With the growth of higher education literature featuring emerging study destinations and new demographics of international students facilitated by government scholarships, scholars must address how students desire and imagine culture and diversity in study-abroad experiences and what impact these experiences have on cultural imaginaries and future aspirations. This article introduces a case study in Taiwan (officially Republic of China), an emerging study destination that attracts international students through government scholarships and accentuates powerful cultural discourses based on both Chineseness and Western-style development. Through qualitative interviews and analysis based on 'capacity to aspire', it examines students' desires and perceptions of 'culture', their susceptibility to institutional cultural narratives, and ability to enact individual agency and reimagine culture and geography independently from 'host images' portrayed by institutions. A key finding is how students develop aspirations for their classmates' home countries based on new perceptions of culture and place, revealing a new dimension of South-South student mobilities.