Army

Majestic, mighty, serious, upright, quiet, strong, certain, efficient, steady, patient, alert, brave (雄壯 威武 嚴肅 剛直 安靜 堅強 確實 速潔 沈著 忍耐 機警 勇敢). We always shouted these words in Chinese during training. We also had to sing various military songs like 國家 and 萬里赴戰曲 (these two were my favorites). That was how the supervisors reinforced our core beliefs and align us as an army. In the army, everyone lives according to radio broadcasting. One order, one action. There was no freedom there, only discipline and obedience.

There were many rules that we had to follow, for example, we could not talk while eating, and we have to do push-ups if we drop our chopsticks on the floor. Occasionally, the supervisor would train us after we showered, and you couldn’t tell if the water on your face was sweat, tears, snot, saliva or rain. A glimpse of happiness I had was when supervisors allow us to buy a drink from vending machines and watch the news so that we could connect with the outside world.

Being a soldier is all about leaning endurance and adapting to a horrible environment. You may need to sleep with 40 people in a room and share a big fan which is older than you. The snoring and noise from the fan were like heavy rain as if you were sleeping in a sea of sweat during a summer storm.

In the army, most colleagues spent their salaries on telephone cards to call their mothers or girlfriends for spiritual consolation. One of my classmates broke up with his girlfriend and the reason was that she thought he had a boyfriend in the army. The rest of the lonely colleagues all admitted that they have two girlfriends in the army, their left, and right hands. One tip, “you cannot be too efficient or inefficient”. Supervisors may question you on why you finished the mission too fast or too slow. Master the philosophy of being the second. Don’t be too different from others.