At first, we had this stereotype that they could not use facebook like people in China. For we always cannot contact our dear group members Yu Qi when she is in China.  However, during the immersion programme at Jianguo, the students told us that unlike China, they can use it. We ere definitely elated after hearing that as we are able to keep in touch with our friends even when we were separated by the countries boundary.

Another interesting thing we noticed in Taiwan is that on the roads, the vehicles travel on the right side of the road whereas, in singapore, we travel on the left. This discovery made us wonder and now we will share why is this so. According to our research, Taiwan had left-hand traffic under Japanese rule; after World War II the Chinese government changed Taiwan to right-hand traffic in 1946 along with the rest of China.[165] All vehciles registered must be converted to LHD. Singapore is left handed because of  British colonial rule 

The third thing is that they have much more varieties of clubs, which we call CCA here, than in RV. I always thought that CCAs were only constrain to those common ones but in Jianguo, they have CCAs that we did not think could be CCAs. For example, they even have magic, beatbox and juggling. I think this is great as people that is interested in such things can finally learn more about it.

Following that, we learnt that there are actually 26 aboriginal tribes in Taiwan but only 14 of the tribes are registered. In singapore, we don't have aboriginal tribes but what we do have is different races of people living together.

Also, we learnt to keep our valuables safe and not easily trust strangers. In Ximending, we encountered a group of men trying to con tourists there, including us but we ignored them and went away. Even in singapore, there are people selling things way more expensive than its original price to tourists. So we definitely need to be careful when going overseas. 

We also heard from the tour guide that 70% of Taiwan's land is occupied by mountainous area. But in contrast to Singapore, we could not see even a single sign of mountain in Singapore. The highest mountain in Singapore that we can find is the Bukit Timah hill which is only a pathetic height of 164m. Just one sixth of the height of what a real mountain should be. As a Singaporean, I feel very sad and disappointed and annoyed and angry that we could not have a real enormous and high mountain to climb on. I emphasise that I strongly believe that with a high mountain in Singapore, there will be more tourists visiting Singapore, which will result in economic growth. 

We also learnt that many natural disaster, for example tsunamis, earthquakes and many many others, that occur in Taiwan. we learnt from our buddies that Taiwan like Singapore also have evacuation exercises like the rhino exercise we have in river valley high. The exercises are to educate us on what actions we should take when we encounter crisis.  Fortunately, singapore is safe from natural disaster. Thus, we must be glad and grateful that we are fortunate enough to be born in a safe and secure Singapore whereby we would not suffer from natural disasters which will lead to injuries and deaths which might  cause depression to family members. 

Next, we saw that Taiwanese people stay on the right side of the escalator whereas we Singaporeans stay on the left side. We must be careful not to stand on the left side as people need to walk to prevent collision.

On the bus, we noticed that the highways in Taiwan were mostly built above ground while in singapore, our highways are mostly on ground level.

Lastly, during the trip, when my teacher, classmate and I took a taxi to the clinic. I noticed that the driver seat was at the left side of the vehicle unlike vehicles in singapore which was at the right side.

Ming Han: Now, I will move on to the 10 things we love from the trip. 

Firstly, I like the fact that we had the oppurtunity to release sky lanterns into the sky at shifen. We were able to pen down our goals and write our wishes and dreams on the lanterns. We felt a rush of joy when the lantern was released. It felt good to indulge in the innocent belief that dreams can come true all on their own. 

Secondly, we loved the immersion programme at jianguo municipal high school and wulai. we had fun during the short but enjoyable time spent during the immersion programme at jianguo high school and wulai aboriginal school. we were able to experience the different educational systems and also making new friends. Our buddies treated us very well and we really loved them. The hospitality really warmed my heart.

Thirdly, we loved the free time spent at raohe night market.

we spent an enjoyable and joyful time at raohe night market. we got to taste the delicious and mouth-watering local snacks they sell there. also, we bought several cheap items with such affordable prices that is hard to come by these days. Not to mention, we also bought presents for our group members hui Shi who did not when to the trip. These souvenirs bought will definitely bring fond memories back to us when we see it when we grow up.

Next, roaming around ximending was something we love too.

we enjoyed a amazing night walking around ximending and ate many yummy snacks and bought many trendy clothings. It is a different experience form walking along bugis street in Singapore. 

we also loved the tour guide.

the bus driver was very friendly and helpful. whenever we need mineral water, he will get them for us even when the bus is moving. also, he tries his best being a tour guide and he will help us whenever we need help. he will also converse with us whenever there is a chance, helping us better understand the culture of Taiwan. He does not fails to ensure our safety throughout the whole trip. He even did more than he was needed to. For example, he helped us order cakes although it is not even in the itinerary and when we requested to go to the convenience store to buy things, he was always glad to help us.

Sixth, the secret mission was undoubtably loved by us. 

As some journeys one the bus are long, you will be able to see people looking around, well, they are definitely trying to look for people sleeping with mouth open! We love the secret missions as they are interesting and made our trip more fun. One of the missions that i think is the most fun is the mission that requires us to take a photo with a sunset. It really made us closer as we tried to take pictures the sunset, although we did not complete this mission but it is nothing but fun.

Also we loved the xiaolongbao we got to eat at a restaurent for lunch.

The Chinese traditional food is one of the favorites by our class. Even though these food can be found in Singapore, we find it more meaningful to have a try at Taiwan. The food was simply delicious and I would definitely want to eat it again. It is a must try if you ever go to taiwan.

Following that we loved the time when we get to sleep on bus since we usually can't get enough sleep at night.

Due to the tight schedule and staying up late at night for practices or updating of reflections, we had not enough time to rest well in the hotel. Hence, we would find every opportunity to have a nap in the bus. A short nap definitely recharges us and we would feel more energetic.  it was surely the thing that we loved. 

Next is the shaved ice treated by the Jiangguo students.

The hospitality of the students in Jianguo touched us deeply. They tried their best to welcome us warmly and offered to treat us their local snacks. We were told that they were from one of the most popular brands in Taiwan and we got to eat as much as we want. The shaved ice was something similar to our ice kacang but just that some of the ingredients are different. The taste, however, is different from our ice kacang. Two different taste but both appeals to my taste bud.

Last but not least, we loved the opportunity to bond with our classmates. going overseas on 7days trip as a class is a rare opportunity. While taking care of each other, we were grateful that our classmates are by our side all the time even when we faced difficulties, going through hardships together. 有福同享，有难同当. The bond between each other was even stronger than before. And also, we have definitely become more matured as we learnt to take care of ourselves and the people around us. If we have a chance to go on a trip again, I will definitely 举双手赞同。

Now, we will finish of our presentation with our reflections. In a nutshell, the trip was a meaningful and memorable experience. the trip has benefitted us in many ways as it given us insights to the culture and education system of a Taiwan. It also broadened our horizons and we had the opportunity to communicate with the people in Taiwan. Through the immersion programmes, we made new friends and this new found friendship will always be etched in our minds. Having experienced the ups and downs together as a class during the trip, we have also definitely grown closer to one another as we bonded as a class. It was indeed a beneficial yet fun-filled trip for all of us. We have come to the end of our presentation, thank you.