Blog 4 - Friendship Games

This past weekend I took a trip to southern California with the Filipino club I am apart of on campus, Mga Kapatid. Mga Kapatid is the tagalog phrase which translated means “Brothers and Sisters”. The reason we traveled down south was for an event known as Friendship Games. Friendship Games is an event has been held annually for over 20 years. It is basically a large gathering of all the Filipino-American clubs on colleges all across the state and even in some other states such as Nevada and Hawaii. The day consists of various games that are played between the schools, many of them simple but fun games that are made to build bonds between the club members and the clubs themselves. The theme of the event, besides Friendship is S.P.U.F, or spirit, pride, unity and friendship. Throughout the day the clubs approach other clubs and “SPUF” one another, which mainly consists of various cheers and chants in order to keep the energy for the day alive and to further promote the theme. Although the purpose of the day is to get everyone together for a day of fun, there is a winner at the end of the day based on the games played and also the amount of “SPUF”-ing the clubs do. During the day, there are approximately 25-30 schools in attendance and each club usually brings anywhere from 50-150+ members which makes for a very loud and memorable experience. Sadly this was my fourth and final year in attendance, although the event is actually held in Fullerton, CA, where I am from. So maybe I’ll try to make an appearance next year.