By Melissa Davies
A $45 million language school has opened its gates to reporters for the first time.
The school has been set up by Taiwanese immigrants, who built the palatial-looking compound in a rural setting in Waihi.
They say the remote location was chosen to stop students getting into trouble in the city.
The school will eventually cater for a roll of around 200 each year.
The students say their first impressions of New Zealand are good.
"Environment good and people very kind, education very open and free," say Steven Sun, and Jim Ling.
But there is a side of New Zealand life the school's owners don't want their students to experience. The location was chosen in part because it is away from the city and its temptations.
"My understanding is that they want their children out of the cities, into an environment where I won't say they're captured, but there's nowhere they can go by themselves," says teacher Mike Hayden.
The Taiwanese school trustees say students pay thousands of dollars to see the pristine New Zealand environment.
"New Zealand has a very clean, pure image in our country, and so we thought this area can present that image to our customers, our students," says Shin Ling Tsai, project co-ordinator.
The location doesn't get much more rural than this. From here, there are no other buildings as far as the eye can see.
The school owns around 50 hectares of farmland around the campus.
The students learn both English and Maori, and the cultural exchange doesn't end there – they are also teaching their homestay families Taiwanese.
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