Taiwan’s Cultural Tapestry

Taiwan often gets overlooked in favor of its larger neighbors, but ten days moving through Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan reveals a place that has layered indigenous traditions, Chinese dynastic history, Japanese colonial architecture, and a thoroughly modern democratic identity into something genuinely its own. The through-line on this itinerary is that tension between old and new — and students feel it most sharply on Day 7, when the group arrives in Tainan, Taiwan's oldest city, and that same evening steps into the organized chaos of a night market where food, noise, and local ritual have coexisted for generations.