National Taiwan University Alumni Association of North California

Thank you all for your warm support - we enjoyed an evening of spectacular fun with your presence. Thank you for inviting your classmates, your spouse's classmates or your club members to come see every body at the Azaleas Night. The volunteer based NTUAA Board, under the leadership of president Sue Sun and the Yearbook Chief Editor Stephen Tang with their crew and other volunteers, had sweated many sleepless nights to bring to you this fantastic event. We had a lot of fun, and we sure hope you did too.

Thank goodness it was not so hot that evening, and all the ladies were dressed up beautifully for the gala. During the formal meal with steak or roasted chicken which finished with a scrumptious dessert, Chairman Shirley Link took the microphone around and interviewed alumni and guests at each table, and there were over 40 tables. There were alumni from basically each and every single department in Taida. Folks chuckled when hearing introduction of Taida "Folk Dance Department", Taida "Music Singing College" or even Taida "Bridge College"! The 196"8" folks occupied a whole table up at the very front!

The formal program was emceed by our young alum and TV Talk show host Orlando Shih and Tony Lee. The Taida symphony group opened the first act, followed by choir singing and folk dance performance. And then the popular comedian host and author Ling-yak Wu gave a 15 minute talk poking fun at being middle age. Judged by the audience hearty laughs, she apparently resonated well with this crowd!

After that, there was a short operetta performed by David Fong and Barry Lin troupe and very colorful ShangHai Night dance ensembles and Chinese tradition music instrument performance. We ended up with a lively raffle drawing hosted by Julia Hsia and Shirley Lin, where more than 70 prize items were given out. One of the lucky winners got a winning streak bringing home 6 prizes!! Every one seemed to be very happy whether getting a prize or not.

Julia announced the goal of raising $3000 from raffle in order for NTUAA to disperse to local charity organizations. We were a bit shy from that, but thanks to the generous act from an alumni couple who kindly chipped in a sizable sum to help us reach that goal. We are very grateful for our alumni's big heartedness.

So if you missed all that, at least you can take a look of the pictures and glance at our ur evening program. We will be putting a few other events throughout the year. And I hope we'll see you at our Azaleas Night in 2009, if not any time sooner.

In the mean time, dodge the heat, keep cool and open your heart. Help the poor and those who are genuinely less fortunate than we are. We are thinking about doing a fund-raising event to help a bit to those victims and families devastated by the Sichuan Earthquake.

If you've got some idea for the Earthquake relief or would like to help out, shoot me or Sue Sun an email. We would love to have your participation in helping out.

Peace on Earth and Best to You!

Shirley Lin

Chairman, NTUAA 2008

北加州台灣大學校友會

理事長: 林筱莉

會長: 孫小雲暨全體理事

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