Although the TSSCA 2025 event lasted only a single day, it gave rise to a surprising number of memorable episodes. To begin with, participation was not restricted to TSSCA members; SSC members from across the globe were also invited. During the event, we even befriended a group of Indonesian students from SAAI, who happen to use the common SSCID system as we do. In retrospect, however, we felt genuinely apologetic as hosts for having overlooked Halal dietary requirements, an omission that led to some awkward moments at lunch. In addition, we should have arranged multilingual simultaneous interpretation beforehand, since Mandarin was the dominant working language throughout the event.

Another episode comes from a TSSCA member who had joined the 2023 program. By sheer coincidence, he ran into the Japanese student who had hosted them that year, this time at the National Palace Museum on the day before our event. The Japanese student was in Taiwan for his graduation trip, and the two of them were delighted to reunite. They took photos together and exchanged small gifts as tokens of mutual appreciation.

Most importantly, I finally gained a concrete understanding of how SSP operates behind the scenes. For years, I had wondered how SSP could sponsor a week-long visit to Japan for students and teachers entirely free of charge. The mechanism, in fact, is quite straightforward: a school in Taiwan collaborates with a partner school in Japan to design a topic that is deemed valuable enough to justify on-site learning in Japan. They then submit a proposal to JST, which in turn provides the necessary funding. Owing to the distinctive backgrounds of its participants, TSSCA naturally attracts members from a wide range of disciplines. It was particularly thrilling to learn that some researchers at Academia Sinica are considering flying students to Japan for research-oriented visits, a move that would greatly enrich the diversity and academic strength of the TSSCA community.