We Call It Football Now

Well, since we arrived in China, we have become avid women's soccer fans. This was mostly because it was the only thing on TV that we could understand, and because the World Cup was being held in China it was on almost every night. At first it was better than the show where the guy is dressed like a monkey, but the more we watched, the more impressed we became with the players and the more we wished football was on in America, because it is a great sport. We watched almost every game, and it became an excuse to invite our new foreign friends over (such an international sport). Grant was watching too and throughout the games we didn't watch together we texted each other about the plays and frankly, it's the most caught up I've been in a sport since the Crimson Tide gymnastics team won the NCAA championship.

As a thank you gift to Grant for being so helpful during our first few challenging weeks in China, we bought tickets to the final game in Shanghai. The U.S. played Norway for third place and the Chinese were all cheering for Norway because they didn't want the Americans to win. Very strange to have all those black-haired fans for a Scandinavian team, and how disappointed they were when we won. Finally, Germany played Brazil for the championship, and the Chinese couldn't decide who to root for. They are dazzled by the Brazilians' fancy footwork, but when Germany started scoring, their cheers changed from "Ba-zi" to something that sounded like "Deutch-land." Many had their faces painted with both teams flags. They always want to be on the winners' side. I think large sporting events like this are new to the Chinese. They are just beginning to have the expendable resources to attend sporting events and they are learning from the foreigners how to act at such events. For instance, I have never seen such an intense version of the wave in all my life. It went around the stadium four or five times and even though the game was just about as rivoting as it could be, they seemed to enjoy watching the wave of cheering go around and waiting impatiently for their turn to stand up and yell. Very endearing. It was one of the best nights we've had in China so far, learning how big the international community really is and watching the Chinese get ready for the Olympics, which will be more of a trip for them than it will be for any foreign visitors.