DESPITE an almost hilariously bad national team of their own, Chinese soccer fans are wide awake these nights watching the FIFA World Cup on the other side of the earth.

    The games are mostly scheduled after midnight Beijing time, and many fans are resorting to “sick” leave and buying fake sick notes online.

    On China’s largest online shopping platform, “sick leave note” searches have been banned for “legal reasons,” but searching for “hospital registration service” will achieve the same end, with prices from dozens of yuan to several hundreds, depending on the length of the sick leave and the nature of the imaginary affliction.

    Insurance companies have also brought their ingenuity to the game since at least three fans in China have reportedly died while watching games at night. In fact, about 50 people die in China every minute, so it’s no surprise if a few of them happen to be watching TV at the time.

    At the online shop for Zhongan Insurance, fans can buy “nightbird insurance” for three hundred yuan (US$48), for compensation of up to 10,000 yuan if sudden death occurs while watching soccer games after midnight, and “drunk insurance,” which compensates fans who suffer from alcoholism.

    World Cup memories

    Although millions of people spend their sleepless nights in front of the TV, many do not call themselves “fans” at all. They have their own reasons for their soccer fever.

    Bus driver Cheng Bingjiang started watching soccer in 1978, the first year of China’s opening and reform, when a neighbor bought a black-and-white television. Cheng and his friends did not even know the soccer game was called the World Cup.

    Five or six male neighbors squeezed into a small room and watched the games silently at night. “We did not dare celebrate for fear of waking up our wives and children,” he recalled, adding the quiet game felt like a reception at a fancy bar nowadays, although they could not afford beer back then.

    Cheng, now 51, still watches the games, together with his son who just finished his national college entrance exam (NCEE). Cheng junior discovered soccer through computer games, and this is the first time he watched the World Cup with interest.

    Jiao Xiaoguang is busy preparing for a national engineer examination, but he cannot help watching the games because they often reminded him of special times.

    “The quadrennial World Cup meant either an exam year or a graduation year, which were all memorable,” he said.

    In 1998, the year of the France World Cup, he graduated from junior high school and enjoyed the tournament for the first time. In 2002, ahead of the NCEE, Jiao and his classmates watched the World Cup in their classroom. That year, the Chinese soccer team qualified for the finals the one and only time.

    Four years later, Jiao was about to graduate from university. The Germany World Cup served as the final gathering of the class.

    Years have passed, and the 31-year-old Jiao is father to a six-year-old boy. The World Cup is now a precious opportunity to recall the past. “Old friends contact each other and discuss the game online,” he said. (Xinhua)