From left to right: Shu-min Coolidge, Tony Coolidge, Dr. Jwomin Chen and Wendy Kang.

This was our first meeting of any kind with a Taiwanese official, and I was fairly uncertain about the outcome, so I was a little nervous. Wendy, our project producer and organizer, wasn't messing around when it came to setting up meetings with influential people. She showed us that she was ready to go straight to the top. Our first meeting was with Dr. Jwomin Chen, the president of the Kun Shan University of Technology and Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Endowment of Culture.

He was very cordial, and made us very comfortable. We had the opportunity to share our mission and objectives, and he did the same. We discovered that his was a non-profit organization set up by the government to support programs to promote the Taiwanese culture. He verbally supported our mission and this trip. He made no promises, but was interested in learning of our outcome. ATAYAL will be sharing our progress with him and working towards a beneficial relationship with this respected organization.