'Go China!' no longer enough for Olympic fans
BEIJING -- The South Korean baseball team's cheerleaders sashayed in a flawless line, bellowing out the national victory song. Yu Ling, watching in awe with his fellow Chinese fans, had a serious case of cheer envy.
"The South Korean and Taiwanese cheering fans are so advanced. All we have is 'Zhong Guo Jia You!'" lamented Yu, a 25-year-old graduate student, referring to the ubiquitous cheer used by Chinese fans at the Olympics: "Go China!"
Chinese fans are finding it challenging to come up with other cheers to encourage their athletes during the country's biggest-ever sports event. They are trying -- with mixed results -- to copy the vocal efforts of visiting fans from other nations.
The Chinese, familiar with sports like table tennis, basketball and football, lack exposure to many sports on the Olympic agenda. There's also no tradition of attending college matches, where cheering routines are as much a part of sports in some countries as the players themselves.
Most spectators at the Olympics have been attending their first baseball game or tennis match, so they found themselves on a sharp learning curve, even needing to figure out when to cheer and, sometimes more importantly, when to stay quiet.
During last week's Taiwan-China baseball game, Taiwanese spectators used a popular cheer in which they chanted the batter's name, followed with "Go for a home run!" Chinese fans later imitated the Taiwanese, using the same chant, which was new to them, but replacing the names with their own players.
"Chinese soccer fans are going to do the 'wave' and cheer their hearts out," said Ren Hai, a professor at Beijing Sports University. "But baseball is hardly watched in China so you can't expect them to know how to react when the organ 'Charge!' song is played or how to creatively taunt the pitcher with sayings like: 'We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!' "
In preparation for the games, organizers created an official cheer for Chinese spectators: Clap twice, give the thumbs-up, clap twice more and throw both fists into the air, all while chanting "Go Olympics! Go China!"
Chinese fans were clearly enthralled -- and fascinated -- when an American cheerleading squad took to the court during time-outs at the sellout China-U.S. men's basketball game a week ago. With the music cranked up and several changes of costumes, the place was rocking, especially when a couple of the Chinese Olympic mascots got in on the action.
Beijing Olympics organizers launched a slew of spectator etiquette campaigns in preparation for the games, training more 800,000 students and 30 volunteer cheering squads. But exactly when to cheer was not so clear.
"It's my first basketball game, so I just yelled whenever the guy in front of me started chanting 'Go China,' Lu Qun, 45, said during China's recent victory over Germany. "In Chinese, to yell 'Defense' or 'Charge' sounds silly, but I want to invent some catchy Chinese slogans for future games."
Some Chinese spectators also have found it hard to control their excitement, particularly at tennis matches. Audiences are supposed to remain silent during each point so a player can hear the ball coming off an opponent's racket.
"I just want to cheer every time Li Na hits the ball in," said Zhang Xiahong, 32, who attended her first tennis match Friday, when Russia's Dinara Safina beat China's Li. "Sometimes, it's just too suffocating to contain my excitement, so I'll let out a yelp."
Some tennis Olympians, initially unnerved, were won over by the Chinese fans' passion.
"They were living and dying with each point. It's good because I usually get so angry, like, 'Be quiet,'" Serena Williams told a news conference after ousting France's Alize Cornet. "Now it actually makes me get excited they're so into the point. It's actually kind of cool."