On the evening of May 1, the Leshan Olympic Center was ablaze with lights and buzzing with excitement. A highly anticipated match of the 2025/2026 "Sichuan Bank" Sichuan Provincial City Football League final stage took place—Leshan team hosting Liangshan team. Amidst the halftime whistles and goal cheers, an even more spectacular "storm" of ethnic culture swept across the stadium. 320 student performers from our college, dressed in traditional Yi costumes, presented four well-choreographed acts—"Splendid Attire," "Yi Embroidery," "Chaerwa" (a traditional Yi woolen cloak), and "Torch"—during the pre-game warm-up and halftime break, infusing the high-stakes match with profound Yi cultural heritage.
Particularly eye-catching were 17 special faces among the volunteers and performance teams—international students from Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal studying at our college. They not only threw themselves wholeheartedly into the event's volunteer services and cultural performances but also, for the first time, donned exquisite Yi costumes, transforming into "sons and daughters of Yi" and standing as a unique cross-cultural highlight under the stadium lights before tens of thousands of spectators.
During the event, these 17 international students took part in the mobile performances of "Splendid Attire" and "Yi Embroidery." Together with their Chinese peers, they learned the basic steps of the Yi Dati dance and discovered the stories behind the millennium-old traditions of the Torch Festival and Yi embroidery. To deliver their best in just a few minutes on stage, the international students began practicing weeks in advance, perfecting everything from hand gestures to facial expressions in an effort to capture the warm and unpretentious spirit of the Yi people.
Organizing this participation in the Sichuan Super League's volunteer services and cultural showcase is an important part of our college's ongoing "Experience China" educational series for international students. Unlike the static model of museum visits or lectures, this activity embedded international students deeply into a major public event that connects city and ethnicity, sports and tradition.
These 17 international volunteers, brimming with youthful energy, distilled the most iconic symbols of Yi culture—splendid costumes, embroidery, woolen cloaks, and torches—into a sports presentation lasting just a few minutes. This not only added unique "Leshan warmth" to the Sichuan Super League but also, through live television broadcasts and online streaming, projected Leshan's image as a "window for external ethnic cultural exchange from Sichuan's ethnic regions" onto a much broader stage.
