Individualism and Collectivism

I have dealt with a lot of foreigners in my life. My family have had many exchange students in the past. We've had some from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Ecuador and a few more I can't think of right now. The thing that caught my attention was the section on individualism and collectivism in relation to culture. With all these students coming in and out of the house I was bound to learn things not only about them as a person but about the place they lived. They really did think of thinks differently. Most of the kids from Europe were very fond of themselves. They were great but you could definetely tell that they thought of themselves more. I played soccer with many of them and the Europeans tended to act like they wer superior and didn't need the help of others. The Zimbabwean, Ecuadorean, and the many Japanese students that lived with us were way more team oriented. When I was in Japan we had a pick up game in the park. As my host brothers started to play they were passing so fast and hardly kept the ball to themselves. An example of the individualism would be a Finnish player that came and played my soccer team in high school. The rest of my team really disliked playing with him after a while because he would not give the ball up to save his life.