Mangos.. Mangos everywhere..
Day 6 in Taiwan and I’m pretty savvy with getting around town. A small town that is. Some would call Jinmen (金門）a “rural” island but it’s more like 4–5 small towns on one island. Right now, I live in a small-ish town called ShanWai (山外) which consists of a small little morning market near the bus stop where they sell a lot of seafood (mhmm that fish smell) and veggies. I’ve found a few good breakfast places (breakfast is heaven here): a couple baozi 包子(steamed buns) stands, a danbing 蛋餅(egg pancake) stand, and a zhozi stand (congee soup). Good stuff. It’s weird because while this is a small town, they also just built this huge freakin’ mall called Ever Rich. It’s a duty free mall where you have to order items at the port first, then can you get it at the mall. The mall also has a movie theater on the top floor (very common in Taiwan) that plays all the new movies. The teachers and I went to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. I fell asleep, hahaha. BUT ONLY FOR A LITTLE BIT. The movie was good — funny and epic! It’s kind of weird how this really modern mall towers over a small old town. The contrast is weird and reminds me of China where on one side there would be HuTongs, or very traditional old buildings, and on the opposite side of the street would be very modern buildings.
Kinmen is very proud of their history — it used to be a military base for many soldiers, who were constantly afraid that they would be attacked by China (Xiamen is very close… close enough to see). They have tons of underground tunnels that run throughout the island. They are kind of creepy but some are huge… big enough to fit a battleship in there. There are also active land mines in some places that have fortunately been closed off, and there are spikes in the water and on the beach, haha.
I think I’m getting used to the heat. Hahahhahahahaah who am I kidding, no I’m not. This fan sitting next to me, kept at medium speed, is keeping me sane. On good days, the weather is barely below 100 degrees with a humidity level usually in the high 80%. One of my favorite things is to lay on my bed in my underwear and do nothing while the fan just blows on me. How Minnesotan of me to talk about the weather. BUT I HAVE TO.
We had our first TESOL workshop yesterday – it was quite interesting since everybody is at different levels of teaching. Some haven’t taught a single thing in their life, and one Fulbrighter already has a teaching license. But it’s clear that everybody is passionate about children, language, and getting involved with the community. The last one is especially important since we live on such a small island. It’s probably the biggest plus living here on Jinmen. We have the opportunity to really become connected with our neighbors and our students’ families and to integrate ourselves to become a part of the community. We will be teaching 20 classes a week, and I believe at least 10 of them will be spent solo teaching, so that’s cool.
Teaching as a foreign language will be much different from teaching English Lit – the emphasis on repetition and kinesthetic teaching is huge. One thing I realized was how much they encouraged us to be friends with the students first. Have fun and interact with them, our teacher said. I don’t know if they suggest this approach because we are English teachers, or if all Taiwanese teachers do this. Probably not – teachers here are occasionally very strict. But anyways, I thought it was interesting because in the past I’ve been told that I should be their teacher first, and a friend second. But I think another person said it the best… we want to teach them, yes, but we also want to make kids feel valued and loved.
Here are some food pics (sorry quality kind of sucks, they’re just from my phone):
