In the summer between my eighth grade and freshman year, my parents decided that it was a good time to bring me and both my siblings for a month long vacation in Taiwan. Since both my sister and I were born there and my parents emigrated from Taiwan when they were little, going to Taiwan was exciting and a little bit scary. We were going to be stuck in a place very different than from here in the United States. Personally, I was so excited to go, I was ready to go and explore the mountains, swim in the ocean and meet cute Asian boys. My siblings on the other hand, were not excited at all. They didn’t want to go to a place where they couldn’t speak English. My parents had made a rule saying that while we were traveling, we wouldn’t be allowed to speak English, just Mandarin Chinese, unless we absolutely had to. All three of us had attended Chinese school and had varying amounts of knowledge about the Chinese language so it was to be a learning experience for us as well. They didn’t want to leave the country and abandon their friends and their previous summer plans but their opinions changed as soon as we landed in Taipei.

When we landed, we arrived to temperatures rising into the hundreds (Fahrenheit) but everywhere that we went had extremely cold air conditioning. That first day, I had a mild heat stroke so we spent the day walking around in these giant malls and ate in food courts. Once I got better we traveled to the countryside and the mountains and spent a week sightseeing all over the country. We met a lot of my parent’s old friends and my siblings and I made a couple of our own too (and yes some of them were cute Asian boys my age). The last two weeks we spent in Taipei spending time with our extended family that still lived there and I even went to school for a day there. Even though it was the summer, they still had school because all the students were cramming for a huge test that would determine what high school they would be put in. When my sister and I saw the stress that these kids were under, we were really glad that we went to an American Public School and didn’t have to test our way into high school like our cousins did.

As the day of departure back home loomed over our heads, all of us didn't really want to return home. Hopefully though, sometime in the future, I will be able to return and learn more about this beautiful little country.