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In the gathering on 4/25, Dr. Edward H. Chow briefed us on his new book "China-US Convergence Future: Geopolitics, Macroeconomics, and Business Trends” and analyzed the forecast trend of the future Sino-US situation, as well as what the US-China relations will such uncertain changes in the evolution of global politics and economy? "It seems that the United States still has an advantage in all aspects." Dr. Chow took the output value of the 1960s and 1970s as an example. Compared with the current global GDP ratio of China and the United States, despite the gap has narrowed significantly, it is still clear that the United States occupies an important position in the world economic system, and it has the rein of it. Realizing that China is catching up quickly, the United States has also resorted to corresponding measures in recent years to suppress it, whether it is the most observable economic and trade sanctions, but also in terms of academics and talents. "As a developed country, it is not easy to continuing attract foreign investment and talents every year." Dr. Chow emphasized, supplemented by the findings of the research as examples, and mentioned that Chinese enterprises have also flexibly strengthen their cooperation with top ranked academic institutions in order to retain these rare and outstanding young people. In the end, Dr. Chow answered participants’ questions one by one. In terms of participants’ concerns about foreign investment in China. Dr. Chow mentioned that China attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, as more legislations was made, these problem might solved by time flows. *Dr. Edward H. Chow is Emeritus Professor and former president of National Chengchi University (NCCU).

In the second online gathering of the New Southbound series, we invited Taiwanese Ambassador to Vietnam, Richard R. C. Shih, shared his foreign service experience and the recent situation between Taiwan and Vietnam. Ambassador Shi first emphasized the uncertainty of foreign service that must be go through: during his service in South Africa, Ambassador Shi had to go to Gambia in a very short period of time due to urgent political situation. It is more common for a foreign service officer to work in new environment, make new friends, and cope with various of new challenges. Therefore, diplomats are expected to highly adaptable and make balance between national sovereignty and security, as well as the pursuit of the best interests of the country within the task. In terms of work practice, Ambassador Shi proposed that diplomats should possess three qualities: curiosity, creativity and integrity. Ambassador Shi exemplified with the signing of the "Taiwan-Vietnam Economic and Trade Agreement,” sharing the “properly engagement” that diplomats must keep sensitive at all times. In addition to daily consular tasks, diplomats also need to be ready to deal with new tasks all the time. Ambassador Shi took the example of assisting Taiwanese businessmen to return to Taiwan by chartered flights during the epidemic. He mentioned that each Taiwanese businessman returning to Taiwan needs to went through 12 to 15 documents reviews. The task is complicated and the epidemic is raging, so the comprehensive coordination ability is more important. *Richard R. C. Shih is the Taiwan ambassador to Vietnam. Before his tenure, he was the Spokesman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Shih also served as the ambassador to Embassy of the ROC in Gambia from 2008-2011.

Dine with Professions invited Mr. Liao, a career professional manager to share with the students on 05/04, 2022. In this event, Mr. Liao mentioned that he served as a club leader during his college, which honed his skills and made him able to get offers right after graduation. Mr, Liao encouraged his students to actively participate in club affairs. In terms of how to better prepare for job applications, Mr. Liao suggested students learn from trial and error. “After kick off to the workplace, there are bound to be many difficult situations, but as long as you maintain such an attitude and devote your full attention to your work, you will often enjoy a full sense of accomplishment in the end,” said Mr. Liao. In addition, Mr. Liao also suggested that in a more connected work environment, it’s absolutely pivotal to communicate efficiently and be humble. Also, integrity always comes first when making decisions. *Mr. Lian-Yi, Liao is a career professional manager, he served in C-level positions in various industries.

Mr. Chen starts his sharing from how to make correct expectations for the future and distinguishing different types of jobs.During the meeting, Mr. Chen shared his professional experience, how to stands out in different types of interviews, as well as useful skill sets on how to deal with some common interview. *Mr. Hui-Yuan, Chen is partner of IBM global consultant.

In the online meeting on 4/13, Dine with Professions invited Taiwanese Ambassador to Singapore Francis K. Liang shared diplomatic career and his experiences, on the theme of "Do you really know the world? - Cross-cultural communication experience". In his sharing, Ambassador Liang emphasized the importance of cross-cultural collaboration. Through his experience in Singapore, the Netherlands and Miami, he tailor participants to think about how to cope with the differences in values, as well in cultures. For example, judicial caning is often considered an "inhumane" way of sanctioning human rights. However, in Singapore, the majority of their citizens suggested caning is an efficient way to deter the potential criminal. Another example Ambassador Liang shared with participants is in the Netherlands, by providing free needles and coffee to drug users, releasing the pressure on drug control and decreasing the overall social cost. The ambassador also shared with us an interesting story of a diplomatic encounter: In terms of love values differences. It’s well known that a high proportion of Dutch people live together rather than marry. There were once Dutch ruling party members who visited Taiwan, one of the members requested to share a room with another member, but they are not in marriage status. Back at that time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was struggling with how to deal with the unprecedented request. Finally, to the students' curiosity about becoming a diplomat, whether it is necessary to specialize in a single field. Ambassador Liang suggested the students should develop more cross-disciplinary skills, rather than sticking to a single field/ Language; because more cross-domain/cross-language capabilities will provide more options and advantages for foreign services opportunities.On the other hand, if one only specialize in a single language or skill, the options will be limited, and for a diplomat, specialize too early sometimes set barrier for him/herself to cultivate a worldview through cross-cultural experience. Ambassador Liang also shared that through his experience in signing the Taiwan-Singapore Economic Partnership Agreement during his tenure in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, he became more familiar with Singapore's culture and national conditions, and was able to get on track easily right after his service. *Dr. Francis K. Liang is the Taiwanese Ambassador to Singapore. Before his service, he was the chairman of Taiwan External Trade Development Council and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan. He also has more than 20 years of economics negotiation experience, served as one of the representatives in the Taiwan negotiating team to ECFA and other economic partnership agreements.

As the college applying season is coming, Dine with Professions designed a special program for underprivileged students to get involved with the REAL college life. Dine with Professions works cooperatively with the department of political science of National Chengchi University (NCCU), one of the top ranked research universities in Taiwan. Featuring professors of the program including professor Chung-Ming, Tsai and professor Chien-Gang, Chen. In the two days program, high school students were granted the opportunity to audit political science and political philosophy classes. "Although I was frightened by the text...but I found out that it was really interesting to me, and I liked it very much," one of the high school participants said cheerfully after class . The unexpected feedback has also reassured that unprivileged students need and deserve such resources and opportunities. Besides classes, participants also get to attend a coffee chat with current political science major students to learn more information and resources that come with college. High school participants says…… "Thanks to the current students and the professors for telling us a lot of tips for making the most of college, they also provide me with a clear direction to better prepare myself.” "Participating in the event has made me more sure that it fits my interests." Dine with Professions hopes that through this series of activities, experience and knowledge will no longer be limited by social status and distance, so that unprivileged high school students can get familiar with colleges and the resources that are able to help them in their future career.

In our meeting with Dr. Bih-Jaw, Lin, he tailored the topic from Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van’s classic “How to Read a Book.” Published in 1940, the book is highly acclaimed by readers from different fields. Within the discussion of the book, Dr. Lin suggested the practice of liberal arts curriculum is indispensable for a holistic education. Dr. Lin made a metaphor on primary education as “river,” high school education as “lake,” higher education as “sea.” With layers of continuing learning, students will eventually gain into a cross-disciplinary mindset that is found extremely useful when encountering complex problems. During the gathering, some participants asked Dr. Lin on how to read a research paper thoroughly. Dr. Lin suggested that forming a studying group in which disappointments viewpoints are welcome to discuss, is a good way to improve critical thinking skill among group members. In the millennials’ generation, “listen and take notes without forming your own perspectives” is no longer the symbol of a well-behaved reader/learner. *Dr. Bih-Jaw, Lin is the 33th Secretary-General to the President, he served as one of core cabinet members and chief of staff to President Ing-Wen, Tsai. Before his tenure as the Secretary-General, Dr. Lin was the deputy Secretary-General of the National Security Council (Taiwan).

Spring’s here, and so does our Exclusive series!!! In our very first wine tasting room event, Jessie shared with us key characteristics of some common international wine varieties and their most favorable food pairings and provided our attendees wine recommendations to their palettes accordingly. *Miss Jessie (Yu-Chieh) Lee is a wine specialist and tasting room associate; she had previously worked as a gallery sales in Sydney, Australia.

“The core value of public health is to take group health as a long-term goal and act accordingly.” As a leading scholar in the world’s public health, Dr. Chien-Jen, Chen shared his personal academic and public affairs experience in our gathering on 02/15. Inheriting his studies in the Forestry and Animal Science studies, Dr. Chen into the field of public health during his master's degree and continued to work his in academia. Take hepatitis B and black foot disease, which were prevalent in Taiwan in the last century, as an example: After many clinical experiments, Dr. Chen has published related research in journals. With the promotion of the government together, the number of hepatitis B and C patients treated with antiviral drugs has increased year by year, and the number of new patients has dropped significantly. Now, hepatitis is almost extinct in Taiwan. As for black foot disease, Dr. Chen’s research team confirmed that it is related to the arsenic content of well water, and the World Health Organization (WHO) even takes this as the most important basis for the new standard of drinking water safety (10ppb). Dr. Chen became the youngest professor at the National Taiwan University School of Medicine as his significant contribution in his field. At that time, he thought he would take his academic research as a tenure. However, the SARS epidemic in 2003 became a turning point. - Servant-Leadership and reformation of the epidemic prevention system Dr. Chen pointed out that, unlike his father's high hopes of running for the legislator, he regarded his political career as an opportunity to deepen public service. During his tenure as the Director of the Department of Health, he changed the decision-making style of the bureaucratic system in the past and adopted "servant-leadership", emphasizing that in addition to adequate communication at all levels and resolving information asymmetry, he also gave every employee due respect. After the SARS epidemic came to an end, Dr. Chen also took advantage of his professional ability to devote himself to the reform of the post-SARS epidemic prevention system. Dr. Chen also cooperated with the ministers of various ministries and councils to thoroughly reform existing laws and regulations, strengthen epidemic prevention, screening and monitoring. Successfully resolved multiple crises. - Equal emphasis on natural science and humanistic quality The above two seem to be at two extremes, but when discussing personal academic and political careers, Dr. Chen emphasized that the two complement each other, especially the importance of humanistic quality. For example, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Taiwan has been regarded by other countries as a model student of epidemic prevention many times; in addition to the reform of the epidemic prevention system, Taiwan's independent national epidemic prevention awareness is also the reason for the stable control of the epidemic. During the SARS epidemic, Dr. Chen emphasized the leadership style of full communication and personally defended the rights and interests of health officials who were irrationally impeached. In addition, when faced with the dilemma between religious belief and same-sex marriage rights, Dr. Chen, who was then the vice president, chose to respect the latter after many compromises, which not only contributed to the substantial improvement of the rights and interests of the gay community, but also represented the spirit of humanism that keeps pace with the times. Today, Dr. Chen has returned to academia. However, just like a haiku gifted by his father when he was young, his life philosophy of keeping a low profile and loaded with rules of thumb have enabled him to continue to have a positive influence on the world even when he retires behind the scenes. *Dr. Chien-Jen, Chen is the 14th Vice President of the Republic of China, 9th Director of the Department of Health (now the Ministry of Health and Welfare), Academician of the World Academy of Sciences, Foreign Academician of the National Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Academia Sinica, and Academician of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Besides public service and research, Dr. Chen has also been invested as a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (2010) and a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (2013).

“What is data science?” As a college student, which core competence should I pick up to thrive in our rapidly changing society? In our meeting with Mr. Kuo, he shared his insights on how to sharpen the business acumen by engaging in computer sciences. For those who are majoring in pre-professional studies including finance and biochemistry, Mr. Kuo recommended R language as it is the most handy one. For one who is pursuing a computer science major, on the other hand, Mr. Kuo recommended Python and SQL as their kickstarter. Mr. Kuo anchored his sharing on the importance of “basic discipline,” he recommended students pursue cross-disciplinary studies, as long as they build a firm foundation for majors they declared. *Mr. Yao-Jen, Kuo is an e-commerce analyst and senior consultant for software companies, he also opened his own online courses on “hahow,” a massive open online course platform in Taiwan.

“A good design is driven by a good story.” Joe Fan, director of the Joe Fang Studio shared his inspirations and mindset of design with us. Mr. Fan suggested future designers focus on their own experiences, those experiences will shed a strong light on a designer’s creating style. *Joe Fang is a well known designer in Taiwan. He is a Golden Melody Awards visual design winner, now serve as the director of the Joe Fang Studio.

We are honored to invite Professor Xu to share his experiences as a writer. During the gathering with our attendees, professor provided not only his practical insights on writing but also his take on the ongoing slashies culture and how our generation could reconcile with our quarter-life crises. *Professor Xu is a poet and bestselling author in Taiwan, his articles is often adapted in middle school and high school textbooks.