Life of an INTJ
Eric Kao
Washington University in St. Louis
B.S. in Business Administration '12
Primary Major: Accounting
Second Major: Marketing
Minor: Applied Microeconomics
Resume (Updated 03/23/12)
Contact: ekao91(at)gmail(dot)com
Mission: To share my thoughts and finds with the world
My Taiwanese name is 高新明. Sometimes I'd like to think it means I'm bringing about a better tomorrow.
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Boba in California is better. (Taken with instagram)
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I cackled. A lot.
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WOW FANTASTIC BABY.
Since 2005, I have written a reflection after every year at the Taiwanese American Foundation (TAF), a week-long summer camp I have been attending since 2002. After attending last year’s ITASA Midwest Conference, I was amazed at the potential that the Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students Association had to further the spread of TAFlove - the impact of irreplaceable friendships built on common interests and experiences.
I think my decision to apply for ITASA National Board last April/May made the biggest impact on my 2011-2012 school year. I did end up getting pretty absorbed into it and people started commenting how ITASA became my life (you know it’s actually true when people are telling you this, and it’s not just self-proclaimed). It wasn’t difficult though, because unlike some others on National Board, I had always been proud of being Taiwanese (now identifying as Taiwanese American) because besides going to TAF every year, my parents would bring me along to TAA, FAPA, NATWA, and other events, even as a child.
**Video recaps of the Summer Summit, Midwest Leadership Retreat, East Coast Conference and Midwest Conference have been consolidated here for your convenience.
**For my vision of what ITASA has the potential to be / can become, click here [link currently unavailable].
It’s been a long year, and I’ve had time to think about what ITASA means to me.
The main impact ITASA has made for me is allowing me to expand my circles of friends to an extent that was previously unfathomable. ITASA gives you the opportunity to connect with peers from all over the country, if you’re willing to do so. Sure, if you attend the conferences you’ll also have the chance to network with speakers, but to me, connecting is more important than networking. As the year progressed, I started to realize that some of these friends would be for life. Having a web of friends from all over the country - that’s something that can’t be replaced. As long as you care, the connection quickly becomes more than just ITASA, and you hang out just for the sake of hanging out.
The result? This last semester has been epic.
Chilling with new friends at Brown University
Karaoke Love!
Eating out at the Taiwanese 527 Cafe!
I’ve been adopted into UIUC TASC!
Hanging out in Times Square
Lunch at Gourmet Dumpling House!
Exploring Chinatown on a Sunday Morning with some Ohio State students!
Adopted by Northwestern Students as well!
Out to eat at Bob’s Noodles in Maryland, with students from JHU, UMCP, NYU, Rutgers!
Planking in the Smithsonian Art Museum
Despite all this fun, I still have one trip planned after finals (right before I graduate), where I will visit my friends at Illinois, Northwestern, and Ohio State. You may find that there’s just not enough time at conferences to catch up with all of the people you’ll get to know, so you’ve got to make time for your friends. I’m so glad that I’ve been able to meet who I have, and I really do hope that we’ll be friends for a long time. Even when we part ways, I like to paraphrase one of my friends and not say “goodbye” but “see you later,” because you all matter to me, and I’ll make sure that our paths do cross again.
Moral of the story? I highly recommend that you apply for ITASA National Board, especially if you’re passionate about Taiwan, and all that Taiwanese Americans have to offer. It can be a life changing decision, or at the very least, a very good one.
-Eric Kao, 2011-2012 National Public Relations Director
Connect with ITASA!
Here’s a brief post with some of the major Taiwanese events to I attended over the past school year.
It all started with Summer Summit. I got into LAX after being in class for less than a week, and got to chill with a lot of people. Nice weather, new friends, and Korean BBQ - what more could you ask for?
National Board in Southern California
I swung by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to cover their Taiwanese Cultural Day, which was a really cool event jointly held by two of the Taiwanese groups on that campus, TASC and TIA.
What’s cool? A majority of people in this photo are now my friends!
Early in second semester, Northwestern held the Midwest Leadership retreat, while I personally had already done most of the workshops in some other context, it was still a great experience to meet even more people.
Group photo at Northwestern
A week later, we found ourselves in Atlanta for the ITASA East Coast Conference - where I got to meet even more people! Giant groups came from the New York / New Jersey area, as well as Maryland!
ITASA National Board in Atlanta
Fast forward a month or so, and we wound up in Ann Arbor for the Midwest Conference, where another nearly 200 students got together - some people were meeting for the first time, and others were busy catching up after many years.
ITASA National Board in Ann Arbor
Connect with ITASA!
Shooting the ITASA Footprints promo - Photo via Stephanie Liao
2011 Summer Summit
2012 Midwest Leadership Retreat
2012 East Coast Conference
2012 Midwest Conference
2012 ITASA Footprints Promo
2013 ITASA East Coast Conference Promo
It’s been a fun year, everyone!
Connect with ITASA!
Uh, is this cool? Yes.
(Found via Ian C.)
Hello people, I miss you.
2012 ITASA Midwest Conference
We’ve had many articles on being Taiwanese American, the role of Taiwanese Americans, and supporting Taiwan. These really inspired me to reflect upon what I personally feel it means to be to be Taiwanese American, and what I think our mindset going forward should be. I wrote a series of…
I decided that Part IV would be the most important out of my Taiwanese American series to share. I’m happy with the positive feedback, but would love to hear a dissenter’s point of view as well.
This is where my time goes.
Sorry for jumping on the #Linsanity and adding yet another post into the discussion, but I hope you find it worth the read.
(Quick note, I use the masculine “he”/”him” in this post, for the sake of concision, rather than sexism)
What is leadership?
Leadership is Influence. (A takeaway lesson from TAF 2011)
A good leader is not always the one with a big voice in the front of the room. A good leader is not always the one bossing people around. A good leader is not always the one with the longest track record in an organization.
What is a leader?
A leader is someone who can create change - Someone who sees the status quo as imperfect, and takes action to move it in a better direction. So, a leader has to start with this vision, but can never realize it single-handedly. He has to be able to convince people to believe in his vision, because without followers, he has no influence, and thus is not a leader. He has to empower his followers (team, organization, etc.) to let them reach their potential, because in the end, that makes the entire group more influential. (Note that the “first follower(s)” of this leader are also leaders because they took a chance and believed in the vision of someone else, and are willing to help their cause, but this is for a different time)
So now there’s this Jeremy Lin hype. Last night he scored 10 points. Does that make him less of a leader? Nope. He had 13 assists, meaning he helped others get their points, for the greater cause - the Knicks. The thing is, I don’t think other point guards get as much credit as they deserve. Over the past few years, I’ve seen Rajon Rando (Boston Celtics) make some incredible assists that didn’t make the highlight reel. I don’t know basketball that well, but isn’t that what point guards are supposed to do? What this means is that our world has been too obsessed with the big stars. Don’t get me wrong, big stars can be leaders, but when they start being all about themselves, then they become bad leaders.
What I’m hoping is that with the Jeremy Lin hype comes an appreciation for the servant leaders in the world.
I would recommend that you read this series in order, but each piece should be relatively self-contained.
Part I (History) | Part II (I am Taiwanese American) | Part III (The Game of Politics…)
Despite the fact that I wrote a section on the game of politics, I don’t believe that it is the Taiwanese American (TA)’s place to meddle in Taiwanese politics. I think we should care about election results, but because most of us live in the United States, we should take a little bit of a step back and let the people of Taiwan decide. Instead of bitching and moaning about politics, why don’t we take action?
If not politics, then what?
In the United States, Taiwanese often gets lumped into the categories “Chinese” or “Other Asian”. If you keep your mind open, this grouping isn’t unfair – the question we must ask ourselves is, “have we really given people a significant reason to make the distinction?” While there are many influential Taiwanese-American people, we’ve only made a small dent on the world. It’s like physics – think of the basic equation F=m*a. The two pieces work together and having a huge amount of one doesn’t really matter that much if you have very little of the other. Perhaps from a cultural point of view, Force = Members * Accomplishments.
A corollary? If we want to increase F, we must:
- Make apathetic Taiwanese Americans… well, less apathetic – that is, have them become a member of the community. It’s also great to have people who aren’t of Taiwanese heritage be advocates of Taiwan - They deserve a lot of respect for being able to open up and accept a different culture. They also certainly are members of our community.
- Empower the TA community and train servant leaders who will make a positive impact on the world – that is, help the community make an impact through philanthropy, idea generation, media production, whatever we have to offer. It is important to note here that we don’t just give back to the TA community, as tempting as that may be. Other groups are similarly trying to increase their F, and if we have the resources, we should help others achieve their missions as well.
I think what ends up happening is a snowball effect as well. As people see TAs doing big things, those who used to be apathetic about being TA will bandwagon – an excellent example of this, though I’m hesitant to use it, is Jeremy Lin’s recent ascent to stardom.
Why should this route be taken? People (both Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese) must care about Taiwan, before you can expect them to think long and hard on the tough decisions and their implications for the island’s future. Check out ITASA and TaiwaneseAmerican.org - two organizations that seem to share this vision of developing the TA community instead of meddling with politics.
Politics turn people off. Actions speak louder than words.
