A group of 8 students led by teacher coordinators Mrs. Inderpreet Kaur Ahluwalia and Mrs. Monika Uppal will visit Taiwan from April 12 to April 19 as part of an India-Taiwan Educational & Cultural Exchange program. This came about as a result of collaboration between St. Mark’s Senior Secondary Public School in New Delhi and Municipal Wunshan Senior High School in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.

The orientation program was an excellent opportunity for TECC officials to promote Taiwanese culture and give the group an understanding of Taiwan that goes beyond its well-deserved image as a technologically advanced nation, as well as giving them some practical tips.

Mr. Chen Yi-Ta, the Education Division Secretary, presided over the event and gave the group some brief facts and information about Taiwan, before showing “Time For Taiwan”, a short film about Taiwanese culture, food, lifestyle and some of the many tourist attractions in Taiwan.

Mrs. Ahluwalia outlined the agenda for the group’s trip and the plans that St. Mark’s Senior Secondary Public School and Municipal Wunshan Senior High School in Taiwan have for future interaction. She expressed her school’s gratitude to the TECC officials for their support and assistance helping its students to learn more about Taiwan and preparing for this trip, and the students from St. Mark’s School shared their thoughts and excitement about traveling to Taiwan.

Ambassador Tien Chung-Kwang also attended and shared some of his wealth of knowledge about Taiwan. He spoke about how important cultural exchanges are and how young people can help to promote cultural exchanges between India and Taiwan. He expressed his best wishes to the students who were soon to set off on their journey to explore Taiwan. He also taught them some Mandarin Chinese phrases to help them to communicate with people in Taiwan.

As Mr. Tien said: “Such cultural and student exchange programs are very crucial for developing relations between our two countries because young people are the future leaders and they possess great ability to influence people. We believe that such bilateral ties will continue to grow and that relations between India and Taiwan will prosper.”