2005loveboat上報啦~
話說是一個學員給我的....
裡面感覺很多pub...
真不知是喜是悲呀....~^^~
by Cade
The Love Boat
Overseas youths go looking for romance in Taiwan
By JONATHAN CHENG
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 11, 2005
As a freshman at the University of Michigan, Kenneth Yuan should be enjoying
his first few months at college. Instead, he's pining for Taiwan.
He spent a month there this summer in a program meant to reconnect the
18-year-old American with his roots. But he slept through Mandarin class and
went out as many as five nights in a row, to clubs where he says he "hooked
up" with girls.
"I will remember Taiwan as one long, never-ending party," he says.
Notch up another victory for the Overseas Compatriot Youth Summer Formosa
Study Tour to Taiwan, otherwise known as the Love Boat.
Every summer since 1966, Taiwan's government has organized and subsidized a
month long cultural-study trip to the island for kids around the world
Between the ages of 18 and 23 with roots in Taiwan. This summer's group of
649 students, who each paid $500 plus airfare, took classes in the island's
culture and Mandarin language, visited a memorial to national hero Chiang
Kai-shek and participated in a range of traditional folk arts.
"I will remember Taiwan as one long, never-ending party."
:
The program, one small part of Taiwan's effort to sustain its cultural and
Political identity in the shadow of its giant rival, China, has become a
rite of passage for kids who swap stories of lifelong romances sparked at
the Love Boat. The moniker, which even the counselors and organizers use,
comes from the 1970s American sitcom about finding romance on a cruise,
though this extravaganza takes place on dry land.
Memorable evenings like Mr. Yuan's in local nightclubs such as Room 18, Luxy
and Ministry of Sound have made the program particularly notorious in the
Taiwan immigrant community in the U.S., which numbers about half a million
people. Lucia Tseng, 22, from Boston who attended the program four summers
ago, reckons that in her subgroup of about 50 students, all but a handful
were romantically entwined by the end of the month.
When 19-year-old David Chen arrived in Taiwan this summer, he had a
non-Taiwanese girlfriend waiting for him back home. Mr. Chen grew up in
Indiana, where the handful of Taiwan families in town all knew about the
program. "My dentist met his wife on theLove Boat," he says.
At the opening party, Mr. Chen says, camp counselors put on skits about
meeting a love interest. "There were paper hearts everywhere," he says. By
the third day, he was involved in a relationship he now describes as "a
little intense."
"After I met her, I probably spent 22 out of 24 hours with her, for three
weeks straight," Mr. Chen says. As for his Mandarin lessons, "I just kind of
stopped showing up to class, because I came back at 3 or 4 a.m. every day."
And for many parents, that is kind of the point. With close ties to Taiwan
but raising kids in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and South Africa, they are
drawn by the camp's matchmaking potential.
When the parents of Jeff Chieh, now 23, of New Jersey found out last year
that their son wasn't interested in Taiwan girls, they approached him about
attending the 2004 study tour, calling it a good chance for him to learn
about his heritage. In other words, he says, "I got conned into it."