TAF 2012 Daily Recap: Monday

Who needs London when the TAF Olympics have arrived in Manchester, Indiana with one-of-a-kind events like “Crispy Face” and “Crabcakes”?

In addition to today’s intense but friendly competition, TAFers enjoyed meeting their speakers for the week, John Lin, Roger Lin, and Jade Lum, and bonding with their Big and Lil Sibs.
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So much awesome already…and it’s only Monday! Hooray for the first full day of TAF!


TAF RULES 2012

Because safety comes before fun!

Written and filmed by tafLabs. Starring Will Leu, Jesse Kao, and Bing Wang as “Stinky”. Cameos by Executive Director Jessica Fu, Ming Young, and Harmony Chiu.

And yes! Much more content to come out this week — keep visiting us back here and follow us on twitter @tafstatus!


THE TAF CYCLE

Identity, Values, Communication, and Servant Leadership.

TAF has been developing servant leaders within Taiwanese America for over thirty years. In that time, over five thousand people have attended TAF and learned about our four constant themes. If you are one of those five thousand people, chances are you created your own narrative for your time spent there, and felt a varying degree of emotions, experiences, challenges, successes, and failures.

Your collective stories become the narrative for TAF. A community of summer camp goers, brought together as kids with a shared heritage, but united together by 1 week out of 52 in Grand Rapids or North Manchester, learning about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Forging personal growth and close friendships.

Hopefully you came back more than once. Hopefully you came back at least four times, to learn about each theme. And above all else, hopefully you shared the wisdom that you gained at TAF unto others. Because the true TAF Cycle isn’t just about four rotating themes, but also about paying forward all you learned at TAF to those you encounter, be it at TAF or outside of TAF, towards future generations.

And so we created this video to share what a complete TAF experience might be like. I know many of us started out at TAF in different ages and different programs, some of us didn’t have the opportunity or fortune to staff, nor do many of us even have children to send to TAF yet. But from precocious Junior to caring adult, we all own parts of this story, and so this is the important thing to remember — we have been and are still ALL part of the TAF Cycle narrative no matter where we are in life — alumni or current, staff or student, parent or child. And thus you share the hope with us, that we can all make a profound impact on mankind, for our future.

Hope to hear from you again at TAF 2012.

Early registration ends July 15th. Please register here at http://tafworld.org/registration.

Video Credits: Ho Chie Tsai, Anna Wu, and the rest of the tafLabs team.


TAF 2011 Slideshow!!

So it’s been a long time coming. Sorry for the delay! We had some issues with some YouTube copyrights that we were sorting through. But we are extremely excited to finally bring this to you in full color – the way it was meant to be seen!

It was an amazing week, as always. We at tafLabs are always striving every year to find ways to make the slideshow new and fresh for you guys and this year we were fortunate to have a lot of new equipment and toys to play with to find new ways and angles to show off TAF in ways we haven’t looked at before. This year, we put a little bit more emphasis on showing more of the behind the scenes work that the sTAFf, speakers, board, and even the campers, do before and during TAF. We really hope that this year’s inclusion of more video helps to provide more context around some of the amazing photos taken by everyone, and tell the story of the week.

Special thanks to board members Dave, Bob, Alex, and Spencer for taking the time to go through Anna’s photo workshop to help us cover the various events. Additional thanks to the hardworking members of the labs photo and video logging team of Anna Wu, Tom Yu, Eric Wang, Harmony Chiu, Steve Wang, and Andy Chen, without whom this slideshow definitely would not have gotten done on time. Thanks to Chikuan, Joy, and Jason for keeping us well stocked and fed with an amazing array of food and treats. And while it is somewhat self-serving, thanks to Seaglass Cinema for the use of their equipment and skillsets. Go check them out on their facebook page and “like” them! *end shameless plug*

Without further delay, we present to you – TAF Slideshow 2011. Thanks for reading and stop by often!

Kevin Yau and Jon Lee


RECAP: INTERPRETATIONS – a Communication Workshop

During Wednesday of this year’s TAF, the tafLabs program was asked to run a workshop for the JH and Youth programs. Obviously, with tafLabs’ collective interest in the arts and media, we wanted to incorporate those topics into our session. However, we’ve already spoken at length about the importance of media along with other subtopics like Asian American representation, etc. We wanted to do something a little more unique and interactive, and thankfully, the yomyomf.com-hosted film contest Interpretations was the perfect workshop content!

The premise of the contest is this — each filmmaker uses the exact same script, in the exact same order. There are only four lines, and they are:

– It’s not something I’d do.
– Well?
– It’s not what I expected.
– You sure?

Each of the Family Groups at TAF came up with their own ideas, some funny, some serious, all incredibly creative. They showed a wide range of interpretation, which is an important part of Communication (ding ding ding!). We sometimes overlook or forget that just expressing ourselves is not enough for good communication. You have to try to do it in a way so that others can receive your message, and vice versa. The point is, good communication is a two-way street and the sending of the message is just as important as the decoding or interpretation of a message.

In the end, tafLabs chose one story idea to film at TAF. Based on the storyline as well as the feasibility of filming it within the time constraints of TAF’s programming (we’re fast because we have to be, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it easier on ourselves!), we chose the Bacon Family Group’s entry. We filmed the story immediately after our session as a follow-up workshop, which gave the campers a chance to be actors IN media, and to see a side of communication from a different perspective than they might be used to.

And now, we happily present to you the finished piece!

OUT OF ORDER

Now, we also mentioned that we had to choose which story to film partly based on our abilities to film within the constraints of TAF and Manchester College facilities, which means we could not have shot all the stories at TAF even if we had the time. Thankfully, Youth camper Ryan Yang was encouraged to take his story idea and film it in Chicago after TAF ended — and boy, are we sure glad we did. Ryan’s Interpretations submission is a moving piece dedicated to his friend Will Kelley, and others like him, who have battled cancer.

ETERNAL PIECE

Eternal Piece, A Dedication from Kinema Group on Vimeo.

If you have a moment, you can check out other film entries with the Interpretations Film Viewer, and please sign up and leave some love for Out of Order and for Eternal Piece!

Two other notable pieces to check out:
Karen Lin’s “Little Blue Angel” and Jason Lee’s “Strangers in a Park,” which may have content unsuitable for those under the age of 13 — Parental Discretion advised.

Congrats to all the filmmakers and storytellers out there, and we’re proud to see all the creativity connected to TAF and our Taiwanese American community 🙂


WATCH THE TAF2010 LOVE OUT LOUD SLIDESHOW!

The campers are still all awake, and TAF Night only ended just a few hours ago, but here for your viewing pleasure is the TAF2010 Slideshow!

Credits: Tiffany Su, Justin Ku, Andrew Kuo, Steve Wang, & the rest of the tafLabs and tafMedia team.

Songs:
1. Viva Love Forever – Mashup by Jeremy Chen & Andrew Lo. Original songs by Coldplay, New Order, & Alphaville.
2. Mind Heist – Zack Hemsey, from “Inception.”
3. All We Are – Matt Nathanson
4. Kings & Queens – 30 Seconds to Mars
5. Do You Remember – Jay Sean, feat. Sean Paul & Lil John

We’ve had an amazing week with everyone, and have much more video footage to come so keep staying tuned! Just because we’re all leaving Manchester College for another year in a few hours doesn’t mean the TAF spirit is over as well. TAFLOVE 365 y’all!


Send TAF a Happy 30th Birthday video!

As you may know by now, this year is TAF’s 30th birthday! Even though you may not be at TAF right now, help us celebrate by sending us a short video telling us who you are, what years you went to TAF, and some quick birthday wishes and we’ll feature them on the blog!

You can upload them to your own account or ours on youtube:

user: tafshare
password: what the “t” in taf stands for!

Email us at tafhelp@tafworld.org.

UPDATE: A post-TAF happy birthday video from “the original” Alex Yang!