We need a new chant!

I have been meaning to comment on this for the past several months as the Olympics loomed, but somehow it kept slipping my mind.

The Chinese suffer from a serious deficit in the area of sporting chants. They really only have ONE: Jia you! This, I think, means literally "add oil", so I suspect the idiom may originally have had something to do with refilling lamps, but it has evolved into something more like "Step on the gas!", an all-purpose injunction to try just a bit harder.

You have probably heard this on your televisions over the past few weeks: tens of thousands of Chinese yelling "Zhongguo - jia you!" for hour upon hour without cease. "Come on, China!" It's really not much of a chant, is it?

And I can assure you, it becomes desperately, desperately tedious after....... oh, a few minutes at most. One of the greatest disincentives to running a marathon in China (I really want to give the Beijing one another crack in 6 weeks' time, but I fear my currently dodgy state of health will not allow it) is not the appalling air quality but the depressing certainty that you will have to endure 4 hours or more of continuous "Jia you, laowai!" from well-meaning Chinese spectators. (And, particularly towards the end of a marathon, you really don't want anyone telling you to "step on the gas!")

OK, there are just a few variations - but they are much, much less common. During the Olympics, there was quite a bit of "Ai guo" ("Love the country!") as an occasional respite from the bloody "Jia you".

TIME's China Blog reported a couple of weeks ago that on the night of the Closing Ceremony crowds in Tiananmen Square were chanting "Zhongguo qilai!", which means "China wakes" or "China rises". The TIME blog article explains the history and resonance of the expression, particularly the fact that it was used by Mao in his speech proclaiming the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949. These days, of course, it's becoming associated with China's progress towards becoming an economic and military superpower. A slightly disturbing outburst of nationalism, I find. (China's great obsession - a rather tiresome and depressing one - throughout this Olympic year has been to trounce America in the medals table as a demonstration, a warning that it will soon be capable of trouncing it in GDP and arms production too.)

Ah, and then, of course, there's sha bi - the favourite chant of Chinese football supporters, particularly those who follow Beijing Guo'an. I couldn't possibly translate that in a 'family' blog. I don't think I heard that during the Olympics. Mind you, the TV sound engineers are well practised in filtering it out.