My week in Perth
The previous week, I wasn’t at Youth.SG because I was in Perth with my school football team. We were participating in the Indian Rim Asian University Games (IRAUG) 2009. The Games are a celebration of sport for the sake of friendship. The inaugural Games in 2005 featured over 800 competitors from 26 universities in 10 countries - the largest international university sports competition ever hosted in Australia. The IRAUG features various sports such as badminton, beach volleyball, cricket, hockey, judo, rugby 7s, tennis, and my personal favourite, football. This is the second time I’m participating in the IRAUG. The first was 2 years ago, in 2007. We got bronze then, and we got bronze again in 2009.
However, for the IRAUG, results were not the main priority. The IRAUG is all about culture and friendship through sports. This year, I got to meet people and co-athletes who were from countries like Papua New Guinea, China, Japan and India. And one thing I realised was that the conversation starters would always go along the lines of, “So, what sport do you play?” even before asking which country they were from.
If not for the Games, I don’t think I would have gotten the chance to meet people from the abovementioned countries. Mainly because I don’t travel much. And because we were from a similar age group, it was pretty easy to get along with each other. We found out we listen to the same bands, like the same food and we all agreed that Perth was an amazing place.
So we made friends, and exchanged Facebooks. That way, we get to keep in touch with each other even after the Games when we all go back to our home countries.
Sadly, I’m in my final year in school. That means I won’t get to go to another IRAUG. Well, it doesn’t matter. Not much. I’ve participated twice, I enjoyed myself and most importantly, I made new friends. I think I’ve pretty much got the spirit of the Games ingrained inside of me.
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