The place is wonderful. As I enter the campus, the city is left behind. Every step taking me deeper into the green. A few minutes pass by and I am surrounded by the most beautiful shades of green.Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University is located behind the 18 peaks mountain, the place with the highest altitude in Hsinchu City. That is around 100m above the sea level. The NTHU is located in the East District of Hsinchu, some 15km away from the sea shore.
The NTHU covers a small area, 105 hecatereas, if you compare it to state universities back in Mexico or in the United States of America. The campus has some fifty buildings in total, three beautiful natural ponds plus an artificial pond serving the experimental and teaching nuclear reactor. It also has two gardens, one being the Mei Memorial Garden in honor of the first presiden of the University and the other a butterfly garden, which I have not found yet. There is a 1km trail connecting the Memorial Garden with one of the ponds and you can get to the 18 peak mountain if you take a detour from this trail.
The architecture is magnificent. The buildings are huge; for example, The Institute of Photonics is located at the Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Building which is eight stories high, plus one or two underground levels, and has a footprint of about 3600 square meters. I think the Physics Building at our side is bigger and the Chemistry, the Engineering and the Management buildings are for sure bigger than ours, can you believe it?
Inside the campus, it is possible to find anything you could need on any given day. There are three food courts catering all kind of cousines, there is even a burrito stall at food court on top of the bookshop and below the international students center. I have seen a dvd rental shop, a copy shop, a fancy coffe shop, and a great, cozy coffe shop and second hand bookshop where people gather to play jazz or watch a movie on the evenings. The owner of the latter is a cool phylosopher who also plays the piano.
There is a convenience store somewhere near the dormitories. That is another amazing story. I am told that every first year student has a dorm room secured as soon as he enters NTHU and if he wants to pay for it. Alas, first year students have to serve as cleaning crews for the departments they are associated. Professional cleaners just do the toiletts of our buildings. Postdocs and students have to clean their own laboratories or offices. The offices of professors and the common areas are cleaned by the first year students.
Also, there are living facilities for some of the faculty; the ones hired in the beginnings of NTHU, some 50 years ago, have nice houses besides the campus; the latter hires have apartments at high rise buildings inside the campus. It seems it is a tradition here to die in office, like it happens with faculty in Mexico. Thus, the more recent hires get a monetary compensation for housing instead of an incampus apartment.
I know UNAM has a large
r campus and an ecological reserve. The feeling is not just the same. Here, like in the Slovenska Academia Vied and the Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan, I am part of the greenery. I walk it every day. Yesterday, on my way to my office, I saw a blue crane or gull or stork eating a huge worm just by the arts garden and its rock sculptures, I saw an old couple feeding bread tothe white-orange and black carpes at the smallest of the three ponds and I saw my first white crane catching a black carpe on the same pond. Everyday, the Physics Building looms in the horizon, like a castle behind its river seen from the nearby forest.
Every day. Walking NTHU is feeling the green, watching the faces of the students talk, smile, enjoy. Enjoy! Furthermore, NTHU is a part of the community, the mother teaching her son how to play piano at the communal pianos in the music building; the adult ladies doing taichi and chikung every morning by the badmington court. the young men and woman learning how to swim at the swimming pool behind EE&CS; the old couples walking the trails for excercise and then relaxing at the benches by the ponds; the newly weds taking pictures at the shrine in the middle of the main pond... well, I guess you get my idea.
That is what a university is about, at least for me. I love Tsing-Hua.
There is a convenience store somewhere near the dormitories. That is another amazing story. I am told that every first year student has a dorm room secured as soon as he enters NTHU and if he wants to pay for it. Alas, first year students have to serve as cleaning crews for the departments they are associated. Professional cleaners just do the toiletts of our buildings. Postdocs and students have to clean their own laboratories or offices. The offices of professors and the common areas are cleaned by the first year students.
Also, there are living facilities for some of the faculty; the ones hired in the beginnings of NTHU, some 50 years ago, have nice houses besides the campus; the latter hires have apartments at high rise buildings inside the campus. It seems it is a tradition here to die in office, like it happens with faculty in Mexico. Thus, the more recent hires get a monetary compensation for housing instead of an incampus apartment.I know UNAM has a large
r campus and an ecological reserve. The feeling is not just the same. Here, like in the Slovenska Academia Vied and the Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan, I am part of the greenery. I walk it every day. Yesterday, on my way to my office, I saw a blue crane or gull or stork eating a huge worm just by the arts garden and its rock sculptures, I saw an old couple feeding bread tothe white-orange and black carpes at the smallest of the three ponds and I saw my first white crane catching a black carpe on the same pond. Everyday, the Physics Building looms in the horizon, like a castle behind its river seen from the nearby forest.Every day. Walking NTHU is feeling the green, watching the faces of the students talk, smile, enjoy. Enjoy! Furthermore, NTHU is a part of the community, the mother teaching her son how to play piano at the communal pianos in the music building; the adult ladies doing taichi and chikung every morning by the badmington court. the young men and woman learning how to swim at the swimming pool behind EE&CS; the old couples walking the trails for excercise and then relaxing at the benches by the ponds; the newly weds taking pictures at the shrine in the middle of the main pond... well, I guess you get my idea.
That is what a university is about, at least for me. I love Tsing-Hua.
wow! parece el paraiso de las universidades, se ve q lo estas disfrutando de lo lindo. Se antoja caminar por esos jardines verdes q describes y el lago y las fotos y el cafe!! Ojalá encuentres el "butterfly garden" y nos lo compartas. Ah! y que buena onda con la organización de la limpieza!! suena bastante justo, cada quien limpia lo suyo... casi :) Saludos.
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