Last night I made it to some boxing preliminaries at the evocatively named Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium. The crowd—mostly Chinese, with scattered pockets of brightly colored foreigners—was a quiet one, rarely reacting to what happened in the ring with more than a low “oooh” or “aaah,” despite the organizers’ best efforts. 

Two large screens at either end of the building worked overtime. The words “AMAZING!” and “GREAT!” and “ROUND OF APPLAUSE!!” flashed at us. Images of the Games’ mascots urged us to “do the Mexican wave!” And in one corner of the building, there was even a group of 40 or 50 choreographed spectators, using noisemakers in unison, complete with matching gold-and-red t-shirts that read “Beijing Workers For Cheering.” Still, the crowd remained silent.

There was one thing, though, that got the spectators going where all the official efforts failed: the occasional outbursts of enthusiasm from the foreigners in the mix. A call-and-response chant of “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy Oy Oy!” drew a slightly puzzled murmur of approval. A small group of Uzbeks that greeted one of their boxers with flags and whistles got a large cheer in response, and at one point an isolated chant of “USA! USA!” spread rapidly through most of the building.

The biggest response of the evening went to a lone, middle-aged man so high in the stands he was nearly hidden by the rafters: as a Puerto Rican boxer entered the ring, the man stood up, waved a tiny flag, and screamed into the silence: “Pueeeerrrto Ricooooo!” For the first time all night, the Workers’ Gymnasium erupted with cheers.

Related on World Hum:
* In Beijing: The Inescapable Games
* In Beijing: Not So ‘Sanitized’ After All?
* In Beijing: Red Tape and Roadblocks
* In Beijing: A Rainbow of Nations

Photo by Eva Holland.