Internationally NTNU is best known for its Mandarin Training Center (formerly known as the Center for Chinese Language and Cultural Studies), a program founded in 1956 for the study of Mandarin Chinese to foreign students. The Mandarin Training Center represents one of the world's oldest and most distinguished programs for language study, attracting more than a thousand students from over sixty countries to Taiwan each year and making the "Shida" area of Taipei one of the city's most cosmopolitan. Courses in language, literature, calligraphy, art and martial arts are offered in a series of three-month terms throughout the year, enabling international students to undertake language studies during summer breaks and within single semesters. The center also sponsors travel, hosts speech contests, and stages workshops and performances for a variety of East Asian arts. A Mandarin Training Center Alumni Association (MTCAA) has been operating since 1998.