IE Global Village

IE Business School: An unusual school with unusual people!

I'm exhausted~ but extremely happy. Yesterday's Global Village was an ultimately fun afternoon event! Lotsa cool stuff, lotsa cool people!

Global Village reminds me very much of the IS (International School of Manila) Dinner my family and I enjoyed immensely from many many years back. Students from all over the world put up stalls that allowed others to sample their local dishes and discover information about their home country. There were both professional and local performances. I was personally eager for this day because I volunteered to represent the IE India Club (strange I know considering I'm from the Philippines and am part of the board of the IE Singapore Club~ but anyway, I love Indian culture so I was happy to perform on their behalf).

Svenja wears an ultra cool dirndl while Tiago sports Portugal's national rugby jersey. Desh looks like a Bollywood actor ready for his camera close-up! 

Some people came to the event wearing their national / traditional costumes. There were Indian sarees and dhoti kurtas to Japanese kiminos to Saudi Arabian thobes. Others wore tourism-branded shirts (Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Peru) while others wore sports jerseys (Oh Brazil!)! It was both colorful and interesting!

It was a packed event! No wonder tickets were sold out!

Global Village was held at the IE Library~ precisely at the same spot where the buses picked us up for the Opening Ceremony. There was a queue at the entrance. People were filling up this raffle stub. As it turns out, the IE Korean Club sponsored a couple of cool raffles prizes: an LG Optimus G phone and a 47" Smart LG LED TV (whaaaaat)!   Since there were only a couple hundred students in school, the chances of winning were relatively pretty high, in my opinion! After the madness of filling up the raffles stubs, we proceeded to the open area to get a sample of some food!

This was the venue around 4:15pm. Later, this place will be packed with people!

There were booths all over! Each booth prepared some mini samples of popular dishes from their country. Some had theirs catered via a restaurant based in Madrid. Others, I heard, their embassies actually pitched in and catered the food. I was particularly impressed with the Saudi Arabian embassy~ their booth looked really cool in my opinion (food, costumes, everything). But that said, everyone had cool stuff~ so it was hard to judge & prioritize which stall would get my share of my belly! :p

Colombian food! Since this was the first stall I ate here first. I'm sure others started here first too!

Look at all these things to eat! And as the sign says~ 100% Colombiano!

The Peruvian stall featuring the famous aji amarillo dish!

The Korean stall~ Life's Good... indeed! I ate my biggest servings here! I was so happy!

The Saudi Arabians had some very awesome, awesome food! Nothing I've ever tried!

Team America~ YEAH! They had lotsa spiced chicken wings, watermelon and tea with strawberries. Summertime food! 

It felt like one big picnic, actually. What was nice as well were all these performances. I especially appreciated whenever some students performed as well. But in case they didn't, they were totally into the performances. 

We were serenaded by professional singers! It was really awesome to hear pros sing songs from their countries!

Wow, right? It was seriously one big Mardi Gras but with everything in IE's backyard!!

Costumes galore! All these amazing things to enjoy while drinking your beer (not mine though)

And of course, there was also the performance of the IE India Club... which I was a part of. But wait, I'm not Indian... so what am I doing here?

Well, it is Global Village~ so regardless being an outsider I was an adopted member of the club. But interestingly... if you must know, my mother's family was based in India (Goa) before. A couple hundred years, I believe. But the entire Bollywood thing began in Singapore. My boss (who was from India) recommended Bollywood dance classes for the office for 3 reasons: 1) to de-stress 2) to help build camaraderie and 3) to help keep staff fit (trust me, you'll burn calories doing some moves).

I talked about Bollywood dancing to Sharad at the beginning of the program. And later, he asked me if I was interested to join them dance for Global Village... and my natural answer was yes (Gautam, you're the reason). And so, the countless evening hours ensued after... we probably spent something like 30 hours practicing. It was a whole lot!

Yes, that's us in action! This was actually the 2nd song out of 5! (Photo c/o Nishant Agarwal)

As of the last practice session we had, I managed pretty well in terms of breathing / catching up to the beat. What was hard for this performance though, was that even at 520pm, the sun was probably at its peak. It was hot as hell! By the 3rd song, I was exhausted... but I tried my best to still put on a smile during the entire performance.

Below is a video clip that my classmate Mazyad managed to capture during the performance. He managed to record the last minute of the dance sequence (all 5 songs we danced to approximated to 6 minutes). Even without being able to see everything, I was pretty happy to see the action from the crowd's point of view! Anyway, here's that vid:

It was lotsa fun! Unfortunately, well, the dance did take its toll on Priyanka's foot. At some point she actually lost one of her shoes. Because the stage was really hot because of the sun, she kinda burned the sole of her foot. Ouch!

After the performance, I received so much positive feedback from people. It was nice to know that it was a hit for the IE students in attendance! :) ~ and I was likewise glad that all the hard work that Priyanka and Sharad put in to choreograph the steps paid off. Seriously, credit goes to both of them... and likewise to Sakhi, Dhiresh and Naomi for equally putting as much effort as they did!

Post-performance photo (yeah, I wasn't looking apparently)! Awesome work guys!

There was actually lotsa free drinks at Global Village... but I opted for water because I felt pretty dehydrated after the dance. If I'm not mistaken, I must've downed 8 bottles of water post the dance. I was that thirsty... and, well, it was still hot!

It felt like a Sunday afternoon by the park~ well... but with lotsa people!

For the remainder of the day I just hung around the various stalls, had lotsa chats here and there and sampled more stuff. And of course, there were more performances. One of the performances I enjoyed was from Azerbaijan~ well, what I liked about it was that the Azerbaijanis who were there were really proud of their culture. I could see the pride in their eyes and they cheered on. I borrowed a flag from Anar and joined in the festivities. It was really fun!

Anar captures the behind-the-scenes action while his lovely wife Aygun (now expecting) cheers on! 

Everyone was in a good mood! C'mon~ food, beer and lotsa cheers! 

Me with my bus-to-Segovia buddy Sushant! :)

The pharoahs! John & Shehab give us the lowdown on Egyptian culture! Loved their stall a lot!!!

Natalie and Khadija show me a sample of Canadian hockey (Nat was pretty good at deflecting)!

Now, if there was anything extremely memorable about Global Village... it was the Japanese performance. Those guys blew everyone away. I guess it also has to do with people's experiences with  the Japanese~ that they can be often quiet or reserved.

Well, screw that. For Global Village, the folks from Japan decided to imitate a girl group. And oh, did I mention that they're predominantly guys? See the photos for yourself! It was a major laugh trip!!!

NOBODY EXPECTED ANY OF THIS! IT WAS AWESOME!!!

My classmate is actually the one behind in yellow tights~ everyone gave him a standing ovation!!!

Daisuke sporting a Snow White dress. Don't worry, his wife was supportive & happily taking photos from the crowd!

Everyone wanted a piece of the action! The most entertaining performance ever!

Everyone couldn't stop laughing. They were instant celebrities after their performance! Everyone wanted a photo with them~ as in everybody! The mood in the air was joyful & fun-filled! Thanks guys~ this was truly one of those icing-on-the-cake-plus-the-cherries-on-top moments! Awesome!

Sterling & Annie snap a photo with Daisuke from A2 (Professionally a respectable lawyer, might I add)!

I chose IE Business School for its diversity. While I was certain that other business schools also had a good share of people from different countries, I was also certain that IE was the stronger in that respect because it selected students who were diverse themselves (socially, educationally and professionally). Global Village was an awesome event that celebrated such~ and it was a good break to have after midterms... and 2 weeks before finals. If I could celebrate Global Village again I'd love to~ hopefully with Sohyun so she can experience the fun as well! :)