Week 6: ET(A) Phone Home

Sunday (Sept 18th) was pretty lowkey. Besides going out for fruit and bubble tea, I just stayed in and relaxed. I also got to call a close friend from home! I hadn't been able to call her since I landed, but I missed hearing her voice, and I loved catching up with her.

I keep having issues falling asleep at a good time on Sunday nights, so I spent Monday mostly being sleep deprived. Besides classes, we had a morning trial run of an earthquake drill for Wednesday.

On Monday, I also finally got my Kinmen citizen card (縣民卡)! Up until recently, I'd been paying $60 NTD/trip on the ferry and $12 NTD/trip on the bus every day (which has totaled over $1000 NTD so far). With the citizen card (which is a kind of fare card, much like a Youyou Card or a SEPTA key), the ferry is only $2 NTD/trip and the bus is free.

After work, I went with a coworker and the other Little K ETAs to get taro shaved ice, which was excellent. Little K has a taro festival in October, so hopefully we get to try other foods with taro next month.

Tuesday was my solo teaching day, but I think it went better this week! I'm getting to know the kids better as well as figuring out what works to engage them without making them too excitable. When I was a camp counselor, I'd never given much thought to balancing energy levels with staying on task. There was no specific end goal, and most of the kids self-regulated. Now that I have a specific target, I've been learning to adjust my activities and the energy levels they require.

On Wednesday, we had our earthquake drill, then I taught my two other classes. I went with another Little K ETA straight from the port to Jinhu (with a stop for Ba Fen, which is a bubble tea shop, along the way). At said stop, I fell off of another parked scooter. I'm starting to think I'm just bad at getting off scooters—first I fell off on Little K a couple weeks ago, and now I've fallen off in Jinhu.

Apart from that, the rest of the day went fairly smoothly. We had a workshop, I mailed in an absentee ballot form, then I went with some other ETAs to sign up for the Jinhu gym (which doesn't require a bank account).

I spent the Thursday morning commute calling my parents back home, then taught three classes. It felt weird to call my parents on the bus and finally hear their voices. Much like with the friend I called on Sunday, I hadn't been able to call my family much since arriving.

After work, another ETA and I went to the night market by Carrefour, where we tried some sweet potato puffs and sugar cane juice. The other ETA also played a carnival game and won some stuffed animals, one of which he gave to our Mandarin teacher as a belated birthday gift.

The biggest news from Thursday was that Taiwan announced it'll be lifting its strict quarantine on October 13th! Instead of a 3+4 (three days of strict quarantine in one room, four days of self-monitoring), there'll be a 0+7 instead (seven days of self-monitoring. Everyone in the cohort seems thrilled to hear the news, and it'll be exciting to see whose loved ones come to visit.

I called my parents again on Friday morning on my way to English Village, which just started this past week. I was a bit nervous to teach new kids I'd never taught before, but I think the day went pretty smoothly! Once the day was over, one of my LETs and I grabbed some badminton rackets and went to the Jincheng gym with another ETA to play.

We probably played badminton for an hour before a student from Jhong Jheng, the biggest school in Kinmen, came with his coach to practice volleyball. They let us play with them, and some other students, their coaches, and random people joined as well. Minus hitting myself in the face, I think I did okay!

I spent the rest of the night chilling with some other Kinmen ETAs, then calling a friend from another ETA site. Although my call ended around midnight, the other ETAs and I stayed up chatting until around 4am or so, which unfortunately meant that waking up in the morning was much harder than need be.

Since we'd gone to sleep so late, we also arrived a bit late to our scheduled Saturday lunch. A journalist/former Fulbright researcher came to visit, so she, her host teacher in Kinmen, and us ETAs had hotpot together. It was a fairly small lunch group since a good portion of Kinmen ETAs went to Taipei for the weekend, but it was cozy. We also finally took our journalist friend, her host teacher, and some of the other ETAs to Little K after lunch.

Only one of the other Little K ETAs stayed in Kinmen over the weekend, so he and I helped everyone figure out the ferry, then directed everyone to our favorite shaved ice place. Throughout the afternoon, our group checked out a bunch of scenic points overlooking Xiamen and some nearby islands, which included getting lost over and over along the way.

Even though it was trickier to navigate the ferry on the weekend (there was a bit of a traffic jam with the scooters), I'm glad we could show the other ETAs our county. Lieyu (Little K) has a pretty distinct, calming feel. It also had several chicken/rooster statues since the island's guardian is the wind rooster.

Given the Little K traffic jam, most of our group had a tricky time getting on the same ferries at the same time. The journalist and I got to Big K sooner than some of the others, so we chatted and enjoyed the sunset while we waited. Then I got dinner and hung out with another ETA, which included me painting my nails for the first time in a while.

Sunday was mostly errands, but it also meant I had my first Mongolian folk dance class! I've missed dancing so much that even just wearing ballet shoes was satisfying. I started Chinese folk dance when I was four, then continued learning it until I graduated high school. I performed with another folk dance troupe in college, but we hadn't met since COVID hit.

To get to folk dance class, I woke up around 8:30am, got breakfast, then caught a bus to the community college. I couldn't understand most of what everyone else was saying, but I think I did well enough to learn the dance so far. As the weeks have passed, I think my Mandarin skills are leveling out more. My listening isn't as far behind my speaking, reading, and writing anymore, and I also feel more comfortable interacting with native speakers.

Unfortunately, all my gains in Mandarin seem to have come at the expense of my Spanish. I'm finding it harder and harder to think in Spanish— my brain keeps handing me words in Mandarin instead. I guess I'll start watching more telenovelas after work.

After two-ish hours of dance, I got lunch and ran errands with another ETA, then went to Jinhu to pick up a bike from a different ETA. Unfortunately, the buses don't allow bikes, so I had the pleasure of taking a forty-five minute bike ride in 90°F heat across the island. Apart from a bus that seemed pretty intent on making a turn it shouldn't, I made it back without major incident.

Later that evening, I also got the first major haircut I've gotten since the summer before freshman year of college! I meant to cut my hair in Taipei about a month ago, but I never got around to it. I also never realized you could thin your hair; I could've had lighter, thinner hair this whole time, but alas.

I loved being able to call my family and friends throughout the week. Up until recently, I haven't felt like I've had a solid enough schedule to work out calling anyone from home, and I've been missing everyone pretty bad. I keep hoping that with the loosening restrictions people can come visit, but admittedly, most people don't have a couple spare thousand for a trip laying around. I guess calling people whenever will have to do for now!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written Tuesday, September 27th, 2022.