Soccer becoming a unifying force for IU’s international students

Students in the Chinese Student Association, Hong Kong Student Association, Thailand Student Association, Indonesian Student Association, African Student Association and the Kosiers – the Korean students’ soccer team independent from the Korean Student Association – come from different cultures, but they all have a love of the game. \nEach association has formed its own soccer team, competing against each other. \n“We are a very loose organization and it’s hard for international associations like us to handle the problems with each other and with the other American people,” said Chen-yang Jiang, the captain of the Chinese Student Association’s soccer team. “But we still play because soccer makes us forget about all the problems and lets us concentrate only on the game.” \nThe associations’ teams play against each other, sometimes as much as once a week. A couple of teams, including the Chinese Student Association, Hong Kong Student Association and the Kosiers, are also joining IU’s intramural soccer league. \nIU’s intramural teams have guidelines for the players to follow. These rules apply equally to the six international associations’ soccer teams who play in the \nintramural games. \nBut Jiang said the international associations’ soccer teams are different from other intramural soccer teams. \n“(Intramural soccer teams) don’t have to go through cultural biases and cultural adjustments like us,” Jiang said. \nJose Paolo Lei, the organizer of the Hong Kong Student Association’s soccer team, and Eung Hyun Kim, the president of the Kosiers, said it’s sometimes difficult to coordinate a soccer game with players, but the real challenge comes in trying to motivate players to play in intramural games against the “Americans.”\nLei said that some of the international student groups feel incapable of challenging the American intramural teams because the American players are often bigger and stronger. \nStill, Kim said he constantly encourages his players to be confident. \nThe six international associations’ soccer teams are working to become more organized every year. Soccer helps them forget the difficulties of being “foreigners.” \n“I’m sure most of the international associations’ soccer teams will agree with me,” Kim said, “when I say that even though we face different problems than the intramural soccer teams, we won’t stop playing soccer because we just love it, no matter if we have more problems or we don’t.”