I guess not a lot of information is passed on to the general public about enlisting. Unlike say the US, taiwan doesn’t spend much money on PR and trying to get people to enlist in like ADs of patriotism. Recruitment is all pretty much done while you’re a conscript. They gave us all the information and had recruiters come talk to us. Some people enlisted while I was serving.
The benefits are actually not bad for many Taiwanese. The salary is better than most jobs people will get. They will even help you pay for school to become an officer and get a salary bump. You actually get a nice bump with every promotion and a bonus in certain places almost double if you go to kinmen and other island like that. You get a lot of benefits like utilities paid for, housing money, your kids go to college on benefits etc. it’s certainly enough for many to sign up. I’m guessing most of you guys and the people who @D-nice talked to are from cities like taipei? You’re not going to get many young taipei people that want to join. Taiper people are just used to a different life than most young people in other parts of Taiwan which is what I saw almost all of the enlisted men are from. Mostly down south. Taiwan’s military is still really heavily base on volunteers who enlisted. Conscripts are useless in real war situations. They don’t give us much training and it’s a huge waste of the countys resources. Either really train conscripts or just end it. It used to make sense years ago when taiwan and china was on the brink of war at all times. Now not so much.
Also, they did really ramp up anti bullying or whatever you call it. So much so I think it doesn’t help. Officers and NCOs are really afraid to do something that might injure you. There’s numbers to call to complaint everywhere on base. At every urinal in fact. Suicide prevention hotlines and everything all over the base. You can’t not see it every time you take a piss. If they punish you even in the smallest way like make you stand and face the wall they actually have to file a report.
I wrote about my time as a conscript @D-nice if you wonder why people don’t want to do conscription. It’s really a huge waste of your time. 12 days a conscript