Editor’s Note: The Taiwanese American Foundation’s summer conference has been running for over four decades, cultivating among 3+ generations its vision “for people of Taiwanese heritage to make a profound impact on humankind in unique and compassionate ways.” TAF is also the “ancestral home” of TaiwaneseAmerican.org; many of our board of directors, staff, and longtime volunteers (including our founder, Ho Chie Tsai, and the creator of the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize, novelist Charles Yu) are TAF alumni and can trace a linear path from their childhood summers spent at the camp to their adult lives of advocacy, activism, and community-building. We have previously shared other perspectives on this summer camp, including that of a second-generation Taiwanese American parent reflecting on whether her third-generation children would need a camp like TAF (spoiler alert: it was the “best part” of her camper’s summer).
There is no singular TAF narrative, but there is a widespread, almost universal appreciation for these formative experiences through which the self can become evident, shared, and seen. It is at TAF that so many campers alchemize what makes them feel “different” into traits that make them special and beloved.
“TAF Magic,” distilled, is a transformative and profound sense of belonging. This belonging, in turn, invites authenticity and accountability. Where you are true, there you will create.
We’re grateful to share one perspective of someone who has served on TAF’s Youth (high school) program staff for four years now. We know it will resonate with anyone who has ever struggled to see themselves as whole and distinct from the scrutiny of others. If you have a TAF (or other Taiwanese American summer camp) story to share, please pitch us at leona@taiwaneseamerican.org.
The below piece has been adapted from his “TAF Talk,” delivered in Summer of 2024 and lightly edited for clarity. TAF Talks are opportunities for Youth staff to share their own perspectives with the program outside of the weeklong speaker sessions.
What’s up. I’m Brady. I’ve been coming to TAF for what feels like a couple lifetimes now and it’s a special place to me. TAF gave me a place to feel special. I hadn’t ever felt like that before.
For most of my life, insecurity drove my decision-making. I longed to be liked, but I didn’t like myself. It created a void within me; a hunger I could never quite satiate. Because I couldn’t fill it, I turned outward and looked for others to do it for me: I may not like myself, but maybe I could convince them they liked me. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe if they were my friends, I wouldn’t feel so empty. Maybe if I got enough external validation, I could like myself.
My friend group and even my college selection were both influenced by this insecurity. Though I played football through high school, I had no intention of playing any further. I’d had enough and planned to go to a state school. But a funny thing happened. An assistant coach and a friend’s dad separately told me they thought I should play in college. That’s all it took. I changed my whole plan. They were saying I was good enough to do something. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was good enough. And if I was good enough, maybe I’d finally like myself.
I started looking at schools that would let me play football. I was good enough that a few came to talk to me. Nothing fancy, nobody even that good. But it felt good. They’d call me out of weight lifting in front of the rest of my team, and tell me how I could help their program win football games. I’d sit back in my chair feeling like the most important boy. In hindsight, these coaches were just trying to fill a program. They had a quota to hit, and I was a sale. In the moment, I couldn’t see past my own ego. They told me I was important to their program, and to a boy who didn’t feel important to himself, that was everything.
I narrowed it down to a list of three schools. One of them told me I’d make an immediate impact on their horrible football team – he hinted that I might even start as a freshman. One of them was decent and told me I could get on the field by my junior year if I worked hard. The last was Franklin. They were the best on my list. The funny thing about Franklin was that they recruited me the least. They didn’t actually seem all that interested in me as a player and made no assurances of playing time, but they were a winning program. I wanted their reputation of being good at football to be my reputation. I’m sure you can guess who I chose.
Franklin was small – smaller even than my high school. At most colleges, you might have a class with a person and never see them again. Franklin was so small it had cool kids. And boy, oh boy, did I want to be one of the cool kids. I wanted their reputation of being cool to be my reputation. So I started choosing friends accordingly.
You wanna know something crazy? I pulled it off. I became friends with the cool kids. It wasn’t easy, but I leveraged who I was. I’ve always been a salesman. I sold my skills. I know how to have fun. I make a scene. I’m borderline obnoxious. I use these skills all the time. I use them here at TAF. In college, I used them with the primary intention of getting my friends to like me. Didn’t matter what we were doing, I was trying to get their approval. At parties I wasn’t just dancing because I looked so cool when I did it. I danced because my friends laughed, and I looked so cool when I did it. I used all my skills this way – everything was so my friends would like me more. I was whatever version of myself they paid the most attention to – even if that was a clown. And they seemed to like me.
One of my friends was named Trace. We met on a recruiting visit. Trace was cool. He was funny. He was handsome. I knew I needed to be friends with Trace. We decided to be roommates during that visit. Over the next four years we got into all sorts of hijinks, and grew our merry band into a friend group that was funny, cool and exceptionally stupid.
One night, we were all out at a party. I was making my rounds, doing Brady things so my cool friends think I’m cool. I hit a quick 45-minute Dougie. I swung through the rafters like a monkey. My friends were hanging out in a corner, so I swung their way. I dismounted right in the middle of the group. The conversation went silent. My entrance had made a big splash, so I got that the conversation would die down, but this seemed excessive. I made a comment. No one said anything. I tried a joke. It stayed silent. Then someone’s girlfriend said, “Hey Brady, Trace was talking trash about you swinging and dancing.”
I felt so betrayed. I’d never speak about any of them this way. I thought we were all best friends, but that’s not how you talk about your best friends. I thought I was one of the cool kids, but not one of them had my back. I thought my self-confidence was on firm grounding, but with one sentence, a girl I didn’t even know was able to pull the rug out from underneath me. It wasn’t that people were talking trash about me. It was that my friends were talking trash about me. And my self-worth was defined in the opinions of these friends. I had entrusted my ability to be okay to things that were ultimately outside my control. Seems like that grounding wasn’t all that firm after all.
I didn’t know what to do. I decided not to speak to them about it. I acted like it never happened, but I knew that was how they all felt. I allowed it to diminish me. I stopped dancing. I no longer swung around on rafters. And you know what? I felt sad. The parties weren’t fun anymore because I was still allowing others to dictate how I’d behave. Only now they were stopping me instead of fueling me. So, I thought, Forget it. No one can tell me how to live my life. I’ll be exactly who I want. And I started swinging and dancing to spite them. You hate it, well hate it even more, this is who I am. But it wasn’t really. I was doing the “opposite,” but it was still deeply in response to them. The motive was still outside of myself. That’s when I realized the problem wasn’t that my friends didn’t like my swinging and dancing. The problem was that I needed them to like my swinging and dancing. It wasn’t external. It was all inside of me. But I still didn’t know what to do.
They weren’t bad people; they were just bad friends. It felt harsh to hold it against them, so I stayed friends with them for a long time. Even after college, into my mid-twenties. But to this day, I’m confused about how to act around them. I may have known them for a long time, but I wouldn’t say they taught me what good friendships feel like. I was stuck. Unsure if that’s just how life’s supposed to go. Is this friendship? Is this forever?
Then one fateful night, a coworker rolled into Tesla Indianapolis. She was a long time TAFer who took particular offense to me being from Indiana (where TAF’s summer camp is hosted), half-Taiwanese, and entirely unfamiliar with TAF. In the parking lot at 2:00 AM she told me about it. She told me about the connections she’d made as a camper. She told me about the leadership opportunity I’d find from serving on their staff. She even told me about Ride the Pony (a TAF game). It seemed too good to be true. I had to check it out.
I came to TAF. You all know how that goes – it’s magic. I learn what good friendship feels like. Friendships that nourishes instead of sucking the life from you. I find happiness and peace that I’d never felt before. Happiness and peace that I didn’t even know existed. I’m riding high. My steps guided by joy; my heart moved by purpose. It feels right. I feel right.
Then:
I’m minding my business at lunch. Staring at a Salisbury steak and the most delectable steamed vegetables. From across the table wafts the sweet fragrance of baking peaches. A plantation burning in the distance. Cannon fire. Fixed bayonets. The death-scythe of the Union Army is sweeping through the Confederacy. The North roundhouses the South right in the racism and I meet a wonderful friend.
Brother Bailey blessed my life. His friendship brought warmth to my soul. This was it. This was the friendship I’d always been looking for. Friendship that celebrated, supported and challenged. He saw me, flaws and all, and cared about me. Our friendship came so easily. I wasn’t trying to impress him. I was just being myself. And he understood me.
Why does it seem to be so easy here? People talk about the TAF magic, but what really is the magic? I began to realize it’s this wonderful chemistry of so many unique circumstances. First, at TAF everyone looks like us. We don’t have to explain our cultural baggage to one another; we just get it. Second, when you’re here you’re not at school and you’re not at home and you’re not at work. It’s its own bubble. A separate place to truly be yourself. It even goes a bit deeper once you get old like me. All your peers on staff are volunteers. The heroes I’m staffing with could be at work, they could be partying, they could be doing anything other than being overworked and undercaffeinated in the middle of nowhere. They chose to be here. It’s all similar people choosing to give up a week of their summer to be in Indiana, of all places.
For you to be here, these prerequisites are probably true of you. That also means they’re probably true about your roommate, your small group, your friends. These prerequisites curate a community that makes it easier to develop deep, intimate connections at TAF. Easier than it seems the other 51 weeks of the year.
Oh, but here comes the TAF Blues. Our time together is short. The week ends as all good things must. A drive and a day later and I’m right back in Indianapolis with the same friends who talked trash about me. I forget the lessons I learned at TAF about being myself. I’m back to the same friends. I’m back to the same life.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had tasted le creme. I knew what was supposed to go atop the friendship apple strudel. Kool Whip just couldn’t cut it anymore. The friendships I found before TAF could not nourish me in ways I knew now were possible. In ways I knew now I needed. I didn’t like the life I’d so carefully constructed or the friends I worked so hard to get. I convinced myself that it was a geography problem. That if I was in a different place maybe I’d find different, better friends. So, I moved to Columbus, a chance to get my TAF outside TAF. As I started making friends, I fell back into old habits. I swung and danced, but not because it made me happy. It was because I was trying to impress people. And it ended the same way. Different city, yet somehow, I was meeting all the same people.
That’s when it hit me. It’s not Franklin. It’s not Indianapolis. It’s not Columbus. It’s not even North Manchester. The location doesn’t hold the key to my happiness. Focusing on the geography ignored the fact that my insecurity was the problem. It doesn’t matter what city I’m in, when the problem’s happening inside of me.
When I’m at TAF, I don’t feel like I’m swinging and dancing to impress anybody. I’m swinging and dancing because this is a place to swing and dance, and a place to be myself. A place to be silly. A place to Ride the Pony, not because I want to be impressive, but because I want to Ride the Pony.
Here’s a crazy idea. I don’t actually need Ride the Pony to be true to my authentic self. It’s helpful. It makes space to swing and dance. But that shanty. Those movements. That’s not why I enjoyed swinging and dancing. I enjoy swinging and dancing because I enjoy swinging and dancing. There was magic at TAF, but TAF wasn’t the magic. Being myself was the magic. The TAF magic, the whole time, was me.
You want another crazy idea? The TAF magic, the whole time, is you. And likewise, you don’t need Ride the Pony. It’s helpful. It gets you closer. But that’s not where the spark of being yourself is being created and enjoyed. That is happening inside of you.
My original working title for this talk was White Passing. It was going to be about being biracial. Too Asian for the whites; too white for the Asians. I thought it was what you’d want to hear. I was going to talk about how unfair I thought it was for people at TAF to say I’m white passing, because I grew up in a white school only white passing to the white kids. I was trying to prove to you I was Asian enough. There it was again, rearing its ugly head. I was being insecure. I was trying to get your approval.
That’s when I realized that while White Passing didn’t hit the bullseye, it still grazed the target. See, the thing I want to talk about has nothing to do with white, but it has everything to do with passing. What’s so interesting to me about the concept of passing, is that I can only ever feel like I’m passing when I’m focused on the opinions of others. There are so many ways to pass, endless and unique to you. Cool passing. Rich passing. Athletic passing. Straight passing. Smart passing. I don’t think being white passing was the sole source of my insecurity. But it is the path that made me aware I was trying to pass. Most of you aren’t biracial. But I’d be willing to bet you’ve felt the need to pass before.
The lesson I pull from passing, is that I can’t live my life for the approval of others. It’s an unfulfilling life. In that model, I either don’t get their approval, sinking my self-esteem. Or worse, I do get it, and then I’m forced to maintain the facade in order to keep it. There’s got to be a better way.
Alas, it doesn’t come with an easy solution. If fixing self-esteem was as easy as five jumping jacks and three payments of $9.99, I’d be richer and you might be jumping right now. But that’s not the way worthwhile things work. That which is worthwhile takes a while. Otherwise, it could never be worth the while.
I don’t have an easy solution for you; I do have three tools that make finding a better way easier for me. Now, these aren’t the answers to the test. To understand my answers, you’d need 28 years of Brady, but we ain’t got that kinda time. So instead of giving you the answers, this is how I studied. When combined with all the experience you have of being you, maybe you’ll discover your own unique answers. And that’s all the better, because in front of you, you’ve got a different version of the test.
The first tool that helped me build my self-confidence is awareness. Awareness is crucial because it allows me to notice when I’m doing things for the approval of others. Awareness is also crucial because sometimes when I notice I’m approval-seeking, my brain gets locked in on how I still haven’t learned my lessons. In these moments, awareness recognizes the beauty in the present around me so I can get back out of my head.
The second tool is grace. It doesn’t happen all at once and the journey isn’t linear. You’re not stupid because you didn’t know. You’re smart because you know it now. Take the lesson for what it is, and know you’ll have it when you need it.
The last tool is patience. TAF curates a community that makes it easier for me to find real friends. Unfortunately, by the transitive property, this means it’s harder to find real friends in the outside world. But harder does not mean impossible. They’re out there. You deserve to know them and they deserve to know you. I chase the wrong people when I try to impress. I stumble by accident on the right people when I live from myself. Good friendship is valuable. Don’t give it away for cheap.
These three tools: awareness, grace, patience. They won’t make you good friends, but maybe they’ll help good friends find you. They won’t make life more enjoyable, but maybe you’ll find you enjoy it more. They won’t make you more you, but maybe you’ll figure that out on your own. And on the ride home when the Blues come, they might even help you remember the TAF Magic is riding in your seat with you.
Brady Nichols was born and raised in Indianapolis, IN. The oldest of four boys, Brady has long found purpose in mentorship, leadership and being a big brother. Inspired by the deep bonds cultivated at the TAF summer conference, where he volunteers as a big brother to the high schoolers in the Youth program, Brady writes about good friendship and being true to your authentic self. Koi Fish is his only published work.
Leave a Reply