Does anyone remember that we had the Snowboarding Trip at the beginning of the year? It seems like so long ago that I thought it happened last quarter! We spent and entire weekend playing in the snow, hanging out, eating junk food, skiing/snowboarding, playing games, and much much more in a large cabin up in Big Bear! For those that did not go snowboarding or skiing, we found sleds to play around with and built snowmen around the house. There was even a game room in the cabin ready for us to play, it had a pool table, air hockey table, and a foosball table. We tried to eat health, there was pasta and sandwich food and dumplings, but in the end some of it  just got all mixed together and people could eat whatever they want. Words cannot describe how much fun we had and how pretty the snow was, it is one of those things you have to experience on your own.  Oh how I wish snow was more easily accessible, I can’t take the curvy roads of the mountains. Even so, it was a blast to hang out with everyone, get to know people better, meet new people, and to see the wild side of some!

Games. How could you go wrong with playing games? Throughout the quarter we had several game related events, such as Game Night (speaks for itself really :p) and ZotZone which had arcade games as well as endless games of pool. Not only did we play games this quarter but we also had food, lots and lots of food. You can’t go wrong with food either. We had a joint event with Konnect and went to eat Korean BBQ, Dessert Tasting where we had 5 different kinds of Taiwanese desserts for people to try, and we all went out to eat at Souplantation! You can never go wrong with food or games, enough said. Don’t forget that there was also clubbing in LA that was amazing as well as jumping fun at Sky High where everywhere you looked there were people flying all over the place!

Don’t forget, the biggest event of the quarter, our 2nd annual Lantern Festival & Night Market! It was by far the biggest even of the year thus far and one of the most amazing. Everything turned out amazingly and there were so many people could hardly walk through. All the booths were a hit. The food was delicious. The games were fun. The performances were amazing. Although there were a few bumps in the road, no one could ask for a more perfect night than we had. All the hard work and time that was put into it was well worth it and words cannot describe how much fun and how amazing it was. There is another post (the one right before this one) that has more information about Lantern Festival, so check it out if you missed out and want to read more about it! We were also featured in the school newspaper, New University, and here is the link if you want to check it out, just click: TAO Lantern Festival and Night Market.

Thank you everyone who made Winter Quarter so amazing and I can’t wait for Spring Quarter to come.

Dang, Lantern Festival felt like it was a super long time ago even though it was just last week. It came and went so fast I could hardly blink during the event cause I felt like I would be missing out! It was beyond our expectations and we thank everyone who participated and those who came out and enjoyed themselves. We began early in the morning and ended late into the night, but every bit of the time and effort spent on making and creating this event was well worth it and definitely paid off. The room looked spectacular and turned out more amazing than we had imagined. The food smelled and looked amazing, the performances were awesome, and the games were a hit. The room was so packed that night it really felt like I was in Taiwan, in an actual night market. We definitely accomplished that feeling and environment we were trying to create. I hope all the organizations, schools, and performers that were invited enjoyed it as much as I did and will come back next year and make it even bigger and better. For now let us keep on reminiscing about the events of Lantern Festival and wait for next year to come around! I miss it already and I can’t wait for next year!

Hope everyone’s finals went well, I am sure everyone is glad to be done with Fall Quarter! Grades will be out soon and I wish all of you the best. Besides school (bleh) I hope everyone enjoyed our Fall Quarter events because I know I sure did and there is definitely more to come! I can’t wait.

So lets see, what are some of the things that happened Fall Quarter…

Food! :9 Mmm.. Taiwanese breakfast, 85 bread and delicious tea from the Tea-A-O workshop. I could really use some of that stuff right now, I got the munchies.

Family Events! Some of the family events that we did were bowling, karaoke, and downtown Disney scavenger hunt! They were so much fun. :p

And much much more…like clubbing, movie night and ice skating! We watched Au Revoir Taipei for movie night, it was really cute and funny. :] Also, ice skating was a joint event with TSA so we got to meet lots of other cool people!

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us in a great Fall Quarter and to those of you who were not able to make it don’t you worry! We will be having some more amazing events coming up Winter Quarter. I’ll give you guys a little insight on some of the fun events we are going to have next quarter. As some of you guys already know, we are going to have our Snowboarding Trip the first weekend of Winter Quarter. I hope all of you guys signed up because the deadline was the Friday of finals week. Although, I believe there are still some spots left so if you contact any of the board members early enough you might still be able to join in! Don’t miss out. :] Our biggest event of the year is during Winter Quarter and it is called LANTERN FESTIVAL! It is going to be an amazing events filled with food, games&activites, and performances! I am getting super excited just talking about it. We are bringing Taiwan to UCIrvine just for you guys!

I hope you guys will be able to enjoy in on all the festivities with us and have a GREAT winter break! See you next year. :p

Dumpling Night was so fun! I’m so glad we came up with that idea and executed it nicely; everyone seemed to have great fun that night! As always, we started out with a general  meeting in Emerald Bay A in the Student Center. Despite some technical difficulties and uncontrollable circumstances (guest speaker of the night, Jason Tsai, was unfortunately detained in some horrendous traffic on the freeway), we managed to successfully conclude the last TAO event of the 2009-2010 year.

I guess you can say that TAO pulled off a great stunt for this– because it was Dumpling Night, our culture chair came up with the amazing idea of interviewing the owner of Ding Tai Fung restaurant in Arcadia (this is the son of the Ding Tai Fung founder!). She pulled some strings, and we got the rare opportunity to stage an interview.

Of course, the main event of the night was the actual dumpling making outdoors behind Social Science Lab and Social Science Tower. From what I saw, members truly enjoyed the experience of learning how to make their own dumplings and eating their finished food (duh!)! Oh, and how could I forget…TAO pulled some strings and presented members with a special yummy surprise– bread from 85C Bakery! Those who paid the $3 to make (and eat) their dumplings got to choose their favorite bread (among the three different kinds we served) for free, and those who didn’t want to make dumplings could buy their own (among the three kinds) for only $0.50. What a great deal. I’d like to think that this 85C Bakery move really made this event memorable.

Oh, and guess what? In less than 2 weeks is TAO’s first annual end-of-the-year banquet!

TAO Presents Chapter One: Shoot for the Stars Banquet
Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010
Time: Check-in begins at 6:30PM
Location: TEN Asian Bistro
4647 MacArthur Boulevard
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Attire: Semi-formal
Link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120225214662363 (FACEBOOK EVENT)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dERxTVViMVdnajAzRTRzZm5Rc1Z3ckE6MQ (YOU MUST REGISTER HERE AND PAY!)

It is truly going to be amazing and just wonderful. Even the flyer for the banquet above looks breathtaking. And plus, I’ve seen the venue. It is absolutely beautiful. If you don’t believe me, google Ten Asian Bistro and you’ll see pictures of the interior. AND i was one of the lucky few who got to taste-test the food that we will be serving at banquet. What do I think of it? SCRUMPTIOUSLY MOUTH-WATERINGLY DELICIOUS. Now, if only I knew what I’m going to wear to the banquet…

Love,
Josephine

Photos courtesy of Herman Chang.

So we headed down to UCSD on thursday night. Got there at about 9 p.m., checked in our hosts and the conference, then it was up to us to decide what to do for the night since the bonfire was cancelled due to the weather condition. Will and I decided that we wanted to just hang out and get to know people, so took it easy and hung with our hosts and other ITASA volunteers for the night.

Friday morning was when the conference really began, ITASA prepared American style breakfast to get us ready for the big day. The volunteers were very active and they did a couple ice breaking games to get us out of our comfort zone. Then there was my favorite speaker of the entire conference, Welly Yang. He spoke about his life on Broadway and his Taiwanese American identity, which really inspired me. He also mentioned about David Ho, who is Phil Cheng’s uncle =).

Welly Yang

Then it was two consecutive workshops that we had to attend in order to get into the banquet and the after party on Saturday night. There were some very successful and inspiring speakers there who really devoted their time into the Taiwanese American culture. Many people told me that they learned a lot from these workshops about Taiwan. After the workshops, we were asked to join our groups for the scavenger hunt. My group leader, ironically, was Calvin Son, the president of TASA at UCSD, who went to the same high school as I did. It was a good chance to explore UCSD campus, the second biggest campus among all UCs.

After the scavenger hunt, there was the night market where not enough food was provided. So TAO UCI decided to go to downtown San Diego to seek food and also hangout. Downtown SD was beautiful and about 30 of UCI TAOers went along. It was a fun experience for us Irvine kids to walk around the beautiful city, even though many of the local people thought we were tourists from China…

The UCSD TASA invited us to go the a restaurant in SD that night for more food. There, we mingled with more Taiwanese American students and got to know a lot of new people.

Saturday, the highly anticipated and the final day of the ITASA West Coast Conference of 2010, was full of excitement. It began with Taiwanese style breakfast. There were workshops in the morning and career panel in the afternoon. And there were opportunities for students to get involved at the “Taiwanese American Involvement”  where I got to meet many of the outstanding Taiwanese professions and got to know what they do voluntarily in detail. After that, it was the highlight of the conference at the Jasmine Seafood Restaurant. Wong Fu Production was there to speak about themselves. There was Dawen, a very talented Taiwanese American musician performing. The food was great and it was an outstanding way to end the conference. TAO was acknowledged as the “Outstanding New TASA” and we the largest group to participate in the conference. Yee GO TAO!

As for the after party…lets just say I don’t remember much about it =).

Checking out, Phil Cheng.

the movie is great! think it’s going to be a documentary? not at all. watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KbAGhECVZE

RUUUUUUN!

how hot is that?

so go see the movie. whether you wanna learn more about Taiwan or check out the hottie, you can still catch the movie at the movie theater at

Edwards Westpark 8
3755 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92606

visit http://www.formosathemovie.com/ for more information.

oh, by the way, we met james van der beek last year too! that’s just how cool TAO is.

There was sooo much yummy food. We hope you all learned something from this; the food wasn’t just there for you to eat, but it was also there for you to see what people usually eat for lunar year dinner (ex: nian gao!). Judging from people’s faces (and from the number of people who got seconds), people liked our food selection!

I was happy to see so much socializing. People were really bonding and getting to know each other while munching on dinner!

And of course, like every lunar year dinner, people got red envelopes (hong bao). But unlike every lunar year dinner, not everyone got one (sorry!). This time, those who answered our trivia questions correctly received a red envelope as a prize. Of course, we couldn’t exactly give out cash in the envelopes, but we hope you still liked the little gift!

Reminder– don’t forget to register for the ITASA conference at UCSD if you haven’t done so already! The deadline for the $35 early registration has passed, but you can still register for $40! This will be an amazing experience; don’t miss out! Check out TAO’s facebook event for this: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=290160493821&ref=mf

1. Register: http://ucsd.itasa.org/reg.html
2. Fill this out so we can organize carpooling: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEJJYnltc2VSV29hZkFvXzNPT01ITUE6MA

And of course, as mentioned in the general meeting, the movie Formosa Betrayed will be coming out this coming Friday (2/26)! We’ll be going together, so it’ll be great fun (and plus, we’ll be having a post-movie hangout session afterwards). Come out and play! More details will come soon– keep an eye out for our facebook event.

Until next time!

wow I feel extremely insecure in blogging now after Josephine’s writing for a while. LOL. she’s wayyy too good i’m so scared.

so i’m writing this to encourage EVERYONE to go to the West Coast ITASA conference! this year, it’s UCSD’s first year hosting the conference. Last year, I was the PR Chair for the conference at USC. And let me tell you, it’s one of the best experiences! got ITASA withdrawal for about 1.5 weeks after that. it was constant facebooking and attempting to hang out with the new friends i made at the conference.

so one of the things that i’ve encountered when I was the PR chair was that when people hear the word conference, they give me this “ew” facial expression. but really, it’s not like that.

the nightmarket was so much FUN. I got to meet some outstanding Taiwanese Americans & college students from all over west coast.

too much fun dressing up for the banquet

..and the AFTER PARTY <3

This year, the FUN continues! with all the social activities, the speakers & the workshops are looking good too!

yellow fever’s WONG FU! http://wongfuproductions.com

Taiwanese American actor, singer, writer, producer. Creator of the Asian Excellence Awards.

http://axawards.com/

Will Tiao, the producer /actor of the movie FORMOSA BETRAYED–www.formosathemovie.com

TAO UCI is hosting a movie meet up in Orange County! come join us next week. check our fb site/ website for more info

please register now for the conference! http://ucsd.itasa.org/

proud to say JOY TSAI from UCI designed the website! YAYYY TAO-ers!

if you’re from UC Irvine, please carpool with TAO! sign up: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEJJYnltc2VSV29hZkFvXzNPT01ITUE6MA

ITASA conferences have given me not only great memories, but also great friendships, valuable leadership experience, too many memorable moments & of course, the birth of Taiwanese American Organization at UC Irvine. I sincerely hope that I can see all of you there!

This post is for all the good friends I made from ITASA/ ITASA conferences: 2009 & 2010 ITASA West Coast Conference Team. Because of your passion & hard work & awesomeness, we gain such great memories.

XOXO,

Amy

Take a break from school and studying by celebrating Lunar Year with TAO! We’ll be having our very own Lunar Year Dinner on Thursday, February 18. This will be similar to the Taiwanese-style Breakfast event last quarter, so be sure to show up (with bring $5 with you) and get ready to eat eat eat (and mingle too, of course)! There will be fun activities and freebies to give away!

Basically…

Event: Lunar New Year Dinner
Date: Thursday, 2/18/2010
Location: Moss Cove A
Time: 7-9PM
Charge: $5 members and non-members alike

If you’re curious, here’s our menu for the night (it won’t look exactly like the photos, but the photos are there to give you a general idea):

GREEN BEAN SOUP

NIAN GAO (RICE CAKE)

DONG PO PORK

GRILLED CHICKEN

TOFU

GONG WAN LO BO TANG (FISHBALL-RADISH SOUP)

So yummy! You really don’t want to miss out on this!

And of course, don’t forget to RSVP on our Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=302045907950&ref=nf

See you there!

So yesterday (Sunday at 1:30PM), I woke up with a sore back and two chipped fingernails. Usually, if I wake up in such a sorry state, I would be in a cranky mood the rest of the day, but surprisingly, yesterday, I didn’t mind it at all. Why? All for the love of TAO, and the success of the Lantern Festival!

I’m so happy to say that hard work does indeed pay off in the end. The TAO board and staff members have been slaving away for the past weeks to plan out this huge event. Even the rain couldn’t defeat us; even with the Lantern Festival held indoors in the Pacific Ballrooms, we still carried on and weren’t disappointed at all with the end result.

At 4 in the afternoon on Saturday, the day of the event, we began setting up.

I have to say, as pretty as the lanterns were, attaching them to the lightbulbs was a pain. We had to pry open metal rods, then push the metal pieces to close up. Not so easy. That was how I ended up with two broken nails and one sore back.

There was just so much to set up. By 6PM, we still were doing finishing touches when the first of the Lantern Festival attendees started arriving! But, soon after that, we were all ready to go and people were enjoying themselves with the food (almond tofu, riceballs, lu rou fan, mi fen, etc) and activities (chopstick guns, knots, calligraphy, etc) while enjoying performances by Diana Li, Charlie Chang, UCSD’s lion dancing, and watching TAO UCI’s debut of its TACL Census 2010 Contest video submission.

People also had the chance to buy their very own TAO shirt at the TAO table! Unfortunately, we ran out of some sizes and had to disappoint some people. Sorry!

So many people showed up; it was more (and better) than what we expected!But because of that, we ran out of food, so those who came in late did not have a wide variety of food to choose from. Sorry (again) about that; we’ll be better prepared next time!

As the event came to a close, we gave out raffle prizes and sold off some of the beautiful lanterns hanging around the room.

I’m still floating on the feeling of success, even though it’s two days after the Lantern Festival already. Such a feeling of accomplishment won’t go away easily, especially since I know the entire TAO staff and board team worked so hard to ensure the success!

And thanks to all of you who showed up…you contributed to this achievement and success! Thank you thank you thank you! I really hope you all had lots of fun! Of course, a huge THANK YOU goes out to all the volunteers. This would not have been possible without all of you!

Honestly, words cannot truly describe the Lantern Festival. Overall, if you didn’t come out to this Lantern Festival, YOU MISSED OUT. NO JOKE. But,please do come out to the TAO event this coming Thursday (2/11)! It’s TAO’s speed-dating (and speed-friending) event that you’ll definitely want to check out!

Until next time,

Josephine

Photo credits to Mendel Lin and Herman Chang.