Shi Da v. Tai Da - Mandarin Language Center

I’ve taken classes at Tai Da and have the option to still look at Shi Da. I was wondering if anyone has taken classes at both or just Shi Da…

What are the pros and cons??

Run a search…there are a several useful threads on Shi Da

I have a friend who went to Shi Da. He was asked to leave class for having “ideological problems”. He disagreed with the teacher who spent the time extolling the virtues of unification and “Greater China” and continued to use each day as an opportunity to have the class translate and discuss Op/Ed pieces from the Lien He Bao. My favorite story was about the teacher’s tirade against the First Lady, who, since she can’t go to the bathroom like normal people, has driven Chen into affairs. He then concluded her accident was a campaign stunt. Imagine the top 10 pan blue accusations against Chen and Lee Teng hui over the past year and that was the bulk of the curriculum.
The faculty at Shi Da will be more pro-KMT.

I had the distinct impression that a lot of the older teachers at Shi-Da saw the MTC as a petri-dish in which to spread One China ideology to foreigners, who they hoped in turn would go back home and parrot what they heard. Granted, most students I knew never fell for it, but it really made it hard to work up the motivation to go to class some days when I knew I was in for a lesson on how great the Chiang family was.

I took a business Chinese class from a teacher named Lin who was fair and expected you to work. Definitely a good experience to help balance out the bad experience I had that Maowang descibed above. Watch out for old Teacher Chuang (usually teaches advanced newspaper reading)!

Shi Da has a bunch of elective classes that seemed to have something for everybody. I took Taiwanese for 2 semesters from a great female teacher named Hsiao. Highly recommended if she’s still teaching there (since she taught Taiyu she caught a lot of shit from the “Chinese” teachers and administrators). Another guy I knew took Kungfu classes up on the roof.

PROS: Shi-Da has a pretty well established curriculum and the students who had been there for a while really knew their stuff. Good bookstore down by the front gate for textbooks. Close to good food. Good business class. Taiyu classes available. Marginally cheaper than Tai Da. Teachers do push you, and it’s very much a place for self-starters.

CONS: Once you get on the administration’s bad side you get put on a black list (I know). Teachers are really hit or miss. A “We’re more Chinese than China” attitude (some people don’t mind this and end up missing out on the real Taiwan experience). Crappy computer equipment.

Well there is the urban legend of the foriegn student that got her finger cut off when one of those heavy windows close on them and cut of the tip of her finger at Shi-Da.

Beware of the Shi-Da windows.