Victor Osornio, whose Chinese name is 熊偉杰, is a 22-year-old exchange student from Mexico who has been living in Taiwan for the past eight months. He came to STUST through a collaborative exchange program between his hometown government in Mexico, ITRI, and the university. Although his major is Information Systems Engineering, he has also been taking courses related to electric vehicles, smart grids, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence during his time in Taiwan. For Victor, every class feels like discovering a new world, which is why he has truly enjoyed this learning experience so far.
As a huge soccer fan, Victor originally thought it would be easy to find many people who loved the sport in Taiwan. But after joining the soccer club, he realized that there were not many members. Later, his Taiwanese friends explained that baseball, basketball, and volleyball are generally more popular in Taiwan than soccer. This became one of the first cultural differences he noticed after arriving.

Victor also shared many funny experiences from daily life in Taiwan. In Mexico, people often greet strangers on the street, so when he first arrived, he naturally greeted people with phrases like “good morning.” However, he quickly noticed that people did not really respond the way they would in Mexico. Later, his Chinese teacher explained that Taiwanese people usually say “早安” rather than “早上好,” and that people in Taiwan are generally less used to casually greeting strangers. He also laughed while recalling how he once used “晚安” as a greeting to random people before realizing that it ismainly used before going to sleep.

Another thing Victor found interesting was how considerate Taiwanese people are in public spaces. He remembered a time when he was talking loudly with friends on the bus, and someone kindly reminded him to lower his voice. There was even a young girl who politely explained to him after getting off the bus that being too loud on public transportation could disturb others. Although he felt a little embarrassed at first, these experiences helped him better understand how much Taiwanese people value respect and consideration in shared spaces.

Outside of school, Victor also enjoys creating content through Instagram, Reels, and YouTube vlogs. He explained that he loves sharing his experiences in Taiwan with his family and friends back in Mexico, hoping that more people can learn about Taiwan through his perspective. His YouTube channel, “torvics,” mainly focuses on travel, daily life, and his study abroad experience.

When it comes to learning Chinese, Victor said that Chinese was never a required course for his exchange program. Instead, it was something he personally chose to study. Originally, he wanted to learn French, but the schedule did not work out, so he eventually decided to give Chinese a try. For many Western students, Chinese is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world, but that challenge was exactly what motivated him. Starting from zero and learning tones, pronunciation, and characters felt difficult at first, but he soon discovered how interesting the language actually was. Over time, Chinese even became one of his favorite languages to learn.

Of course, learning Chinese has not been easy. Victor admitted that the hardest part is pronunciation, especially sounds like zh, ch, sh, q, and j, which are very difficult for Spanish speakers to distinguish. Sometimes he feels like he is pronouncing the words correctly, but local people still cannot understand him. He joked that maybe his strong northern Mexican accent makes it even harder.