He lived the life of a quasi-celebrity, surrounded by awed schoolchildren.
He was able to travel the world for the first time in his life, as a teenager without family.
Last, but not least, Chase Regehr learned a few nuggets of wisdom during his weeklong excursion to Taiwan earlier this month: Fried chicken from the small Asian island is far superior to anything he’s tasted in America; their farms are radically different — and smaller — than their American counterparts; and those unfamiliar with the delicacy should politely decline if offered a plate of stinky tofu.
REGEHR, 18, a senior at Iola High School, was one of three Kansans selected to participate in a long-standing student exchange program to learn about Taiwan’s agricultural industry and how Kansas exports benefit both Kansas and Taiwan.
His selection by the Kansas Department of Agriculture was based on his successful application back in mid-October.
“I thought it’d be fun to go,” Regehr said. “I thought it’d be fun to get out of the country at least once during my senior year.”
That said, he applied with little hopes of earning a spot on the exchange team.
That’s because the trip is available only to high school seniors and college freshmen. In fact, the other two selected from Kansas were in college.
“I just figured some kid from K-State would be chosen over me,” he said.
Instead, Regehr’s acceptance letter arrived via email the evening of Oct. 27, just hours after a stinging football loss to Girard, in which Iola came two points shy of winning a district title for the first time since the 1980s.
The acceptance letter helped ease the pain of the gridiron loss, eventually, he admitted.
“At first, I was just in shock,” Regehr said.
THE TRIP was riddled with firsts.
While Regehr had flown once before with his family to Washington, D.C., the Dec. 4 flight from Kansas City to San Francisco, then across nearly 6,500 miles of the Pacific Ocean to Taiwan was his first international trip.
“And it was also my first time on a 747,” he said.
His travel group — small delegations from Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska — met up in San Francisco for their transcontinental flight.
Their arrival at Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan’s capital city of Taipei precipitated a whirlwind week filled with trips to area schools, farms, businesses and marketplaces, sightseeing and other activities.
The students began with a quick tour around the capital, including a visit with Douglas Hsu, deputy North American affairs director with Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry; a visit to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a national monument to the former Taiwanese president (which looked something like the Lincoln Memorial built within the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., Regehr said); and finally a visit in the afternoon to the Green Vines Growing Sprouts, an ag business in Taiwan that grows — you guessed it — organic sprouts.
The production was radically different than anything farmers produce in America, Regehr noted, chiefly because the sprouts are grown indoors via hydroponic (water-based) farming.
And their crops, such as alfalfa, are harvested within days of first emerging from their growing trays.
Hydroponic farming is popular in places such as Taiwan, Regehr explained, because the environment is strictly controlled — farms are indoors — and other variables such as air pressure, humidity levels and heat can be controlled.
“They gave us sprouts to try,” he said. “I had alfalfa, sunflower, peas and buckwheat. I liked them all, honestly.”
FROM THERE, the students traveled about 2 ½ hours south of Taipei to Tai Chung City, where they spent most of the rest of the week.
There was the Tai Chung City Agricultural Vocational School — TCAVS for short — a private, vocational high school split among three campuses in various parts of the region.
There, Regehr and his fellow travelers introduced themselves to roughly 2,000 native students at an assembly.
From there, they attended a horticultural class, where students practiced grafting tree branches.
The procedure involved peeling the outer layers of bark from a small tree branch, then wrapping a sponge-like material around the surface.
“From there, a new tree branch will start to form,” he said. “I’d never done it before.”
The Americans were treated as celebrities from the Taiwanese students.
“I don’t think I’ve ever taken so many pictures in my life,” he said. “It’s not really a spot for tourists, so they just don’t see Americans there.”
A trip to a second, smaller TCAVS campus followed the next day, in which the Americans toured a series of outdoor growing areas, usually for rice.
“About the only American crop I saw there was corn, and they’re still experimenting with that,’ he said.
The biggest difference between Taiwanese and American farms, however, is their size.
Farmland over there rarely exceeded a single acre.
“I saw one farmer using a garden tiller to work up his ground,” Regehr said with a chuckle. “”It’s nothing like we have over here.”
From there, the students toured an orchid nursery, another primary export.
“They let us try to decorate a bouquet of flowers,” Regehr said. “It was fun; we weren’t very good at it.”
Schools in Taiwan differ from American campuses in several ways. In Taiwan, there are only three class levels; Freshman, junior and senior, “but the students are still 17 or 18 when they graduate,” Regehr noted. “I’m still not sure how their schedule works.”
And the bigger campuses have English classes, in which students are nearly as fluent in English as their native Mandarin Chinese.
“They loved trying to talk English to us,” he said. “Some were a little scared, afraid we’d judge them.”
And instead of having homecoming or proms, the schools instead would have afternoon dance competitions.
The American visit coincided with such an event.
“Nothing was off limits,” Regehr said with a laugh. “They had all kinds of costumes and music (including many American pop tunes).
“They have some amazing dancers,” he said, including one memorable scene in which a student spun rapidly on his head. Another flipped back and forth on his arms. “Could you imagine if they did that at our school?”
Regehr and his fellow guests were invited to give it a go.
“We tried to dance to ‘Copperhead Road,’” he laughed. “We were pretty terrible. They thought we were terrible, but we all had fun.”
MUCH OF THEIR trip focused on Taiwanese cuisine.
“They’re famous for their fried chicken,” Regehr said. “I don’t know how they do it, maybe it’s their spices, but their fried chicken is amazing.
Dumplings also are a popular dish there, as well as fried noodles and soups.
“Their breakfasts are a bit different than ours. They’ll eat rice and pork with a coke.”
Tea is the beverage of choice, always hot and rarely with sweetener. “Pretty disgusting,” he said.
There were a few signs of home along the way.
Regehr ate at a McDonald’s and KFC. The McDonald’s varied from its American counterparts in that its menu selection was wider.
“I had a bacon cheeseburger there,” he said. “And they had fried chicken.”
Nothing, however, compares to stinky tofu, which earns its crass name honestly, Regehr said with a laugh.
Tofu, made from curds resulting from coagulating soy milk, is coated with a brine made of fermented milk, vegetables and meat.
“It smells like a pig barn,” he said. “Being on a farm, I’m used to those smells, but this stuff stunk.”
And it tasted even worse.
“People were watching me as soon as I put it in my mouth,” Regehr said.
Their inquisitive looks turned to laughter as Regehr spit out the unusual fare.
“The three Americans there tried it, and all three hated it,” he said. “Our translators ate it all.”
Shopping excursions also were an adventure.
Malls in Taiwan, usually because of population density, were built up instead of out. One shopping mall they visited was 15 stories tall.
REGEHR returned home the weekend of Dec. 10 with a new appreciation of Taiwan and what it offers to America.
“I loved it,” he said. “I always felt safe over there. The people over there were so kind. They truly loved Americans.”
The trip back home differed from the outbound flight in that wind currents shaved four hours from the air time on their return flight.
“It took us 14 hours to fly out there; 10 hours to fly back,” he said. “On the way over there, we were going about 525 mph. On the way back, we did about 700.”
In another oddity, the faster flight, combined with the time zone difference meant Regehr’s jet left Taiwan at about 11:30 a.m. that day; he arrived at 5:30 a.m., that same morning.
BECAUSE the trip was sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, Regehr’s meals and lodging were already covered.
“I only had to come up with half my airfare,” he said, about $500, plus another $100 for souvenirs and shopping.
He received assistance from donors in the community, including the Iola Rotary Club.
Regehr will recount his experiences for the Rotarians in January.
The trip is coordinated by the Kansas Department of Agriculture and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Denver, and is sponsored by TECO.
Opportunities such as the Taiwan Youth Exchange Program provide networking opportunities, according to a KDA news release. In 2015, Kansas exported $97.8 million of agriculture commodities to Taiwan.
Regehr is the son of Brian and Shellie Regehr.
He’s been active in a number of sports and other activities throughout high school, including FFA, Student Council, the National Honors Society, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Rotary Interact Club and Youth Works mission trips.
In addition, he owns a lawn-mowing business and works at Regehr farms.
After high school, he plans to attend Kansas State University to major in agribusiness.
