Design in Taiwan with Jennifer Han: Design in Taiwan - Blog #1

Hello and welcome to my awesome blog! My name is Jennifer Han, rising senior (at the time that this was written), at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, currently completing a bachelors in Industrial Product Design. Today's date is 09/03/2024, which marks the third day of our study abroad program in Taiwan. We are in Taipei, specifically staying at The Tango, a pretty cool hotel in Shilin.

My first impression of Taiwan was the stark contrast of the climate to Seattle. Upon leaving the plane, a classmate and I were hit with a hot blast of air, and we immediately said, "dang, that's hot". The humidity also surprised us, it was so humid compared to Seattle, it was as though we were eating the moisture from the air.

The theme of this blog post is Different Yet Similar. Information was the first thing I noticed when thinking of differences between the U.S. and Taiwan. For example, when I landed and walked through the Taipei airport, I passed by a restroom, and outside of the restroom there was a lit-up sign that displayed a bird's-eye view of the restroom stalls. Each stall contained a light bulb that lit-up neon green or red to signal to those in line the availability of each stall: green representing an unoccupied stall, red representing an occupied stall. This is a very niche, and almost unnoticed issue because no one talks about it in the U.S., but I never realized how inconvenient it is to walk to every stall before getting to the one that isn't occupied. I unfortunately wasn't able to photograph the signage, but here's a picture I got off the internet below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/8c6rl3/this_taiwan_subway_station_bathroom_has_a_live/

Leaving the airport, my classmates and I encountered our next mode of transportation, the MRT. As we approached the platform, we noticed these white lines pointing towards the entrances to the doors of the train. We saw people standing inside of the lines, so we copied them, and stood in line as well. This made me think of another difference between Taipei and Seattle: organization. When you walk towards the platform for the Link (Seattle slang for the train), there is just a yellow line painted along the edge of the platform, alerting those to stay behind it. People are usually spread out inside the line, so there's a lot of crowd congestion that happens at the entrance of the train when it arrives at the station. I thought this was an issue that was quite simple to resolve and implement, given that the solution is some white paint and common sense. I also forgot to take a picture, so for now, here's one I got off the internet below.

https://www.dreamstime.com/passengers-waiting-train-transportation-platform-taiwan-underground-station-mass-transit-taipei-image143620830

However different Taipei and Seattle may be, there is one similarity I noticed: standing on the right side of the escalator, so that those in a hurry can quickly pass by the people standing. Since this is also the norm in Seattle, I instinctively stood on the right and didn't put much thought into it until one of our classmates pointed it out. I thought it was interesting to see a similarity in two locations that are on opposite ends of the earth.

Reaching the end of this blog post, I wanted to do a quick reflection. I didn't really have any expectations coming into this trip besides the excitement of eating authentic Taiwanese food and two-dollar boba. However, just three days in, I can confidently say that it has been a great time--I mean what else can you ask for other than meeting with your close friends, new design friends, exploring design in another country, eating good food, witnessing wonderful sights, and getting some steps in?

Here are some highlights from the past three days: