Wednesday, August 16, 2006

TAIWAN `HOME AWAY FROM HOME' FOR INDIAN PH.D STUDENTS

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) The friendliness of the Taiwanese people was not why Vikas Saxena and Gopi Kuppuraj, a pair of Ph.D students from India studying in the Taiwan International Graduate Program (TIGP) of Academia Sinica, came to Taiwan, but it is why they gradually have come to view Taiwan as "a home away from home."

"Taiwanese are helpful in nature. They would even leave their job to try to help you, " says Kuppuraj, who comes from the southern Indian city of Chennai and has been in Taiwan for two years.

Friendliness of local people was what brought him out of his "little shell" and prompted him to start exploring Taiwan, he said.

Saxena's most unforgettable memory is similar. Saxena, a former veterinarian who was admitted to the program one year ago, recalled an incident at Moon Festival last year.

Saxena went out that night trying to find a restaurant to celebrate the festival. "Surprisingly, all the stores and restaurants nearby were closed, " he said, adding that restaurants in India would stay open all night on traditional holidays like the Moon Festival.

A family having a barbecue party, a traditional Moon Festival activity for local people, invited Saxena to join them. "Then a girl took me far away to find a restaurant, " said Saxena, who comes from a city near the Indian capital of New Delhi.

The first six months in Taiwan was hard for Kuppuraj, who experienced culture shock. "I didn't speak or read Chinese. The food was different. I was totally lost, " he said.

"I still get lost sometimes, but at least I knew how to get back to the dormitory, " said Kupperaj, who studies chemical biology and molecular biophysics.

Saxena, who has at least three more years to go in the molecular and cell biology program, is also getting comfortable with the environment as he now switches between cooking with Indian friends and eating in Indian restaurants in Taipei.

TIGP, a program established by Academia Sinica in 2002, is open to local and international students. Academia Sinica currently administers eight such programs, with degrees issued from partner universities.