First few weeks in Taiwan

Unfortunately I didn't do well enough to be a part of the GLOBE program at CBS but I wanted to do a tricontinental program so I decided to apply for NTU in Taipei. The fact that I ended up in Taiwan is kind of random. I want to learn mandarin before I graduate but I also want to learn advanced finance. Beijing is great for mandarin but they don't have a whole lot of courses in English. It was too late to apply for HK and Singapore was too expensive so I ended up at NTU.
I arrived in Taipei about 10 days ago. My last few weeks in Denmark ended up being extremely hectic and stressful because of all the administrative stuff I had to do - and of course all the awesome people I had to see before I left.
It took about 20 hours to get to Taipei so I was really tired when I arrived and I couldn't wait to get to my dorm and see my room. Only problem was that there was nobody there to pick me up. Luckily it turned out that my volunteer just went to the wrong terminal so everything turned out fine. She has been EXTREMELY helpful. I haven't been the easiest guy to be volunteer for. She has helped with banktransfer, glasses, courses, campus tours, moving in and basic shopping. All the locals have been helpful in this way. People don't just tell me how to go places if I ask them. They actually give me rides on their bike or scooter if they have time. It's awesome.
I gotta admit that Taiwan has surprised me a lot.  It is more developed than I thought although it is fairly similar to the first-tier cities of the mainland in terms of development. The people are very nice,  friendly and westernized. Taipei is probably the cleanest city with 5+ million I have ever seen. Yes, they do have air pollution but they don't have any trash lying around. Nobody spits and nobody litters. It is amazing. People in Copenhagen could learn a thing or two.
Foreigners here get attention but it is not like in the mainland where people always wanna take pictures with foreigners and scam them for money. I mentioned this to my local friends. We went biking last weekend and stopped in front of a temple. Two Chinese girls wanted to have pictures with all of us(6 foreigners). And guess what, they were from the mainland...surprise surprise.
I had prepared lots of great chinese phrases such as 鬼才信你（lit。ghosts only believe you）and 你给我跳楼价（lit。you give me jump off building price。。meaning：you give me such a high price I wanna kill myself）and 你没长眼睛了吗？（haven‘t you grown eyes）when people don't know how to que. Too bad they aren't useful in Taiwan cause people actually do know how to que.
One of the best things about Taiwan is the fact that even though it is extremely densely populated it still has lots of beautiful places to go. I already signed up for the rock climbing club and the mountain bike club, so I will have plenty of possibilities to explore the island during my weekends. They even have coral reefs and nice beaches in the south and it only takes about 90 minutes to go there with the high speed train.
I haven't really started speaking mandarin yet. I just tell them about the things I know and the funny mandarin experiences I've had. It is kinda hard to get the habit of speaking chinese. People are too good at english and even old people speak english. Almost too developed.
I've learned a few funny chinese sentenses with double meanings. Another foreigner mentioned how he learned to order noodles here. 小姐，一碗多少钱？Xiǎojiě, yī wǎn, duōshǎo qián. xiaojie means young lady but it has two very different connotations. It means waitress in a restaurant but it can also mean prostitute. yi wan means one bowl(of noodles) but the exact same pronunciation can also mean one late(night).  A taiwanese guy told him that he should ask like this when he ordered noodles. He was quite surprised by the waitress response. Taiwanese(mandarin) has tons of sentences like this so it is very easy for foreigners to get misunderstood which has also happened a few times for me. Also, words have a different connotation than in the mainland. They dislike China, so the word for comrade 同志 actually means gay here. I would say tong zhi men(comrades) to a group of friends in the mainland but I got a quite akward response when I said this to my friends in HK. It turns out it has the same meaning in HK and Taiwan. I guess they don't like communism, so comrade has a completely different connotation here. 
I also have big problems with the tones. For example: Teacher, I want to ask you...and teacher, I want to kiss you. 稳 and 问。wen with two different tones.

I am actually quite excited about starting classes next week. I had very high expectations before going here but the first week has been extremely disappointing in terms of academic expectations. A lot of the good classes are taught in Chinese. There are some smart exchange students here but it seems like most of them are just here to travel and do as little as possible to get the easiest credits. There are quite a few exceptions though and there are a few great courses in English. But it's not like I have 20 great courses to choose from. I've found 3 courses that seem interesting. Advanced corporate finance(but different than what I had at LSE), advanced investment management and econometrics. I also considered asset management but it was same time as the investment course. All courses are taught at the graduate school so it should be interesting and challenging. The exchange students are not gonna be that ambitious this semester, but I have a good impression of the local students. There are a lot of very intelligent students with high ambitions so I hope to group up with some of them.
I will also take a calculus course by selfstudy and I might do game theory as well, but the teacher told me the course is already overbooked so I dunno what to do.
I will also have mandarin classes 6 hours per week so I think I have more than enough anyways.Tons of local students who want to do language exchange so I think I'll be quite good when I finish this semester. I have my placement test on sunday.
I hope to go paragliding and hiking this weekend. I haven't bought a camera yet but I plan to do it soon. I will upload some pictures next time I make a blog.


To sum up. I am doing well in Taiwan. People are nice, the weather is great and I have already gotten to know quite a few nice people.