The one-hour flight back home from Taipei used to be a 28-hour ordeal for singer-songwriter Ardor Huang (流氓阿德).
“Even if I only had three to five days off, I would hop on an illegal bus to Kaohsiung and then board a military ship for a 20-hour journey back to Kinmen,” he says. “Two full days were lost to transportation. But I still wanted to go home.”
Unlike most modern Kinmen youth who can’t wait to graduate high school and head to Taipei or elsewhere for university, Huang, 49, left home when he was 15 to work and study in the nation’s capital. With few opportunities at home, especially after he became a rock singer, returning to Kinmen was out of the question.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei TImes
“I barely even had any chances to perform in Kinmen,” he says. “People were very conservative and could not imagine that there were any types of music outside of standard pop,” adding that his first performance at home was just several years ago.
Today, moving home is a legitimate option for Kinmen natives in their 20s and 30s. But with few regular job options outside of government posts, teaching and tourism, most of them have to start their own business or look for other opportunities.
“It’s not easy,” says Wang Ting-chi (王莛頎), who runs art and cultural studio Local Methodology (敬土豆). “You move back because of some sort of motivation, some sort of sentiment. You don’t move back for better opportunities.”
But sentiment for Kinmen seems to be growing. At the recent Local-M Village Live (土豆音樂祭), which drew many young people back to Kinmen as volunteers and attendees, there was a board where people could mark whether they wanted to move back to Kinmen or not. Near the end of the night, the tally was 45 in favor and 14 against.
Leaving Kinmen after high school is an inevitability for most young people, and usually at that point they just want to see the world.
“I wanted a change of environment,” Lee Yu-ting (李雨庭) says. “I was looking forward to moving to Taipei. At that time, I thought I’d stay in Taipei until I got old, then return to Kinmen for retirement.”
Lee says that she doesn’t think she’s ready to move back yet. But the first time she had such an idea was when she was working for an events company.
“Suddenly I had this thought that I could take what I learned at this company and apply it in Kinmen,” she says, and her confidence in Kinmen has been bolstered by the popularity of the classes and events she set up during the music festival.
Lee Po-wei (李柏緯) shares the idea of bringing back to Kinmen what it doesn’t have. An avid bartender, he noticed that there are very few trendy bars or pubs.
“Taipei’s market is already saturated,” he says. “Even if I start working at a bar, I’d probably start off washing glasses and working my way up. Kinmen has few job opportunities, but it’s ideal for starting a business because it lacks many things.”
Lee Po-wei notes that his generation is lucky to have the option of returning home.
“The previous generation had a lot more to worry about — not only did they have to make a living, they had to send money home. But we can pursue things we’re interested in. Even if business doesn’t go well in Kinmen, we can always head to Taipei and find work,” he says.
FILLING THE GAPS
There’s a small number of people who have already done so.
After studying in Taipei and the UK, Yu Shih-ting (余詩婷) worked in Taipei for many years in marketing. She had planned to return to Kinmen when she turned 30 because she wanted to be closer to her parents and a better quality of live, but she also wanted to start her own business.
“I could have worked in Taipei my whole life, but I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It’s much more difficult in Taipei. If Taipei had more favorable conditions, maybe I would have stayed there.”
Yu started her English teaching business about two years ago, and she says while she makes far less than she did in Taipei, the cost of living is low and she’s able to save money. There were many things to adjust to, and only until six months ago did she become confident that this was the right decision.
Eaton Hsu (許翼騰), a ukulele teacher, moved back right after completing his studies in Xiamen. He says that by moving home at an early age, he can start building up his credentials and resources right away.
“I never thought there was anything bad about staying in your hometown,” he says. “Unless you plan to stay in the big city permanently, if one day you decide to move home, you will have to start over from scratch. So why not start sowing your seeds earlier?”
For some with more specialized professions, however, moving back is only a dream for now. Yorke Wu (吳東國), who works as an engineer at Hsinchu Science Park, has thought about moving back for a long time, but he doesn’t know what he would do at home as there are very few engineering jobs.
“Plus, I’m still pondering how to balance life and work if I moved home,” he says. “My family is in Kinmen, and I feel like it would be very comfortable to live here for parts of the year. But you really need to find a balance. If you really moved here, you’d start noticing how inconvenient and closed off Kinmen still is.”
Wang Ting-chi, center, and Eaton Hsu, right, lead a tour group through a traditional village during the Local-M Village Live festival.
COUNTER CULTURE SHOCK
As peaceful and beautiful as Kinmen is, living there does have its challenges, says Wu.
“Many young people are still rather shy,” Hsu says. “They are not enthusiastic in attending events or exhibitions. There aren’t many opportunities for young people to interact with each other.”
In 2006, Huang took a seven-year hiatus from singing to take care of his ailing mother, who was adamant on moving back to Kinmen.
“I tried to start something here, but the government and people still stick to the old way of thinking and doing things,” he says. “I felt like I was the only person in Kinmen who thought the way I did.”
This sentiment was especially apparent for Wang, who returned home after six years in New York City working in the museum industry.
“In the US, I learned how Westerners approach culture … and I thought of applying it in Kinmen. I would work all day and still feel inspired [about Kinmen] at night, but I didn’t have time to do anything about it. The feeling was insufferable.”
With big plans, Wang founded Local Methodology with her sister about three years ago, hoping to facilitate social engagement and dialogue through exhibits and events.
“I hoped that Kinmen would be a place where people would continue to enrich themselves outside of school, where they took an active approach to various causes. Kinmen was never like this, as everything in the past was either family-owned or under military control. The common ground was never social issues.”
In hindsight, Wang says she may have been a bit too ambitious. People were not as enthusiastic as she expected, and she also had a hard time making new friends or finding intellectual stimulation. Her parents were more conservative than she had expected, and she ended up moving out. Dating was out of the question, as there were few single people her age.
“I felt that I lost all my support,” Wang says, but she notes that after slowing things down and taking a break, she’s at the tail end of her “painful, massive counter-culture shock.”
Today, she feels that things are changing with more young people being interested in giving back to their homeland. Wang believes that this phenomenon will peak in about five years, when people currently in their late 20s and early 30s feel that they have accumulated enough experience.
Wang is still thinking of how to move forward, but like Wu, she is thinking that it would be imperative for her to spend part of the year in a bigger city.
“It’s hard to continue to learn and grow in Kinmen,” she says. But she doesn’t see herself leaving as it continues to be her main source of inspiration.
“A big part of me is Kinmen,” she says. “I can’t just, let’s say, go to Italy and do art there.”
Hsu feels the same.
“Kinmen is my base, but I’ll leave the island from time to time,” he says. “I can absorb what I see and bring it back here. I hope that young people will do the same. You must re-enter the outside world sometimes.”
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