Hey everyone, nice to meet you all. I’m new to this forum. I’ve been in Taiwan a while but I am looking to move from the hustle and bustle of Taipei to Kinmen. I’ve had no luck finding jobs there yet, so I figured I’d shoot my shot here and see if I could find any leads.
I’m looking for mostly public/private school jobs. I have my teaching license and have been teaching for around 10 years. Does anyone know of any jobs in Kinmen or where would be a good place to look for Kinmen jobs?
Have you checked 104 and 1111?
Literally any school in Kinmen would love to have you if you’re a licensed teacher. There are no private 1-12 schools, only a handful of private kindys. Cold call any public school on the island and ask if they’ll have you. Your only problem is that they might not be able to get you a position – the FET application for the schools to apply for an FET is in March. But it wouldn’t hurt to ask, especially since they probably aren’t getting any free laborers in the form of Fulbright ETAs this coming school school with COVID restrictions in place.
There are two schools that think they’re bilingual, Hepu and Kaixuan. Both are elementary. “Bilingual” in this case is the usual Taiwanese crap that is “a foreign teacher is in our school and therefore now we are bilingual”. They are not bilingual in any way and many of the students have worse English than in the main large schools in Jincheng and Shanwai.
The only way you’re going to find a job at a Kinmen school is if you contact them directly. I used to know a lot of the school principals (they switch every 3 years, so I doubt I know any of them now), and they would always complain about not being able to find real foreign teachers. “Real” here means “licensed” and “white”. But when I would ask what they did to find them, they had done absolutely nothing. Didn’t even bother posting on their own Facebook page or something meaningless. If you want to work in Kinmen, find a list of the schools via google and start making phone calls.
Just a head’s up: I lived in Kinmen for a time. People there are friendly on the surface but it’s impossible to make real friends. I found after a number of years that not a single person I could reliably call a friend there was Kinmense – they were all from other countries or the main island. It’s very inbread and most of the people in the schools are related to each other in some way. If you’re not Kinmense by blood, you’re not one of them and you never will be. There were also many, many, many more learning and physical disabilities than elsewhere in Taiwan, and some specialists have suggested that it’s due to inbreeding. I also consistently had at least 2x more boys than girls in every class. People insist that it was a coincidence, but over a 12 year age span, there would not be a natural 66-33% split of male to female births. Just things you might want to think about before diving in headfirst. As I’ve posted elsewhere though: it’s a max of 15 minutes by scooter to a beach from anywhere on the island and people don’t crowd them. And it’s a 45 min flight to anywhere with an airport in TW.
Ugh nope. What are those? 
Thanks so much for the response. I will see if I can contact them directly when I visit next month.
Also, I’m American but not white, do you think that will hurt my chances?
1111 and 104 are the primary nationwide job seeking sites for Taiwan.
You can put your CV into their system and people will contact you or email you.
Ask a Chinese speaking friend to help!
Jinmen has a 50:50 male female population split, so your classes were outliers
You don’t need to tell me your race, but be aware that most schools that have gotten non-white foreigners from Fulbright have done nothing but complain about how they didn’t get a “real” foreign teacher. I realize it’s this way everywhere in Asia, but white = foreigner to them. Black is OK to them, but comes with another set of issues. From Latin or South America is probably white to them. North African or Middle East origins could also be accepted as white by some. If you look like you’re from anywhere in Asia though, you’re going to have a tougher time. That’s not to say “don’t do it”, but be aware of the issue that could arise. They won’t hesitate to tell you you’re not the foreigner they’re looking for if you don’t fit their idea. But you’re licensed, so that will help enormously.
Go for a wander around the island when you go. Walk around the schools and see if you like the location and the campus. Introduce yourself to people
I won’t dispute that’s what the data says, but my classes (and the classes of other foreign teachers) didn’t reflect that, and I had ~200 students/yr. I certainly didn’t hear of any classes that had majority girls, and I wasn’t the only person that came to the conclusion that women must have “miscarried” any girls they became pregnant with to end up with such a lopsided student population. That’s just my observation/experience in the schools
You’ve reached the conclusion of female infanticide based on your observation/experience while accepting that the population statistics show this cannot be happening, at least in numbers significant enough to alter overall demographics.
Kinmen has about 110:100 male female elementary students ratio for these 10 years.
In Jinsha Township and Jinning Township, more than 1.2x boys than girls. In Lieyu Township, 1.1x more girls than boys.
thanks!
Thanks for the advice.