2022 Fall semester Welcome Party (for Exchange & Chinese Learning Students) was held at PUREN Hall on October 18, 2022. Specially, it was co-hosted by International & Cross-Strait Academic Exchange (ICAE) and Chinese Language Center (CLC) to welcome all the foreign students join into SU family.
As the border control has been gradually loosened, we finally and gratefully resumed our exchange program this semester. Not only international students themselves but also SU local students looked forward to their coming, and to having cultural interchanges with each other.
To show the hospitality of Soochow University, several honorable guests have showed up to greet these exchange students in person, including President Pan, Vice President Dong, Prof. Margaret Wang, Dean of Office of International & Cross-Strait Academic Exchange, and other school deans and center directors. This semester, we were extremely happy to welcome more than 130 international students who came from France, the U.K., Thailand, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Lithuania, Korea, Czech Republic, etc.
President Pan mentioned that he’s glad to see so many international students coming to SU. He sincerely hoped that every student takes this opportunity to learn from each other and acquire special experience by interacting with students from different countries.
Vice President Dong, who’s also the Director of CLC, emphasized that SU has not only developed an internationalized campus but also provides a friendly Chinese learning environment to students from all over the world, where they can learn various languages and experience diverse culture, and make new friends during their stays in at SU as well.
Dean Wang pointed out that Taiwan is a treasure island, also a bridge connecting East Asia and the world. She strongly encouraged students to explore and experience Taiwanese customs during the exchange period, as international students are in a way considered as the pioneers and culture ambassadors from different areas.
Besides being buddies of exchange students, ICAE volunteers also prepared interesting icebreakers for all the students. One of the ICAE volunteers Chen said she liked the welcome party very much because she could have a chance to meet other exchange students and Chinese Learning students. Exchange student Mao said the icebreaker was quite interesting. She hoped the it could last longer so that she could meet more friends. Exchange student Duc Than, felt it was nice to see all of the exchange students and Chinese language students all at once because sometimes we just don’t know how many other people shares the same experience as we do as newcomers “The icebreaking games we played was a great idea to get in touch with some students you have never talked to before, and also the dinner afterwards was nice to have longer talks with some of the others”. Students seemed to find it much easier to integrate socially by attending this event, and to acclimate well to their new campus life at SU.
【文/吳羽柔專員、于姵晴組員 圖/謝翔屹 國際與兩岸事務志工】
