In the USA, universities often have classes people who are not full-time students can take for their own personal interest. Does anyone know whether this is possible in Taiwan/ how to do it? I know their are restrictions for foreigners taking classes. I don’t want a degree from a Taiwanese university. However, I’d like to take a class in something fun where it wouldn’t matter that I don’t speak Mandarin (e.g something I can pantomime my way through).
If it matters, I want to take a class in Kaohsiung.
Yes, it’s possible. I’m not familiar with Kaohsiung, but in Hualien I was able to take a Chinese calligraphy class through the Tzu Chi University Continuing Education Center. For this kind of class you didn’t need to speak Mandarin, just follow the teacher’s examples. I had to search for the class using Chinese, though; I don’t know how many of these “night classes” have information available in English.
I’ve heard about community centers in Tainan, but I haven’t found any in Kaohsiung. I did a search and couldn’t find for what I was looking. Does anyone have a website, address, or specific name of any community centers?
They have something called 社區大學 community college – NOT like the community colleges in the US. (Those are called 大專 here)
Do you need everything done in English? Can you get a Taiwanese friend or coworker to help you register? I googled for community colleges in Kaohsiung and found an example, but there’s no English. I think these are pretty shoestring budget ventures so not surprising there. kh1cu.blogspot.tw/p/course1031.html
At a brief glance, they’ve got classes in African drumming, Latin dance, soap making which I think you could do without any language skills…