Week 31: Being Everything Everywhere All at Once

We had five visitors from other Fulbright cohorts visit this week! Among other things, we showed them Little K, Jiangongyu Islet, Shanhou Cultural Village, and the half-submerged tank at Oucuo Beach. We also had lots of meetings, dinners, planning sessions, classes, and to top it all off, I had a conversation with the vice mayor of Kinmen County.

I think the theme of this week, besides being everything everywhere all at once (which swept the Oscars!), was spring fever. It was wonderfully warm and sunny all week! It also definitely affected the kids, who were slightly better behaved than before, but also much antsier too.

Photo credits to Ari Fahimi, 2023.

Monday was chill enough. I had my classes, had an earthquake drill, learned some of my sixth graders loved Blackpink, then met up with the other Little K ETAs during lunch. Our lunch adventure of the week was to visit Qilinshan Forest Park (麒麟山森林公園). It was a nice park, but the (literal) high point of the excursion was climbing the wooden overlook structure and seeing all of Little K. We could also see the entire western coastline of Kinmen, the outline of Xiamen, and the bridge.

Back at school, I did some lesson planning and taught my final class of the day. While teaching, one of my first graders did a Korean finger heart and told me she loved me, which was adorable!

I checked out a new restaurant with my partner before Chinese class. It was cute; the entire restaurant was actually one of the traditional Fujianese style houses, and there were little fairy lights and plants everywhere. The food was good too, and we got both milk-covered sweet jellies and strawberry red bean mochi for dessert.

On Tuesday, I ran into another Little K ETA on my way to school, which was nice. Classes were pretty standard. I saw the vice mayor of Kinmen and some other officials through the window while I was teaching my second graders.

I drove to Jinhu after school to partake in the weekly egg dumpling nights held by our ETF. They were excellent! I wish I'd gone more often, but admittedly, driving from Little K to Jinhu guzzles a lot of gas. It was nice seeing some Jinhu ETAs I don't see as often, and we spent part of the night planning for one of our community service events. Then, we got Coldstone ice cream at a nearby Seven.

We had another earthquake drill on Wednesday, then classes. I drove to my weekly Fulbright workshop afterwards, and on top of discussing protocol for leaving Taiwan after the grant period, we also planned for an island-wide English event with our LETs. The theme? SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) for Earth Day. Admittedly, I kinda liked having all of our LETs around, and I liked talking with mine outside of class. I feel like I don't get to talk to mine much outside of lesson planning.

Later at the Jinhu gym, a bunch of us played badminton for a little while, then grabbed Japanese rice bowls for dinner and went to Chinese class for the evening. Not a bad day.

Thursday was the day the vice mayor of Kinmen came to observe my kindergarten class (the older ones, who are four or five). I was definitely stressed out having him, the Jhou Huan principal, and one of my LETs there, but I think I did pretty well. The kids did great! Once the class was over and I gave the kids their end-of-class high fives, I sat down with the observers and chatted about the logistics of implementing bilingual kindergarten. Neat.

The rest of the day was pretty nice. My third graders urged me to check out their cherry tomato plants, which are growing pretty well. In the afternoon, since it was Lieyu Sports Day and I didn't have any more classes, I went to the event to see my kids compete. The victories were pretty evenly split between Shang Chi, Jhou Huan, and Xi Kou in each event.

My favorite part of the sports day was just seeing my kids outside of class, especially since I never see them around on Big K. I spent most of my time chatting in Chinglish with my sixth graders and teaching how to fold lucky stars. I also doodled a bit with them, which was fun.

My partner and I had dinner with our ETF and his girlfriend, so we spent the evening chatting at our favorite new pizza place. We've been to said place probably three or four times in the past week or so; the place is having a bit of a moment in our cohort. Our other cohort-wide food obsessions have included another Italian place, a scallion pancake place, the Indonesian restaurant, and a fried chicken place. We also ran into a little cat outside with a jingly bell and wide golden eyes. He was very sweet, and he insisted on accompanying us everywhere we went.

Friday EV was pretty chill. The other Friday ETAs and I taught, the kids had fun, and some of us went clothes shopping afterwards (the ETAs, of course, not the kids). One of the workday's highlights was that one student made little bead flowers and gave them to each of us.

Friday was also the start of our whirlwind hosting weekend. My guest, who was from Yunlin, arrived at the apartment at 5:30pm or so and gave us famous Yunlin mochi as a thank you gift! They were delicious. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner once she'd gotten settled in, then headed to a cute bar.

The bar was a good time! Besides my guest, myself, and the majority of the cohort, we also had our Chinese teachers from NQU and one of the other visitors, who was from the Taipei cohort. It was probably a solid three hours of hanging out, drinking, and practicing Chinese. We were also given a guitar's worth of free shots (photo included below).

On Saturday, I woke up late, then scooted to Jinsha. It was crazy windy all day, but I had a good time exploring the island with everyone. Once we were in Jinsha, my boyfriend, my guest, and I ate at the Indonesian restaurant, then explored Shanhou Cultural Village. We also saw Shamei Old Street before heading all the way back across the island to Jiangongyu Islet.

Since the islet is only accessible at low tide, there were tons of tourists swarming the oysterman path, and the islet was a little crowded. It was still neat though! My biggest regret was just stepping in what turned out to be goopy oyster mud. My shoe made an audible sucking noise when I tried to pull my foot out. Yum.

Once I changed my shoes, one of the other Mr. Hong House ETAs and I picked up boba, then met up with everyone at Oucuo Beach. We finally saw the half-submerged tank! Apparently it's not actually a tank? It was cool, though. The beach was also beautiful, just a little cold with the cutting winds.

After that, we traveled in our classic scooter convoy/biker gang formation to Shangyi Environmental Park, which has a tiny manmade island shaped like Kinmen and a bunch of wind lion statues throughout the park. It was nice getting to chat with our other guests, which included three Pingtung ETAs, as we walked. We had dinner at Kim's Noodles, our classic noodle place, then went to Live House, our classic bar place. Then, since my guest and I were exhausted, we headed home.

The next day, I woke up late again, then spent five hours on Little K showing my guest around. It was fun! We started at a taro restaurant, where my guest got to sign the wall, then headed to my favorite honey shop for some dessert. Pipi, one of the shop's cats, let me pet him and hold his paw for a while.

We then headed to Shaxi Fort, which I think is located on the westernmost point of the island, and Shuangkou Beach, which has a lovely view of Xiamen. Since it was low tide, we also got to see some oyster farming fields.

After she'd tried some Kaoliang sausage, my guest and I went to Hujingtou Battle Museum, overlooked all of the island from the wooden structure at Qilinshan Park, and I showed her both my school (Jhou Huan Elementary!) and Bada Tower. What a day! We also ran into a cat which ended up absconding with my guest's partially-eaten Kaoliang sausage. The day's final stop was getting oyster fritters and taro shaved ice, both of which were excellent, of course.

It was a long week full of non-stop meetings, meals, and hosting, but it was a good one. We haven't had guests since November, but I like showing people different parts of Kinmen, especially since much of the narrative around the island seems to focus on its geographic location or military history. Kinmen's much more than Kaoliang and war museums—it's also got amazing art, beautiful nature, wonderful food, and cats that'll steal said food.

As much as I enjoyed spending so much time with people throughout the week, I think my biggest regret was not making more time to process and recharge. I think the lack of sleep's gonna catch up with me, and I'm not looking forward to how it's going to manifest. Oh dear.

Here's to next week's six day workweek (yikes).