The Rotary application process was fairly arduous. I had to write essays about myself, my family, what I was planning on doing with my life, and send it in with photographs of these things as well. After the initial screening, they conducted psychological testing, and I had to go through a series of interviews with Rotarians, psychologists, and former/current exchange students, who graded me based on my responses and my appearance(?!). So long as one is good at telling people what they want to hear, it’s not an issue getting through these things. I am quite good at telling people what they want to hear.

Before they conducted these interviews, I was given a list of 50 countries to choose from, which I had to rate from 1-50 in my order of preference. As I would be 18/19 at the time of my exchange, a few countries made it clear that they did not want a student my age to be there on exchange (Australia, Germany, and a couple of others that I cannot recall at the moment) and I can only presume it is because I would be considered an adult there. Those countries I ranked last on the list, as there was no point in ranking them higher. My first five choices, in order, were: Finland, Japan, Costa Rica, Italy, and Taiwan. Finland and Italy because I wanted to see and learn more about my family’s history, Costa Rica because of the exchange student in my advanced math analysis class who showed me all of these gorgeous pictures and had some incredible stories, and Japan and Taiwan because I had a fascination with asian culture. I would’ve included Singapore and Indonesia higher on my list because of my grandparents, but I learned in advance that they were not sending students there as they were considered ‘unsafe’ at that point in time. I learned later that they were not sending students to Costa Rica for the same reason. Scratch one from my top three.

During the interviews they grilled me about my choices of countries, why I ranked them the way I did, and then asked me about the countries I ranked last, and how I would feel if I were sent there instead of to one of my top three (which generally is the case). I explained my reasoning behind my last choices, and that seemed to satisfy everyone on the panel except the current exchange student on the board, who happened to be from Australia. She seemed displeased that I had ranked her country last, and I received the lowest scores from her out of everyone, especially savaging my appearance.

After I was deemed mentally stable and a good candidate for exchange, it was time for the waiting game. They sent your application off to your top choices and tried to match you with a Rotary club in that country who was willing to sponsor you. In January of 2000, I was called by the Kenosha Rotarians and told that I would be going to Taiwan, that the Chung Ho Full May Rotary Club (a Rotary club of all women, which was and is quite remarkable!) had sponsored me, and I would be living in Taipei. Time to start getting excited/nervous. I didn’t know any Chinese, and there weren’t a lot of resources in Smalltown, Wisconsin to draw from in making ANY sort of attempt to learn. My first host mother emailed me, and told me about her, her husband, and his son Edward. She also told me which school I’d be going to (Chung Cheng Gao Chung, which roughly means Chang Kai-Shek High), and that it was a mixed-gender school, which is fairly rare in Taiwan. I felt much more at ease after writing back and forth with her, as I knew that learning Chinese could be transitionary and she’d help me, as opposed to having to play charades.

Over the summer, all exchange students (in the midwest) who were going out, all students who were in the midwest on exchange (poor, poor kids. Who wants to go to the US and watch corn grow?), and a majority of the students who’d just come back from exchange met for a long weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for some bonding exercises, but mostly for more meetings, meetings, meetings. Rotarians know how to talk. They love to talk. There were points where I wondered if it caused Rotarians physical pain to NOT talk, if perhaps their jaws would lock up and they’d die. We all were required to buy/bring navy blue jackets with us which would identify us as Rotary exchange students. At Grand Rapids, all of the exchange students exchanged tchotchkes from our respective countries which were then attached to the jacket. These items were like good luck charms to us, our grigri. By the time I got home from Taiwan, my jacket weighed over 10 pounds, and felt like 50 when worn for extended periods of time. In July, my family moved to California from Wisconsin, so I had to say goodbye to my friends and my boyfriend a month before I was to get on the plane, which was the hardest thing, because I knew that unlike my friends that had gone on exchange before, I wouldn’t be coming ‘home’ again. Pre-flight jitters were really starting to set in. It didn’t become ‘real’ to me until I was on the first plane. I flew from San Diego to Seattle to meet and ride with other exchange students going to the far East. After a 10 hour flight, the plane landed in Tokyo, and it was time again to say goodbye to everyone and go on alone. Some 3 hours of layover plus four more hours of flying put me in Taipei, for a grand total of over 24 hours of travel time. The bags under my eyes are particularly spectacular in this picture.

From left to right, my host brother (弟弟/didi) Edward, Tracy (伯母/Ah-e), myself, CP Su Mei (the Taiwanese Martha Stewart) and Huang (伯父/Su-su) (Tracy’s husband). Some host families are very pushy about you calling them Mom and Dad, but Tracy was not among them. It made us both more comfortable, and I called them Aunt Tracy and Uncle Huang for the duration of my stay, Aunt and Uncle being more of an honorific than an actual designation of blood relation After about a week, Uncle Huang consulted his books to determine an appropriate Chinese name for me. My last name is very close to ‘Lee’, so from now until forever, I get to pretend that I’m in Bruce Lee’s family. Based off of a number of factors I cannot understand–number of strokes, balance, luck, etc construed from the I-Ching, it was determined that my name would be (in honky pinyin) Lee E Jieh. The characters for my name make up the icon I use for all of these posts relating to Taiwan. Again, roughly translated, it means ‘pure plum blossom’. You may feel free to laugh; those of you who know me personally, or have read my journal for more than a day or two, are likely to laugh hardest. I’ve always laughed about it.

Explore more:

Oxford University