News

2008.0515

Ambassador's Wife Shares Her Embarrassing Moments

By Sabrina Lin Campus Reporter National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) students learned how to wear properly as Graduate Institute of European Cultures and Tourism Associate Professor Chiu Ta-huan (邱大環) shared her embarrassing moments with the audiences at Chen 201 this noon. "When I discovered that I was not wearing the right outfits for the right occasion at the right place, I wished that I could just jump into a hole on the ground, if there is any,” Chiu said. In addition to her responsibilities at the institute, Chiu is also the director for Council for Cultural Affairs’ Centre Culturel dw Taiwan aParis and Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of European Studies. She is also Taiwan’s ambassador to the Holy See Tu Chu-sheng’s (杜筑生) wife. Her remarks were referred to first arrival in Vatican with her husband to attend an official occasion.  She said that she was wearing a dress whose materials were very close to what the Pope’s rope was made of.  She immediately became embarrassed as everybody also began to stare at her with unbelievable looks. Chiu encouraged everybody to begin by studying and understanding different culture codes.  For instance, for males, wearing a tuxedo with swallow-tailed jacket would be the you-can’t-be-wrong dress code for men for almost all kinds of big entrances or occasions.  For women, she would recommend cheongsam. "We almost forgot that cheongsam is our own traditional formal dress for women these years,” she said. Office of International Affairs Dean Chuang Kun-liang (莊坤良) said that a class or seminar like this would be necessary because there are more and more chances for Taiwanese people to participate in international events but most of us would not know these international etiquettes well.