English Summary

This Page is about me, Jonathan Meyer and my FSJ (Vouluntary Social Year) with ICYE Taiwan (International Cultural Youth Exchange). This year counts instead of the mandatory military service in Germany.

I stayed in Taiwan from the 02.08.2005 till the 31.07.2006. I lived and worked in the Tainan City Fire Departementwww.tcfd.gov.tw, together with Hao, another German.

I was helping to educate Kids in the Desaster Prevention Education Hall.

The Fire Departement has a quite impressing arsenal of different things, we can do with the Visitor. We have a Fire Museum, a lot of Multimedia, a Fire Helicopter Flightsimulator, a Rope Bridge, a Taifun Simulator, an Earthquake House, a Fireextinguisher, a Firetunnel and a lot more.

Some Pictures from my Work... More in the Image Gallery

As most of the Kids only speak Chinese, and we were still starting to learn Chinese, at the beginning most of the talking was done by our other Coworkers, but we made progress learning this Language every day and at the end we could get along pretty well.

I really enjoyed my time in Taiwan. To find out more about it, visit the other Parts of this Blog.

You can find a Image Gallery, a Guestbook, my Blog, a Contact Form and more.

Since October, I write my Blog in English, a decision based on the most common language among my current Friends. Previous Posts are still in German..

There have been several Articles in a local german Newspaper. You can find them here:

Rheinpfalz, 30.03.2005

Rheinpfalz, 21.09.05

Rheinpfalz, 09.10.05

Rheinpfalz, 21.12.05

Rheinpfalz, 15.02.06

Jonathan Meyer, Tainan City Fire Departement, R.O.C. Taiwan

As requested by many, a short version of the Reasons why i chose Taiwan... :

First in Spring 2004 I learned I could do my military service as social service abroad.. I started looking for organisations and first focused on english speaking countries... I also applied to ICYE (International Cultural Youth Exchange).. This took more than half a year with dozens of Applications etc.

They invited me to the information seminar.. I learned more about the countries they have Partnerorganisations and especially Taiwan seemed to be very interesting.. On the last day of that Seminar, there was a Taiwanese Girl, and I used the chance to talk with her...

And it grew more and more interesting... As i was already interested in Asia trough my interest in Japan, I said to myself: "Lets put this country as my first choice.."

And there I was, working in the Fire Departement of Tainan. Ok, it was more to it, actually it was pretty difficult, but that doesnt matter that much anymore.

My Job was pretty interesting,I like working with the children. They come here to learn how to behave at emergencies like fire or earthquake... I think tis is an important thing for them to learn. And they have a lot of fun!

I like Taiwan, epecially Tainan. The people are very friendly and open. I could make a lot of new friends and its never got boring... You never know, where you will go next, what you will experience, but one thing is sure, its a lot of fun. The food is very good except for some unusual things. The weather is quite hot, especially in summer but I could live with that. The language is a big challenge still, but gradually I was improving and could communicate with my coworkers and friends better and better..

It is a good feeling. I certainly do not regret coming to Taiwan...

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