overseas briefing Getting China's game on

Author: Ryan Kellett

HANGZHOU - As a preview of coming attractions this summer at the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, a crowd of cheering Chinese citizens filled the Zhejiang Dragon Arena to watch China compete against Cuba in women's volleyball. And fresh off the news of Raul Castro's election in Cuba, this game presented more than just an interesting political comparison. It provided a window into the growing sports-fan culture of China.

The cheering started early: "Zhongguo dui, Jiayou!" Translated literally, the cheer means, "China team, add gas!" The ironic environmental meaning aside, it was fascinating that there really was only this one cheer that everybody understood and used. In fact, it became disappointing to see the sports fervor that has been used to promote the Olympics heavily only scratch the surface of competition. And that is an inherent issue with the Olympics. Between the construction of Olympic venues, promotion of the five mascots of the Beijing Olympics and the pressure on the Chinese national teams, the culture of audience participation is underwhelming compared to European World Cup fanatics and Super Bowl attendees worldwide.

Chinese fans, of course, courteously clapped when they were supposed to clap, even being "good sports" and standing for the Cuban national anthem. After all, the Chinese government will not stand to lose face by disrespecting other countries.

And cheering for your team is cheering for your country. And one never doubts the power of Chinese nationalism because this is a culture that is grounded in an "us versus them" mentality.

Especially as the Chinese strive daily to achieve the living standards of Americans, it is easy in China to make comparisons. But it is how most Chinese people make these comparisons that illustrates the depth and integration of nationalism in China.

In the Chinese language, the way to compare China and America is often "us Chinese versus you Americans." And Chinese is a language where generalizations are the norm. One rarely hears something as detailed as, "I often eat with fork and knife at home but, while lots of Chinese people like American food, most of my friends do not know how to use a fork and knife." One will more often simply hear, "Us Chinese aren't used to using a knife and fork."

And it is frequent use of this "national plural" ("us Chinese vs. you Americans") that shows an inherent depth to Chinese nationalism that did not make a full appearance at the very polite China-Cuba volleyball match. The Chinese national collective loves China down to every last comparative sentence. And it is this wide-spread passion beneath that needs to be unleashed to bring about shouting fans and audiences on their feet. After years of careful preparation to control every last variable from traffic to weather, it is this fickle passion that must ignite the Olympic games in August.

Or maybe one just should wait to return to the Zhejiang Dragon Arena this week to see the Backstreet Boys perform live in concert. Maybe then some sort of Chinese passion will be unleashed.