A group of Chapel Hill High School students, predominantly from Southeast Asia, form a small circle, juggling and passing a ball to one another to keep it from hitting the ground during lunch. The students are playing chinlone, a sport closely related to sepak takraw, also known as kick volleyball.
Chinlone is a very popular sport in Southeast Asia and is considered the national sport of Myanmar; in America, it is not so well known.
While some athletes compete for money and titles, most, like the students at Chapel Hill, play for fun and exercise. The students try to keep the ball in the air as long as possible, while passing it to teammates and adding in some tricks and fancy footwork here and there.
The objective of sepak takraw, the competitive version of chinlone, is similar to volleyball: get the ball to hit the ground in the opponent’s territory. But, unlike in volleyball, players can only use their heads, feet, knees and chest to touch the ball, and there are only two to four players on each side.
Chapel Hill junior Josiah Htoo said that playing chinlone can be painful in the beginning because the ball is made up of either rattan or a synthetic rubberized plastic, but he got used it.
“The ball is small and hard, and, at first, it hurt, but I’m okay now,” Htoo said.
The diameter of the ball is just under six inches, which, junior Saw Sunny Win Htein said, makes the game more challenging because Htein is used to competing with a soccer ball.
“A chinlone ball is smaller than a soccer ball. It is hard to maintain balance,” he said.
Htein likes playing chinlone because players need to work together to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible.
“When we play chilone, we have to communicate with each other, and we have to keep [the ball] in the air. We just play like volleyball, but instead, we use our feet,” Htein said.
Htoo said playing chinlone reminds him of his childhood and his native country.
“I saw chinlone everyday in Thailand, and, when I see or play it, it reminds me of my homeland,” he said.
Each month, a community of Southeast Asian, mainly Karen people, gather at Habitat for Humanity of Chapel Hill to watch a competitive chinlone game.
