A friend took me to a CBA game the other night. It was lots of fun and really close, right down to the last few seconds when the ball bounces off the rim and Tianjin loses by two points. He told me before we went that people would be yelling all kinds of dirty language, but I couldn’t understand most of it. Here’s what the guy behind me was yelling that I could understand:
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At the refs and coaches:
- “You’re dismissed!” / 下课 / xià kè (lit. “leave class,” but in this context more like “You’re fired!”)
- “Retire!” / 退休 / tuì xiū
- “Black whistle!” / 黑哨儿 / hēi shàor (most popular thing to yell in our section – it means the refs have been bribed).
- “Beautiful!” / 漂亮 / piào liang
- “Give it to the foreigner!” / 给老外 / gěi lǎo wài
- “Good foreigner!” / 好老外 / hǎo lǎo wài
- “Great!” / 好 / hǎo
At the players:
The lā lā duì (拉拉队; “cheer team”), Róngrong the lion (荣荣 the 狮子), and a lady at the scorekeeper’s table with a really loud microphone would tell us what and when to cheer, though it didn’t include any of the above.
Each team has a couple imported Americans who were definitely among the best players out there. The other team, from Liáoníng (辽宁), had a guy from China’s national team who was also a stand out.
Canada:
China:
Taiwan:
The States:
Brazil:
UK:
Wow…looks like you got some good seats! My wife and I recently attended an exhibition game between a CBA team and an IBL team (International Basketball League based in the US). Seats similar to what it looks like you got were pretty darn expensive, so we got stuck in the nosebleed.
I play basketball a lot around here in Xinjiang and a phrase that I hear more than anything else is:
好球！ which can mean “Nice shot” or “nice play”.
I haven’t heard a lot of those other phrases, but I’ll try to use them with my basketball guys and see what they say!
i forgot about “好球！” (lit. “good ball”). Yeah, they said that a lot, too.
these tickets were expensive, but since the stadium was mostly empty, everyone came down and say on the steps or in empty seats. We’ve had to kick people out of our seats more than once at different events (they’ve always moved willingly with no hassle).