Official Beijing Olympics Cheer (Accept No Fake Cheers)

The Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games have released the official ‘cheer’ for the 2008 Games (via Danwei). For this vital task BOCOG have teamed up with the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP), the Ministry of Education and CCTV.

With this huge amount of expertise, a highly advanced cheer has been developed.

“Olympics, let’s go!

China, let’s go!”

The technical diagram below does it’s best to demonstrate the complex movements that follow the words:

If this is too complex for you the BBC have kindly tasked their top designers with simplifying things:

To explain the importance of this cultural landmark the president of the Beijing Etiquette Institute, Li Ning (not the same Li Ning who featured in the 10 Chinese people you should know about) was called in. From Beijing News (via Danwei):

“At yesterday’s ceremony, Li Ning explained that the uniformity of the cheer contained a multitude of variations. It could be “Go Olympics! Go China!” as well as “Go China! Go Yao Ming!” or “Go Brazil! Go Ronaldino!” It will work to give encouragement to every country and athlete in competition.”

Bob is sure that anyone else who has been to a sports event – particularly a school sports day – will be very familiar with the chant “加油” (“jia you” / “let’s go”). As Meg at Beijing Olympics FAN! points out “jia you” can be directly translated as “add oil”, but is very regularly used as “let’s go” or “come on”. This may not really be new, or revolutionary, but it is a nice little piece of modern Chinese culture.

Check out the CCTV introduction video, including demonstrations from many people in coloured t-shirts, at Danwei.