Memories of Summer Camp

During the weekend of the 2007 Taiwanese American Youth Leadership Camp, five aspiring young bloggers and writers sat down together to share their memories and experiences from this annual camp near the coast of Northern California. These are their stories, in their own words: TAYL camp is pretty much the funnest camp I have ever been to. The camp being so small, we pretty much know everyone. I’ve been coming to TAYL for two years, this year being my third. This year, I brought someone to camp to share this camp with others of the same heritage. Usually, at the first dinner, we tie each others hands together while we eat, but this year we decided not to do that, which was quite a disappointment. Every year, what I look forward to is seeing the skits because many of the skits are based around things that happen at camp, or making fun of the counselors, which is a lot of fun. We also usually have a hip hop dancing class, taught by Charlie, but Charlie ended up not being a counselor this year, so instead I took a salsa dancing class, which I already knew how to do because we learned for Spanish class at school. On the first night of camp, we always have this thing called Night Market where we play games to get points so we can earn prizes. This year at Night Market, we had a basketball shooting game, a game with three cups filled with water, where you have to get a ping pong ball in all three cups. While here, I learned how to play a cup game, whether the things are choices or things we’re taught and about geography, heritage, and language, in a Taiwanese jeopardy game. -- Holly, Age 13 TAYL Camp is a great, awesome, fun, thrilling, exhilarating, stimulating, electrifying, and exciting Taiwanese American camp. On the first day you will get to move into you’re cabin and get comfortable. You also should get to know your cabin mates also because being shy isn’t that great. The counselors at TAYL are really nice. They are sort of like cabin leaders. The also teach us a lot of stuff and make sure we get to every activity on time, which means they are pretty responsible. Then there are the head counselors. This year they were "Chri’tina" and Steve. They are the awesome people that technically lead the whole camp. That’s a pretty big responsibility. Our counselors are Ingrid and Cecilia. They are sooooooo nice and soooooooo responsible. If you get either one of them you should consider yourself very, VERY, VERY lucky. -- Tatiana, Age 10 I’m Joanna and I live in my own world in Fremont. My life there was a PURDY twisted chaotic lifetime…jk…jk. I’m here now at TAYL camp writing blogs as you can see. My stay here at TAYL was educational and fun at the same time. We live in cabins that probably would last 3 decades or so. It was pretty old but on the other hand it was useful. My “cabin-mates” would chitter-chatter about who likes who or play truth or dare. They gossip a lot and I would participate too. We would laugh and tell inside jokes that only we would know. It’s like I'm part of something fun, something like a gossip group… jk. The night market was club-like but more activities and you trade points for prizes. Most of the prizes were pretty expensive but it was worth it. The photo scavenger hunt was a bit creative idea. Our camp counselors were very generous and fair. They have a lot of potential and are very educated about Taiwan. They would have fun with you at anytime they want except when they’re busy. My counselors, Cecilia, Ingrid, and Kevin are always with you for your safety. Ingrid promised us to teach us how to crochet or weave a hat. She is a very artistic person and is a very joyful person. Ceci is nice and is married to Yush, another counselor of TAYL. Ceci might be the sweetest counselor on the TAYL planet, also on the planet Earth. Kevin is nice and cautious. He can help you when you’re down into the BLUES. I really had a great time spending three days with them, they make me laugh a lot. -- Joanna, Age 11 On Friday, at 2am in the morning, I sat in front of my computer staring at the screen wasting the few hours I had left before I headed off the camp. You see, I wasn't really enthusiastic about the experience since I had not gone camping before (unless you count the time I went to science camp with my 5th grade class) and that this would be the first time I went somewhere without someone I know. However, knowing that I cannot avoid doing something I am obligated to do, I decided to suck it up, go to sleep, and wait to see how TAYL would be like. And despite the many worries and stereotyped images I had in my head, things turned out differently than I expected. Although this is my first year at TAYL, I found my experience here quite interesting. I arrived 30 minutes late since my mother got lost driving in the woods (on the bright side, I received an excellent two hours of sleep. The first person I met here was a counselor called Christina. She showed me Nelson Hall, my cabin, which is called Mary, and my group. I'm in Group E. My counselors are Cindy, Irving, and Johnny. Cindy is a nice person and she acts like what people think people my age act (I cannot compare her to my age because, according to other people, I act older than I am). Irving is a math teacher. He has a strange sense of humor, but I don't mind. Johnny has wild hair and he seems like a mellow kind of dude. I don't really know what else to say, except that they're nice people. -- Catherine, Age 14 My favorite Clinic or Workshop…Umm… I guess it’s this one. For the Clinic, I like this Blogging workshop. I like the sound of typing on a laptop, umm… I guess I also like going on the computer for some weird reason. As for my favorite workshop, I liked the one where there was big involvement of truly caring for a small, delicate, white –drum roll- … Egg. We had to put our egg on a spoon, and each group had either two to three eggs. We had to go through many obstacles, like going through a slide, through a gate, and did I mention through an avalanche of water balloons that were supposed to be in the Fun in the Sun? Emphasize on the supposed to. If you dropped the egg, you had to start all over at the previous starting point. -- Eileen, Age 11 If you're interested in learning more about the Taiwanese American Youth Leadership Camp for the 2nd generation grade school through high school community, we invite you to visit our camp website at: www.tayl.org! The camp takes place during the 3rd weekend of June each year.