Chant for Olympics in Chinese 中国队, 加油!

中国队, 加油! Zhōngguó duì, jiāyóu!

China Team, fill her up!

美国队, 加油! Měiguó duì, jiāyóu!

 American Team, fill her up!

.  .  .  .  .  .

“Zhongguo Dui, jia you!” “China Team, fill her up!” is the nation’s favorite way of injecting energy into the performances of its sporting heroes.

“Zhongguo Dui, jia you!” - You may replac ”Zhongguo Dui (China Team)”  with any other team, and “jia you!” is an unchangable cheering word to follow the team.

JIA YOU– JIA means ADD, and YOU means OIL, so JIA YOU means WORK HARDER or REFUEL onESELF (inject energy to…). It so happen that you may see the characters “加油站” often by the roadside, they are for GAS STATION (Refueling Station) for the original meaning. Don’t you think it is quite vivid to cheer for the sporting heroes in this way?

Workers from Mongolian Cow, in Tongzhou, learn how to cheer for next summer’s Beijing Games during the seminar.

They clapped, they waved, they chanted in happy unison - and the Olympics does not even start for eight months.
 
The 200 dairy workers gathered with their stick-shaped drumming balloons were among the first Beijing citizens to undergo Olympic cheering practice, the latest initiative by the city government to ensure its citizens prove themselves deserving of the Games next year.

The government is said to have been concerned by the spectacle of the 2004 Asian Football Cup final in the Chinese capital, when an unruly mob angered by the nation’s defeat to Japan surrounded the opposition bus, pelted it with stones and bottles, and then fought running battles with the police.

For the Olympics next summer, the mayor, Wang Qishan, has ordered that nothing be left to chance. On top of campaigns to teach citizens how to queue and to stop them from spitting, the authorities want supporters to be enthusiastic enough to urge on Chinese athletes to gold medal success, but in a disciplined and orderly way.

Organised by the city-wide official trade unio, cheering instructors are touring factories, community centres and even old people’s homes to teach tens of thousands of people “civilised” sportsmanship.

These will be core cells of supporters who, after practising at home, will fill stadiums with the polite noise of rhythmic clapping and drumming and a pre-approved roster of 20 chants. The unio hopes that up to one million people will be aware of the proper methods of supporting China’s hopefuls come August, 2008.