Students Revive Taiwan Club

Eleven undergraduates have revived a group dedicated to the celebration and awareness of Taiwanese culture.

The new Taiwanese Cultural Society will work to help any interested students learn about and enjoy different aspects of Taiwanese culture, according to an introductory letter published by the group's temporary steering committee. The previous Taiwanese Cultural Society had become inactive during the last few years.

Plans include language tables to be held every other week, open discussions, lectures and food festivals.

"[The group] provides a network to get Taiwanese together," said Erica S. Cheng '96, one of the group's founders.

"People from other schools laugh because there are so many Asians at Harvard and we still didn't have a [Taiwanese] group," Cheng said. "So I decided to form one."

Selene S. Ko '93 had a similar idea for re-shaping the dormant society.

"I found out the name of the past treasurer," Ko said. "Then I ran into a group of freshman trying to start it this year, and a group of sophomores, too. We all got together and formed new and more defined objectives."

Ko said that the group will keep in contact with other Asian-American groups on campus.

"Once a month we will meet with AAA [the Asian-American Association] and the CSA [Chinese Students Association] to eliminate overlap and conflicts between the groups and to draw more members," Ko said.

The Taiwanese Cultural Society does not yet have a charter from the Undergraduate Council.

"We haven't had time for the paperwork," Cheng said. "But we're going to try for a U.C. grant in the spring." The group has some funds to begin with, she said, since the treasury has been kept up.

The group is waiting to elect its officers until the members have a chance "to get to know each other," according to the introductory letter.

"We want to avoid a strict hierarchy by just having meeting groups to talk to each other and spread Taiwanese culture--not dogmatic or political, just informal," Ko said.