Aug 21 2008
Adding Gas
The Australian basketball team is beating Russia by 20 points at the start of the 4th quarter. In the upper reaches of the stands, the crowd is unified in the Chinese chant: “Eluosi, jiayou!” (Literally, “Russia, add gas!”) The call to “add gas” is the most standard of cheers here. The cheering Chinese are lead by a diminutive man who is turning red in the face as he madly waves his Russian flag. The pockets of Russians in the stands have their own cheer (chanting the Russian word for the motherland: “Ro-see-ya! Ro-see-ya!”), but evidently the Chinese cheerleaders feel the Russian fans need a helping hand. Jiayou, Russia, add gas!
American fans with Chinese backup at the US-Japan women's soccer game.
In keeping with the Olympic spirit, Chinese organizers are guaranteeing that every venue is electric and every team has fans. You can be guaranteed that when a Chinese team or athlete is involved, the stands are alive with red flags, stickers, face paint and noisemakers. The presence of a Chinese star, like diver Guo Jingjing or gymnast Yang Wei, makes domestic fans positively apoplectic with joy. But even at China’s weaker events, such as water polo, spectators show up in throngs and if they cannot cheer for their own team, they are more than happy to cheer for someone else’s.
Part of this is stage-managed. Because the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) released only one-fifth of the total tickets to other countries (the host country normally releases one half), many teams have had relatively fewer fans. When early on the TV cameras showed some quiet, empty stands despite “sold out venues,” BOCOG organized local Chinese into cheering squads. Each squad is lead by a more experienced cheerleader, someone to keep time and teach new chants. The worse a team is losing, the more the squad is encouraged to yell—just to ensure every team feels welcome.
At many venues, large LCD displays give directions to fans. When the Jamaican women swept the 100m dash, the screen in the Bird’s Nest read “Amazing!”—lest that was in doubt. For less spectacular finishes, the screen might read simply “Good job,” or exhort spectators to “Cheer!” and “Give Round of Applause!” [sic] The word choice indicates to the crowd the quality of the performance they just witnessed. Once, after I saw Angola dramatically lose a basketball game, we were sympathetically told to “Cheer for Angola!” Spectators are surprisingly obliging to these transparent efforts on the part of officials to “add gas” to the home crowd.
The Chinese have also discovered a piece of old Western wisdom: cheerleaders “add gas” to any crowd. People who have been familiar with China for more than a few years are in shock. The Beach Girls at the beach volleyball venue and The Beijing Dream Dancers at the basketball stadium have created the most fuss because of their scanty outfits and provocative dancing. They have pompoms, miniskirts and synchronized dance steps. The Beach Girls teach spectators The Wave between sets and the Dream Dancers were trained by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. While the Dream Dancers are not yet as experienced or as blonde, they compensate with enthusiasm and skin.
Cheerleaders at soccer venue and the red "fuwa", one of the 5 mascots of the Games.
But not everything is stage-managed—a large part of the energy and goodwill flowing from local spectators is natural. Chinese people are genuinely thrilled to play host to the world’s athletes and fans. As long as China is not playing, ordinary Chinese spectators are also anxious to learn cheers in other languages and to cheer for foreign athletes. I was recently in a mixed crowd of Hungarian and Chinese spectators at a water polo game in which everyone was chanting Hungarian cheers in unison. Then the Chinese taught everyone how to cheer in Chinese: Xiongyali jiayou! Add gas Hungary! It was as close to experiencing “One World, One Dream” as I have been in these Games so far.