youth.taahouston.org

Visitors, Acquaintances, Bloggers, and Taiwanese Youth: I appreciate your dropping by Taiwanese Youth Society of Houston’s new homepage. Due to the rising familiarity and popularity of blogs around the internet, It is our benefit that we adopt a blog-oriented format to address our peers about issues, sophisticated or mild, that may affect our lives. Though all visitors are welcome to browse through our archives and messages, Our primary goal is to be a beacon in the new generation of Taiwanese Americans, so that collectively, a modern Taiwanese voice will be heard. I am aware that there exists many divisions of opinion in the Taiwanese community and that people’s opinions and knowledge are based on their immediate influences, so rather than being a beacon that sparks enmity because of diffrence of opinion, we are here shaped as a tunnel, a bridge to composite everyone’s differing point of views and to interconnect and emplify a consumate Taiwanese generation of the 21st century.

Youth Leadership Conference had their annual conference at Rice University. YLC is a program that aims at young Asian American high school students. This program promotes leadership skills and guidance for the future. The onslaught of activities during the weekend consists of a multitude of team-based games, outdoor physical activities, inspiring guest speakers, an open mic session, and hilarious student-created skits.
Each annual conference, the student body divides up into groups according to a certain theme created by the YLC organizers. During my first year, students divided into groups based on different musical bands such as Aerosmith, Run DMC, and KC and the Sunshine Band. The next year consisted of groups relating to fictional nations created by YLC officials. YLC organizers always attempt to diversify each group by mixing genders and schools. Although there are occasions when one might recognize one or two of their team members, the goal is to put together a group of complete strangers (which eventually changes throughout the weekend). Each group consists of 3 mentors who are usually college students who help encourage, lead, and fire up YLC campers.
Humor, fun, light-heartedness, and creativity are all tools utilized by the program to help hammer in important lessons of leadership. Throughout the fun and games, strong values and skills like setting goals, accepting diversity, utilizing communication, and other lessons contributing to building leaders are strongly emphasized through group sessions and guest speakers. These values are encouraged with teamwork portrayed throughout the weekend.
It is truly amazing to witness the shyness and timidity felt by all the students with awkward quietness during the Friday night of the conference completely alter into a comfortable, relaxed, and jocular atmosphere by Sunday. YLC is truly an amazing and inspirational program for the summer. The program helps create connections within the Asian-American population and helps young students learn the pride and appreciation for Asian culture.

My first year at YLC, Youth Leadership Conference, was filled with pleasant surprises and good time! We were divided into about 10 separate groups, each group consisting of 12 people. These 12 new people became my friends for the next week. The camp is filled with exciting and fun activities, promoting and teaching us about leadership. This year’s theme was “sky’s the limit: goal setting”. My mentors, three fun loving college students and graduates, brought life to my group. Because it was the first night, everybody was silent and awkward silence dissipated the room. But by Sunday afternoon, everyone knew each other like his or her best friend. Our first task in our group was to create a cheer and decorate a flag based on our group name, the cuckoos (each group had a different flying animal bat, bird, owl, dragonfly, mockingbird etc.). My group was very passive and shy, none talking, birds chirping. But our brains combined, we conjured something stupid and enjoyable.
On Saturday, the fun really began. At 7:30, we had our guest speaker, Darren Mooko, come and talk about goal settings. As a fourth generation Japanese-American, he vividly recalls his great grandfather’s history, being persecuted by the government during World War II. The speech concentrated mostly about setting goals that are realistic and challenging. After the speech, we as a whole went out and had a big field day. The activities required teamwork and cooperation from every individual. Later that evening a group of successful Asian Americans talked about their success in places they weren’t suppose to be in. Just as an example the Krackker Nuttz, Filipino brothers, at 97.9 the Box became the first Asian DJ’s on the radio. The speech encouraged me to dream big and succeed in life, making good goals. That night there was a dance that gathered everyone together in a relaxed way. During this time I got closer with the other campers.
Sunday morning, our last day, we talked about volunteerism. As the morning concluded, we were very sad that we had to say goodbye. Luckily, we were able to give contacts to each other so we can keep in touch.
I encourage everyone to attend YLC next year!