As I first said, I spent one year of my life living in the beautiful Island of Taiwan, this was an exhange I did as part of the exchange program from Rotary International for teenagers.
At 17 years old, I knew I wanted to learn mandarin mainly because I pictured myself doing big, important, businesses with Chinese magnates once I grew up (which has not yet happened, nor is it even close to my current reality). I remember being totally out of place when I first arrived to Taichung, the city I would be living in and that would later become my second home. The streets were flowded with a stinky tofu smell that I wasn´t really a fan of, the heat was seriously sultry, my host family couldn´t understand a bit of what I was trying to say in the few words I´ve learned in my mandarin chinese summer course, I was feeling overwhelmed and lonely, and I was praying for the day to come back home to arrive.
However evolution was yet to come to me, after a few weeks I started perfectioning my accent in the new foreign language I was introduced to, people started understanding my broken mandarin and I started feeling more motivated, even more because every time a foreigner speaks a few words in chinese Taiwanese people will make you feel as if you were the pro of pros in learning it, which can be a real motivator if you know you are making mistakes like crazy, but still are not criticized by it.
So in order to recall on those moments that help build the woman I am today I am listing 5 things I miss the most of those days.
