Commentary on China’s ubiquitous cheer, ‘Jia You’:

“Jia You is not a bad cheer. It’s simple, catchy, and easily customizable to any team, country, or individual. The literal meaning of jia you is ‘add oil.’ It doesn’t make a lot of logical sense, but then again most good cheers don’t. It works like this. The leader shouts out the name of the team, for example ‘China’ and then the others shout ‘jia you.’ The leader then shouts ‘jia you’ and the others reply with ‘China.’ My beef with jia you is that it is the only cheer in China, and is cheered on auto-pilot at virtually every event where China is competing. In fact China has added so much oil this Olympics that it makes one wonder whether it is the impetus behind China’s rapidly rising gas prices.”