World Game, a special experience (draft 1)

I took part in the World Game as a reporter to interview the foreign players on behalf of my high school when I was an eleventh grade student. It was a hot summer in 2009, the time of a big activity in my hometown, Kaohsiung. Athletes from all over the globe came to this city. They were well-prepared and excited about this event; they can’t wait to battle with other countries.

Each school in Kaohsiung was going to take charge of a sport event, and my school was responsible for the sport fistball. We had to do a lot of things: interviewing the players, setting the World Game website ourselves and finally writing a report. However, it’s not all the students can do this. In order to get the chance, the students were asked to have some tests before entering the reporter team.

After an English composition test and the oral quiz, I luckily got the chance to enter this reporter team which contained thirteen members. We began to have a series of training such as writing, speaking, and information collecting ability. Time flied, several months later, we were in the sport field!

It was a hot day, the team members, including me, were all excited about what we were going to do: contacting and talking with foreigners. The country I was going to interview was Germany. After they finished the match, my partner and I entered their tent and started the interview. We picked one player to talk with. Then, the interview began. He told me how long he had been playing this sport, how much time he spent on training every day, how did he think about this game and other competitors and finally, of course, how did he think about Taiwan.

He was pretty patient and passionate to answer our questions. Therefore, we chatted happily and had a complete interview. I didn’t know how hard-working the players were until then. They all have a job; nonetheless, they had to train after work no matter how tired they were. To my surprise, they were willing to do it and wouldn’t feel toil. Moreover, they had been playing fistball since they were just little kids. I think maybe this is the reason why it was hard for Taiwan to win over them because we just play the sport for only one year and maybe the attitude is different from them. After the interview, we gave them our handmade card; as a reward, they kindly hugged us and took pictures with us.

Through this event, I broadened my horizon and had a special experience contacting foreigners. This is the first time for me to understand how big the world is and how tiny I am. In one word, I was glad that I have the chance to do something special and I really gained much knowledge not only about the sport, fistball, but also the difference between country and country. Although the process was exhausting and time-consuming, I firmly believed that it was worth doing.