TACL-LYF is a weeklong camp for kids between 4th and 12th grade who have a strong interest in Taiwanese American culture, values, and leadership. Organized and staffed entirely by volunteers, TACL-LYF camp recalls the iconic summer camp of yore, and is an unforgettable experience. It always fills up and sells out quickly. If you’re interested in TACL-LYF camp, we suggest you hover over the camp registration page just prior to the opening of general registration at high noon on February 1. Be prepared!. TACL-LYF 2025 is now full, but you can add your child to a waitlist through the TACL-LYF registration page. Last year, many kids who were waitlisted were eventually offered a spot at camp. We also encourage you to donate to TACL-LYF.
Towering trees, crackling campfires, boisterous swim parties, and sweet sticky s’mores. Bubble tea珍珠奶茶, shaved ice刨冰, and night markets夜市. Every summer, TACL-LYF (“Taiwanese American Citizens League – Leading Youth Forward”) organizes a memorable camp in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a sleepaway summer camp that mashes up the traditional American summer camp experience with Taiwanese American culture and identity.
Just look at it. What’s not to like? After watching these videos, *I* want to go to TACL-LYF camp!
“TACL-LYF Camp is a week-long sleepaway camp designed to empower Taiwanese American youth by creating a space for personal growth, leadership development, and connection to Taiwanese American culture and identity,” explains Joel Cheng鄭喬尹, president of TACL-LYF. “What sets us apart is our entire organization is run by volunteers—nobody at LYF is paid. Our counselors don’t come to camp for a summer job. We’re passionate about mentoring and empowering the next generation of Taiwanese Americans.”
Discovering TACL-LYF camp
I first read about TACL-LYF in 2023. Looking over their website then, I figured out pretty quickly that TACL-LYF camp involves a lot more than just campfires, songs, and pillow fights. The 2023 TACL-LYF website offered “case studies” that explored the camp’s remarkable workshops, clinics, and other programming. I was blown away by the quality of what TACL-LYF offered to young people.
The TACL-LYF camp program that most impressed me was a “rejection workshop”, in which kids would role-play the experience of presenting great and exciting ideas, and other kids would role-play an audience rudely rejecting those ideas. By role-playing the experience of rejection in a safe space, kids had an opportunity to explore the emotions around rejection, and come up with a game plan for overcoming this kind of adversity.
“When campers arrive, they immediately connect with their small group and two counselors who will serve as their family for the week,” explains TACL-LYF President Cheng. “Each day, the counselors guide campers through a variety of engaging workshops and activities where campers explore topics like leadership, identity, and culture.”
TACL-LYF tries to imbue young people with resilience, courage, empathy, persistence, and a positive sense of self. These may indeed be Taiwanese American values, but they are learned traits that would benefit all kids.
Reading about the rejection workshop and other TACL-LYF programming, I realized that TACL-LYF camp addressed issues that are common to young people trying to grow up in a complicated world. TACL-LYF tries to imbue young people with resilience, courage, empathy, persistence, and a positive sense of self. These may indeed be Taiwanese American values, but they are learned traits that would benefit all kids.
For kids of Taiwanese American heritage, TACL-LYF camp takes time to explore how to synthesize that identity and that community into one’s own confident sense of self.
“At LYF, we aim to spark an interest in Taiwanese culture and identity in our campers,” says TACL-LYF President Cheng. “Whether it’s learning a new Taiwanese pop song at campfire or haggling for night market prizes, we want our campers to carry that spark with them as they grow into the next generation of confident and proud Taiwanese Americans.”
TACL-LYF always sells out. Get ready!
From past observation and experience, TACL-LYF camp is 100% guaranteed to sell out quickly. If you want your child to attend, I recommend you hover over the TACL-LYF camp webpage in the minutes before noon on February 1, and be prepared to submit your registration ASAP after it opens.
My older son Sam方平山 will be attending TACL-LYF camp for the third year in a row in 2025. TACL-LYF camp is among his favorite things to do. Since first attending camp in 2023, Sam has consistently chosen it in lieu of other summertime activities. (That’s a 13-year old’s version of a ringing endorsement.) If you have questions about TACL-LYF camp based on our experiences, feel free to post a comment to this page or e-mail me privately at laohuba@hotmail.com.
For kids of Taiwanese American heritage, TACL-LYF camp takes time to explore how to synthesize that identity and that community into one’s own confident sense of self.
From the source: TACL-LYF resources and info
TACL-LYF 2025 website: https://lyf.tacl.org/
TACL-LYF’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list: https://lyf.tacl.org/camp/faqs/
Registration: https://lyf-registration.tacl.org/
2023 edition of the TACL-LYF website: https://lyf-old.tacl.org/
tigerba.com’s very unofficial TACL-LYF FAQ
You should really read the official TACL-LYF FAQ, but here are a few more Frequently Asked Questions about camp with some additional details and perspectives from our own camp experience.
When and where is TACL-LYF camp this year?
The 2025 edition of TACL-LYF camp will be held July 14th to July 20th at the Alliance Redwoods Conference Grounds, in Occidental, CA, south of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Bus transportation will be provided from the Taipei Economic & Cultural Office (TECO) in Milpitas. If you don’t live in the Bay Area, I recommend you stay in a nearby hotel the night before. Dropoff for campers at TECO will be around 8 a.m. Don’t risk getting stuck in the Bay Area’s legendary traffic.
Who is officially eligible to attend TACL-LYF camp?
You need to be a kid who has finished 4th grade (entering 5th grade in the Autumn). Kids can attend TACL-LYF camp in the summer following their high school graduation. After that, many TACL-LYF veterans return as volunteer counselors. Some former campers join TACL-LYF’s executive staff.
How much does TACL-LYF camp cost in 2025?
This year’s 7-day, 6 night camp costs $1,325. Registration after March 31 is $1525. Financial aid is available to campers who truly need it. Be prepared to submit tax returns. Email lyf@tacl.org for more details.
How many people attend TACL-LYF camp?
For TACL-LYF 2025, there will be approximately 170 campers and 80 staff.
Can I visit my kid at camp?
No, you can’t, 直升機媽 and 直升機爸! Instead be sure you come to see the super-awesome “Parents Program” that marks the conclusion of the camp. You’ll learn more about what your kids did during the days of camp, and they will entertain you with songs, dances, speeches, and skits.
While camp is still in session, the TACL-LYF media team and leadership sends out daily video and picture updates so you can keep tabs on your camper.
Is TACL-LYF a language camp?
TACL-LYF is not a language camp. Your kids do not need to know Mandarin Chinese, Hakka, Taiwanese Hokkein, or Taiwanese aboriginal languages to enjoy themselves. All camp activities at TACL-LYF are conducted in English. There are a few Taiwan-themed camp activities such as “night markets” where kids who are proficient may barter for prizes in Mandarin Chinese for fun. Very basic Taiwanese Mandarin, Hakka, and Hokkein vocabulary may be taught in fun activities that increase cultural awareness.
Of course many campers are stone-cold fluent in Mandarin Chinese. According to the TACL-LYF leadership, most of the 2025 staff are conversant in Mandarin Chinese. There’s no rule against campers speaking Mandarin Chinese amongst themselves. However, the general goal of TACL-LYF’s organizers is to be inclusive in camp programming, and the English language is prioritized.
According to a FAQ they sent recently by e-mail, TACL-LYF will try to match your camper to fluent Mandarin Chinese-speaking staff if your child is most comfortable communicating in Mandarin.
I’m interested in Mandarin language education. How will TACL-LYF help with that?
If your only interest in summer camp is Mandarin language education, there may be better choices of camp out there than TACL-LYF camp. (My opinion based on experience is that the best summer language “camp” you can do is to fly for free to Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Taipei, stay for free, eat for free, and roll your own family camp while you’re there. tigerba.com will explore the finer details of that topic in due course.)
If your child participates in TACL-LYF camp, you will connect to a large and diverse community of people with a deep interest in Taiwanese American culture and values. The TACL-LYF community stays connected through LINE groups and periodic meet-ups. Many of those people will be proficient in Mandarin Chinese, and will share your interest in prioritizing Mandarin language education.
If your kids want to hang out and speak some Mandarin with Sam方平山 and his little brother Thomas小方糖，we would love that. We live in Sacramento but visit the Bay Area, China, Taiwan, SoCal, New York City, and many other interesting places as often as we can. Sam presently loves Minecraft, art museums, science museums, Chinese food, and Godzilla. I’m guessing Sam is in the vicinity of HSK6 in his Mandarin speaking and Hanzi reading ability, while his little brother is floating somewhere around HSK2. Please drop me an e-mail at laohuba@hotmail.com
Is the camp programming implicitly or explicitly religious?
No, religious indoctrination or religious exposure of any sort is not a goal of TACL-LYF camp.
Are Taiwanese politics or the political future of Taiwan a focus at TACL-LYF?
No, Taiwanese history and politics are not a part of the programming at TACL-LYF.
What are TACL-LYF’s perspectives on culture and identity?
Reading TACL-LYF’s “Culture” page is a good start: https://lyf.tacl.org/about-us/culture/
How long has TACL-LYF camp been around?
TACL-LYF and its predecessor organization have more than 40 years of experience running Bay Area camps that reinforce Taiwanese American culture, values, and identity.
We’re not Taiwanese or Taiwanese American. Does my kid belong at TACL-LYF camp?
If you’ve already asked yourself that question unprompted, it speaks well of your insight. TACL-LYF’s own homepage on the web answers this question saying “… although we largely serve Taiwanese American youth, we encourage anyone of any ethnic origin interested in Taiwanese American culture, values, and leadership to attend.”
According to the TACL-LYF website, in the past, the camp has had “Vietnamese American, Korean American, Japanese American, and Chinese American attendees.”
And there’s also my son Sam方平山, decidedly “none of the above”, and who is a veritable mutt of ethnicities and identities. Here’s how we navigated this.
Our heritage isn’t visibly Taiwanese American. Despite the inclusive and welcoming language scattered around the TACL-LYF website when we first considered camp in 2023, we had a fair bit of anxiety about whether it was appropriate for Sam方平山 to go to TACL-LYF camp. We thought really hard about it. Sam had already visited Taiwan at length, and we had many friends and teachers who were Taiwanese nationals and Taiwanese Americans. Sam was as interested in the history and politics of Taiwan as a fifth-grader could be. And he was already conversationally fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Hanzi-literate in 2023. Based on those expressed interests, we enrolled Sam in TACL-LYF camp. We’re so very happy we made that choice. But I’m glad we took some time to really think our motivations through. We advised Sam that he had a special responsibility to be an ally to the Taiwanese American community, to listen carefully, and to learn.
TACL-LYF’s message is inclusive and friendly, but my feeling is that potential attendees should examine their own motivations carefully, and ask themselves if they are a reasonable fit for the mission and goals of the camp. Personally, I would not go to TACL-LYF just because it is affordable, or convenient, or an exceptionally well-run camp. TACL-LYF leadership may well have a different opinion than me, but the question I would encourage every parent to ask themselves is: how will your camper add value to the TACL-LYF camp and community?
That all said, there are children of many different backgrounds who attend TACL-LYF. The day we dropped Sam off for camp, all of our residual feelings of awkwardness disappeared. Staff, parents, and campers were all so welcoming before, during, and after camp.
Who is TACL-LYF’s leadership team?
TACL-LYF’s leadership team consists entirely of unpaid volunteers, many of whom spend the rest of the year working in elite tech companies, distinguished universities, and Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Look at all of those smiling faces!: https://lyf.tacl.org/about-us/leadership/
Any final words of sage advice, Tigerdaddy?
If your kid can’t go to camp this year, maybe you should donate to TACL-LYF. Heck, you should probably donate even if your kid can go to TACL-LYF camp. Financial aid is available for kids who need help getting to camp, and donations are how this aid is funded. TACL-LYF staff and TACL-LYF executives are totally unpaid – they are extremely talented people giving back to the community out of the goodness of their hearts.
We are huge believers in TACL-LYF. It is a pleasure to support an organization that is doing so much for so many kids. TACL-LYF is a U.S. nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable organization (tax identification number 33-0086639) under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. And TACL-LYF publishes a pretty awesome cookbook. Check it.
See you at camp!
In their own words: Reflections from TACL-LYF leadership
At TACL-LYF, we believe everyone has the potential to become a great leader. Leadership comes in many different forms but we believe what matters most is that leaders are authentic and confident in themselves, and show empathy towards others. These are the kinds of traits we focus on developing in our campers through whole person leadership.
There are three pillars to our version of Whole Person Leadership: identity and development, acceptance and belonging, and leadership and service. Adopting these three pillars is how we believe we can empower everyone to become empathetic and effective leaders. We start with recognizing our identity (“I know who I am”) and accepting it (“I matter to someone just as I am”) and from there, we can lead and serve others (“I have something to give back, I want to nurture others the same way”).
We’ve observed that society sometimes tells us leadership looks a certain way: loud, expressive, or individualistic. Instead, we believe leadership should feel authentic and be built from recognizing and accepting our unique individual identities, imperfections, and idiosyncrasies. By fostering whole person leadership at camp, we believe we can inspire the next generation of leaders to be more empathetic, authentic, and impactful, and we build our staff training and camp programming with that in mind.
Joel Cheng 鄭喬尹
President, TACL-LYF
I first got involved with TACL-LYF back in 2022 as a counselor for middle school kids. This year will be my fourth year volunteering at camp and it’s safe to say that the thing I’m most excited for every year is seeing my campers come back. A year might seem like a short time, but in the year that I haven’t seen my campers, suddenly they’ve shot up several inches, changed their style, and sometimes even their personality will change a little bit! Year after year, seeing my campers grow up into more mature, more considerate, and more thoughtful versions of themselves is what keeps me coming back to camp. I’m able to catch up with them about everything that’s transpired over the past year, and it’s so fascinating to see them experience all the trials and tribulations of adolescence while learning to become more comfortable with who they are. We’re able to chat about our shared memories of camp in previous years, and I’m able to watch them make more memories with every new year. Seeing my campers come back makes me feel like I’ve been able to have a positive impact on these campers, and it’s a pretty fulfilling way to spend my summers.
Katherine Tsai
Chief of Staff, TACL-LYF
(Non) disclosures on kickbacks and referrals
The integrity of my reviews and recommendations on tigerba.com matter to me.
TACL-LYF did not solicit me to write this article. It was my own idea. My only connection to TACL-LYF is as a full-price paying parent and periodic donor. TACL-LYF hasn’t extended me a discount on camp and I wouldn’t accept one if they did, now or in the future. I am not yet personal friends with anyone in the TACL-LYF organization.
Some people attempt to make a low-level business shilling various online services on their blogs. As a website owner, you can earn referral bonuses from companies by steering readers to buy stuff. The availability of these referral bonuses is one reason that there are so many short, superficial reviews of language learning apps online — there is some money to be made.
Picking up spare change from the language learning community isn’t really my motivation for writing any of this up. What I most value through writing are the connections I make in the language learning community. Those connections will help me teach both of my children Mandarin Chinese more effectively.
To my knowledge, there aren’t any referral links in the article above. There are referral links elsewhere on tigerba.com. If you buy things using referral links on tigerba.com, companies may eventually send me some money, or perhaps some free Chinese lessons for Sam方平山 and Thomas小方糖. Using these links doesn’t cost you anything. Any money I make from referrals will go to pay the many bills for this website. To date I have spent thousands of dollars setting up this website, buying future-looking website plug-ins, and paying for website hosting.
At present, tigerba.com is a money-losing enterprise and I’m perfectly happy with that. But tigermama虎妈 tells me it would be a nice thing to offset a few of its costs.
Disclosures on AI and plagiarism
I like the process of writing in the old-fashioned way and don’t presently use any form of AI to write my articles.
From time to time I’ve heard accusations of alleged plagiarism between competitor language learning blogs. I’ve solved that potential problem by generally not reading other language learning blogs.
Avoiding other people’s writing about Chinese language learning helps me to keep my writing, my coverage, and my perspective fresh. I can write freely without worrying that I may have inadvertently borrowed someone else’s ideas, language, priorities, coverage, or point of view.
Like this article? Consider supporting tigerba.com
Running a website is expensive. I’m trying to keep tigerba.com free, objective, and uncorrupted by the embarrassing commercialism of most language learning websites. If you like this article, consider buying tigerba.com a bit of bandwidth. Anything helps!
