Spotted this military recruiting poster at a ramen shop in Hualien. It’s the first time I’d seen anything like it in my years here.
My friend said military recruiting posters are common at government offices, but she said this was the first time she’d seen one in a dinky little restaurant, and we both agreed that the images were quite striking: Military choppers over the 101 as plumes of smoke rise up from below, where missiles are being fired and 大白 patrol the streets!
Crazy stuff! I hope we don’t see this come to pass. It is unsettling.
Knowing how bitterly the average teenager complains about military service (with good reason, TBH) I just can’t see anybody taking that seriously. The military is neither well-funded, nor well-run; people who might make good soldiers would be turned off by that, and the snowflake generation has precious few of them to begin with.
Those guys in the bottom left hand corner look suspiciously like COVID bleach-sprayers. Is that a hint that people who join up are in fact more likely to be deployed as cheap labour to support The Current Thing?
Yeah, if they really want recruits, they should offer them the opportunity to study in the program of their choice after completing service. That way kids who did poorly on the entrance exams had another chance to get into their preferred program.
In most countries, the military offers the recuit a genuinely valuable combination of academic and practical skills that will be recognised by potential employers after leaving the service. I get the impression this is not a feature of Taiwan’s military.
That poster needs a lot of professional help. Looks no more appealing than any regular KMT campaign poster. Any practicing graphics designer can make it 200% better, and they’re not that expensive to hire.
