Foul-mouthed soccer fans under fire for the 'Beijing curse'
'Beijing curse' against opponents at soccer matches is declared 'uncivilised' by city authorities, but fans say it's part of the game
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 31 May, 2015, 6:38am
UPDATED : Sunday, 31 May, 2015, 6:41pm
Mandy Zuo [email protected]
Soccer fans have been told to clean up their act. Photo: Reuters
Beijing's city government has launched a campaign to try to clean up the language of fans at the city's soccer club, who are notorious for an aggressive chant at opposing teams and referees.
A task force visited a Beijing Guoan away game this month, handing out rubbish bags to fans with the slogan, "Clean mouths during the match and take away your rubbish afterwards."
The campaign is overseen by the capital's branch of the "spiritual civilisation" department, an organisation within the Communist Party that tries to promote a more harmonious and "civilised" society.
The initiative was started at Beijing Guoan's home games at the beginning of the season in March and was this month extended to away matches when the team played Jiangsu Guoxin-Shuntian in Nanjing .
Guoan fans regularly chant in unison "Stupid ****!", usually when a referee makes a poor decision or one of the Beijing team's players is fouled.
The insult is known as the Beijing curse, or jing ma, and fans believe it was first chanted to intimidate visiting teams in the 1990s.
The authorities have tried several times to stop the chanting over the years, but to no avail.
Wang Yang , who has been a Guoan fan for two decades, said the chant was a must among supporters at every match and there was little chance of the campaign succeeding.
"It's the fun and the atmosphere that we enjoy when we watch a game," he said. "We don't have the habit of singing songs like English fans, but we can have other ways of expressing ourselves."
Bad language in chants and songs is common at soccer grounds in many parts of the world and also among other supporters in China, according to Guoan fans, who think they have been unfairly singled out.
Benetton Yang, a Guoan supporter for more than a decade, said fans across the country used the same insult, but chanted it in their local dialects so it was less apparent to people watching games broadcast on television.
"The media and fans across the country enjoy singling out Beijing, partly because it is so obvious with the massive crowds here and because it's chanted in Putonghua," he said.
"As fans, we tend to look at things from the perspective of our team, and if we believe we're treated unfairly, we will burst into a curse," he explained.
Ma Guoqiang , a soccer fan in Shanghai, said fans in that city used the curse "pig" in the local dialect if they saw action on the pitch that angered them, but the "Beijing curse" was gradually replacing the local swear word.
"It's difficult to stamp out the chant because most of the people chanting are brainlessly loyal fans who Guoan can't afford to displease," he said.
The spread of the "Beijing curse" is not limited to soccer matches.
The Beijing Ducks Basketball Club was fined 40,000 yuan (HK$50,000) last year by the China Basketball Association after fans chanted the insult during a match against the Xinjiang Flying Tigers.
The fans' behaviour towards visiting players was in total opposition to the culture of the sport, the basketball association said in a statement.
Some soccer fans in Beijing have suggested that Guoan supporters have stopped chanting the Beijing curse frequently in recent weeks as their team has hit a run of good form.
It is not all good news, however, for the spiritual civilisation department.
During the match against the South Korean side Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors last Tuesday in the Asian Champions League, fans chanted another ripe piece of Chinese slang referring to a cow's more intimate parts to express their admiration for their team's efforts.
