"A future you can see isn’t exciting." Are young people no longer interested in becoming civil servants?

Text and photos /"European North Travel Observation Diary"by Tsai Fuda

The uphill climb is exhausting, but because you can’t see the view beyond the slope, your mind starts to wander.

"Is it the ocean? A grassland? A cottage? Or could it be another endless stretch of road…?" Just as I was thinking this, I reached the highest point of the small hill and saw waves of rice fields rolling toward the sea, the ocean waves taking over where the rice fields left off, stretching all the way to the distant horizon.

So beautiful, my heart felt full.

While walking along the Alangyi Ancient Trail, at first my feet stepped on gravel; after passing a small coastal bay, my feet trod on countless driftwood pieces; then after another bay, I crossed numerous sea-eroded caves; and after the third coastal bay, I walked on algae-covered rocky ground; I don’t know how many bays I had passed when I encountered a stranded boat, its rusted state resembling a large-scale installation art piece, standing upright on the beach.

Because I was looking forward to the story behind each coastal bay, I pushed forward without hesitation. After seven hours of walking, I finally arrived at the pavilion at the base of Kenting’s Jialeshuei. "What?! So this is where I am—last time I came here was during my high school graduation trip when we took a trailer to see the peculiar rocks, and now I’ve ended up here again!!!" I was utterly astonished.

A few days ago, I read that over 40% of young people either want to take civil service exams or have already taken them. There’s nothing wrong with that—everyone has their own “have-to” reasons for making choices. Today, I also met someone like that.

"Is this really okay for you? Why not just buckle down and pass the civil service exam? Isn’t it stable?" At that moment, I didn’t answer directly.

But I knew very well that seeing the process and outcome of the next fifty years of my life while still in my twenties scared me.

I remember the ancients saying, "Hard work can revitalize a nation, while ease and pleasure can destroy oneself." Whether it's a country or an individual, if everyone seeks only stability and takes only small, safe steps, we will stagnate. Any kind of impulse might write a new chapter in our island nation’s history.

Hold on to what you believe in, precisely because the end is unseen—so the possibilities for the outcome are infinite.