“Yup, you can be both the director and the actor”: Betty Mengqi Shi on the Fun of Sports and Media
Betty with Her Colleagues in the Cal Intramural Sports Department (Source: Linkedin)
If you force me to pinpoint a person in my friend circle who is a jack of all trades (also, a master of all trades) in both sports and media, I will say Betty Mengqi Shi without blinking an eye. Betty is a third-year Chinese international student at Cal, where she majors in media studies. A life-long FC Barcelona fan, she has been extensively involved in CalTV as well as the Cal Intramural Sports Department, where she “monopolizes” the department by being an active soccer player, a student soccer referee, a social media intern. In addition, she also produces those exciting Cal soccer highlights that you desperately yearn for after every match. She’s skilled on stage and off: she’s the person who does flashy performances on the fields, suddenly pulling a pile of yellow and red cards in front of you like a magician, and she influences you with multi-layered photos and edited videos from the backstage like a director overseeing the unfolding of the entire project. How does she accomplish all of that while being an undergraduate student -- and how fascinating must it be to work in multiple roles all at once? With all these lingering unanswered questions, I decided to catch up with her right before her next cinematographic highlight project. On a bright and sunny Sunday morning at Cal, Betty and I stopped by a small pavilion near Barrows Hall, where she demystified some of my hyperbolic assumptions:
[This Q & A has been edited and condensed for coherence.]
Haoming Tang: You’ve come pretty far as a media studies major. But you are also the only international student I know who studies media. How did you develop an interest in it in the first place? How did it appeal to you?
Betty Shi: It’s actually a quite depressing story (laughs). In high school, teachers mixed everyone up into new classes. I got assigned into a class where I knew nobody and it was really hard for me to talk to anyone. Media was something I turned to. I watched a lot of films and I read a lot of book-related stuff. Media was an instrument that could help me relax and self-communicate. It helped me express my emotions. When we are talking about films, it is easier to talk about our feelings and to see how others are feeling. My personalities got influenced by many films I watched during that time. After high school, I really wanted to learn more about media holistically. It’s kind of different here from what I learned back in China, so I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity of studying abroad and do media studies. As I continue, I feel like actually this is some field I really wanted to work on in the future. Using media, you can help people understand each other. I want to know how to use that power to create changes and differences, but I am not an evil person (laughs).
Haoming: I am always amazed by the fact that you could combine your passion for sports, especially soccer, and media. In the intramural sports department, how did you remain involved? How do you feel about your responsibilities both as someone who loves sports, but also as someone who oversees sports?
Betty: First, Força Barça (laughs)!I started playing soccer since primary school, but it’s like really bad soccer. I didn’t do well, but I like the feeling of cooperating with my teammates to try goals and all sorts of techniques you saw on television, all of which I couldn’t do (laughs). Currently l am working at Cal IMand I was the only one running the social media platforms. I took pictures and made highlight videos at major tournaments, edited them, and posted them on Twitter. It’s an opportunity to create a community among the student players, student referees and staffs. Before I started working, I was already friends with a lot of refs. They are an interesting group where players may have a lot of misunderstandings about. It might be like:
“Sigh. This ref does not know what he is doing here!” But then refs have their sayings and sometimes it’s difficult for them as well. It’s not true that they just want to put this yellow card on you or they hate this sports. They love sports and share the same passions as well! That’s why I first wanted to join as a referee. Because of my media intern position, I had the opportunity to be on field to talk to my referee colleagues. I did little challenge videos asking them to do weird things for me. For instance, for volleyball they have to spin around, toss the ball over the net, and hit the target. Actually it’s kind of stupid (laughs). I felt like they had a lot of fun with me.
Betty with Her Referee Colleagues (Source: Betty Shi)
Haoming Tang: Being a referee is definitely not easy. When you were working as a referee, was there anything striking about the athlete-referee dynamics that caught your attention?
Betty Shi: When I worked as a referee, the interactions are overall pleasant. There is mutual understanding between the two groups. I really appreciate when players come to me and say:
“Thank you ref. Thank you for your work!”
I feel respected and I have this sense of community feeling simply with people who come to have a friendly game and share the same passions. Also there was this moment when team A was playing against team B, and this guy from team A just did some wonderful tricks on the field. And then in the intersection or after the game, sometimes we would see these two teams staying together and say: “That was really amazing, what you did on the court”. When I heard those conversations, I felt that this is what we were trying to do here, to build a community.
Haoming Tang: It’s notable that you are doing all these awesome activities to create a sense of community at Cal, especially as an international student. As someone who comes from a different culture, have you noticed any differences in the way students participate in sports while you are playing or refereeing?
Betty Shi: I play in soccer leagues in our school’s intramural sports as well. When our opponents are not great, people like me could go on court and have some fun out there (laughs). In circumstances where my team is losing, or when I am asked to substitute someone who plays really well on the field, I would be just really nervous. I feel like getting me up there to replace guys who plays so well would simply decrease the chance of us winning the game. But when I am a referee, I feel like there are people who do not play well but they play really confidently on the court. Everybody else is like that. Some players may even argue with each other for an opportunity to be on the field, and this is very different from what I am thinking about normally. I am not sure if it’s a cultural issue because it could be just personal, but I am definitely noticing a difference here.
Betty with Her Cal Soccer Friends (Source: Betty Shi)
Betty’s Photography for Intramural Players (Image Source: Linkedin)
Haoming Tang: Well, thank you ref, soccer player, intern, and photographer for all the work you have done!
Betty Shi: Yep. It’s totally worth all the balls I’ve been hit by: baseballs, soccer, basketballs, volleyballs, you name it (laughs).