Wednesday, July 30, 2008

What's Mandarin Chinese for "Rah Rah, Sis Boom Bah!"

The Chinese are leaving nothing to chance in their quest to have a good Olympics, and that goes beyond preparing its athletes. First we heard about its plans to seed clouds so that rain does not fall on the opening ceremonies on August 8th.

Now, to rev up its army of athletes in the Beijing Olympics, China is training people to become cheerleaders for its sports teams. So they've created classes to instruct people in cheerleading, according to a recent story that aired on the radio in the U.S. The classes run a total of 10 hours, and some workers are taking time off without pay to get the cheer training.

"The students in one cheerleading class are not leggy athletic girls with pompoms, but rather desk-bound, middle-aged government employees brandishing balloons," the article notes.

Imagine Michael from "The Office" training his employees in cheers, waving balloons...

This article says that at least 300,000 people will be on China's Olympic cheering squads.

One cheer goes, "Smile, Beijing, a smile shows Beijing's best tomorrow." It doesn't sound all that rousing to me, but I guess it might be more dramatic sung by a middle-aged office worker furiously waving his balloon-holding arms around as if he was trying to land a jumbo jet.

Or maybe not.

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