The name Chinese football might not mean much to anyone who isn’t particularly involved with football or China. For most Chinese football enthusiasts, their team’s journey to the World Cup will forever remain a fantasy. In China, the mention of Chinese football only brings sarcastic remarks about how astronomically shit the team is. Some of Chinese football’s notable rivalries are with Japan and Korea. China’s rivalry with Japan can be summed up with the brutal 3-1 defeat in the 2004 Asian Cup Final on home soil. Their rivalry with Korea isn’t a tragedy, it’s a comedy. Chinese football has lost every single one of the twenty-seven matches played against South Korea over thirty-two years. There are generations of Chinese people who grew up, graduated from college, and experienced male pattern baldness without ever witnessing a single home victory against South Korea.
Faded jeans, white T-shirt, clothes of a rockstar.
Ugly school uniforms, cheap red neckties, a past I can never return to.
Adidas tracksuit, beaded hair, memories from a girl I’ll never know.
The rock and roll band Chinese Football was “banded” in Wuhan, China in 2011. Lead guitarist and vocalist Xu Bo drew influence from 90’s indie rock and emo rock. Chinese Football got its name from the midwestern band American Football; One of the pioneers of midwestern emo in alternative rock. During their initial time together as college students, American Football released only one album before separating in 2000. Their album titled “American Football” was celebrated for its unfiltered honesty, confronting college struggles with heartbreak, anxiety, and post-graduation depression.
There’s an odd sense of awkwardness within the music of Chinese Football. It’s not the guitars, not the drums, or the vocals. But something carved deep into the roots of their music. Chinese Football makes you lost. When I mention the word lost, what comesto your mind? Is it that time you got lost in the grocery store as a child? Too short to see past the isles, the only thing you could do back then was probably cry. No, Chinese football makes you lost in the world. Tears no longer stream down your eyes, but the emotions you feel are somehow more profound than what you felt in that grocery store. You feel irretrievably lost, lost in a desert of ambivalence that only you can find the way out of.
It had been years since I last met my elementary school classmate, my friend. We used to go to a boarding school in China, but I left in seventh grade to study English overseas. I said goodbye to the aluminum bunks that squeezed eight students into one dorm room, goodbye to the ugly school uniforms more akin to tracksuits, and goodbye to the filthy bathrooms where you had to pop a squat to take a dump. On our trip to the music festival, his casual remarks sent ripples of doubt into my mind.
“你都看起来更像外国人了。”
“You even look like a foreigner now.”
“你现在说话都有口音了。”
“Where’d you get this accent?”
“比起中国人，你更像个外国人了，其实也不错。”
“You’re more American than Chinese now, isn’t that great?”
Sometimes I get the feeling that I’ve been looking for something all my life. As long as I continue to have this feeling, I will never feel in place, I will never feel at peace. Since we’ve been talking about football all this time, you could say I feel like a football. Constantly getting kicked around by cleats I cannot see.
How do I find something if I don’t know what I’m looking for?
The girl sat by the Tampax promotional stand a short walk away from the main stage. Jet-black hair extended down to her shoulders. Light makeup adorned her striking eyes that seemed to see through the world like glass. Subtle contact lenses brought a deep navy hue to her irises, giving them an foreign feel. She wore an oversized Adidas tracksuit over a cream-colored tank, her face held on to the fine outlines of a delicate smile like lingering afterthought. It was a smile that reminded me of an overcast skyon an April morning.
Supper Moment and She Her Her Hers had already finished their performances, and the “Shrimp Music Festival” was in full swing. It was a music festival by the sea. Hazy outlines of the crowd faded into soft sunlight. The drabness of the murky sky washed over the pale colors of beach umbrellas and summer clothes of the people surrounding the stage. The sound of waves rushed against the wash of cymbals and piercing synths. The Fin was performing, their lead vocalist was a chubby Japanese man called Yuto Uchino, Uchino had bleached hair and a high-pitched voice. Imagine the Bees’ Gees but with a British accent.
For the longest time, I thought the girl worked at the tampax stand, where she helped out with promotion. Shutters clicked incessantly as middle-aged photographers in bucket hats and camo journalist vests took pictures of her along with the many slogans plastered on the walls. She was probably out of my league now too. She got her hair beaded by a lady afterward, probably as a reward for participating in the event. There was absolutely no socially acceptable excuse for me to walk anywhere close to the Tampax stand. So I just stared into the sky while Uchino sang his heart out.
If music transcends language and distance, why did she feel so foreign to me?
When I left to study in America, I was split into two halves. The first half is grateful I chose this path; the second half hates myself for massacring who I used to be; who was I?To be honest, I don’t really remember. China grows more distant day after day. Like a convenience store replacing expired milk, Chinese words I used to know are quietly replaced with nothing but doubt and uncertainty. When you open yourself to a bigger world, the little world you were born into is destined to get buried. Only when it’s gone do you realize how close you once held it to your heart.
Though I still wasn’t certain what it was, I knew that she had something to do with it. I caught a glimpse of what I’d been looking for when I saw the Tampax girl. She was the stream that would bring me to the cool touch of the ocean. As I lay on the sand thinking about what to do next, the familiar melodies of Chinese Football began to take shape before my eyes.
我要加她微信。
I’m gonna get her WeChat.
Cultural Context: Wechat = Phone Number
I didn’t know a single thing about the Tampax girl, and she didn’t know a single thing about me. This was just a brief intersection between two different lives never meant to converge. We will never meet again after this night by the Anaya shoreline. So why did I feel the need to talk to her? If it will all be for nothing.
I was building a pathetic little sandcastle next to the rising tide. Knowing full well that it’s going to be washed away sooner than I realize. Why risk rejection? Why risk my emotions?
Why risk my self-worth for something that will return to zero as soon as the music dies down? Who was I? Someone with an accent in his native language, someone who looks like a foreigner, someone who’s more American than Chinese; who was I to make a connection with her? Her, someone who’s spent their entire life in China, who makes Chinese friends and listens to Chinese rock and eats Chinese food. Was the foreignness I felt towards her a reflection of my growing distance from what once used to be my home?
The role of the wingman is shrouded in mystery and misconception. Nobody is ever taught to be the wingman, but you can’t refuse a friend’s call for you to be his wingman. Think of the wingman as the right and left-wingers in football. I am the center, and the Tampax girl is the goalkeeper. The wingman’s job is to assist the center in scoring on the goalkeeper (scoring being the acquisition of her telephone number). It doesn’t matter what the wingman does as long as he gets the job done. But not everyone canbe the center, the same way not everyone can wear the number 10 jersey. In fact, you’d probably find yourself as the wingman more often than you are the center. Luckily, I was the center this time.
Trying to run in sand is truly frustrating. Two steps forward, one step back. The Tampax girl had left the Tampax stand. This was my last chance. She was disappearing into the crowd, into the world. The Fin still playing in the background, sand flies from under my feet, and time stagnates. The colorful beads on her braided hair still glimmer without the sun. I call out to her:
“你好，我觉得你很好看，可以加你微信吗？”
“Hey, I think you’re pretty, can I have your number?”
The worst she can say is no.
-Jacob
“好啊。”
“Sure.”
Score
The Pacific Ocean was cool to the touch. I always roll up my pants, but they still get wet every time I walk along the shoreline. I haven’t seen the ocean in a long time.
It was all for nothing. Nothing had changed. The sandcastle is gone. The fact that I now have her number doesn’t mean anything. When the summer is over, I’ll fly to the States and she’ll stay in China. Never to meet again. But maybe I’ll find some solace, some sense of direction knowing what could have happened, what could have changed. The air had the fresh smell of clean cotton, the sand seemed darker than the day before, the Pacific somehow seemed more endless. Garbage littered the empty beach as workers began arriving to take down the main stage. The sun washed its gentle rays over an empty Tampax promotional stand.
Maybe I should listen to American Football.
四月物语(April Story) -“Chinese Football”, “Win&Lose”, “Released 2022”,
被蒸发之前被遗忘之前
Before I evaporate, before I’m forgotten
我还是我卑微的我
I’m still me, the same, pathetic me
仍幻想着汇入海的一刻
Still dreaming of the moment I merge into the ocea
You’re still the same you, being used up, being pushed around, being isolated, being forgotten. What makes you think that things will change? Things could get worse the same way they can to get better. Why do you think you’ll merge into the ocean when all you might be doing is drifting into a bigger pond?
我还是我渺小的我
I’m still me, the same, trifling me,
仍期盼着汇入海的辽阔
Still looking forward to the vastness of the ocean
The Chinese football team entered the World Cup back in 2002. They were promptly eliminated after losing three rounds in the group match. Nobody knew that this was the highest achievement Chinese Football would ever obtain. The name Chinese Football means an endless succession of fruitless but effortful attempts, it represents the confusion of finding your place in the world, the hopelessness that we’ve all once had. I might never find what I’ve been looking for, but I’ll never stop trying. The desert mightbe endless, but I’ll never stop searching for the ocean, even if it’s just a mirage.