Hey, so I live in Taipei where they're fanatical about baseball and a home run is actually called a 全壘打 quan2lei3da3 (sorry, I don't know the simplified character) or "all base hit". Here in Taiwan they have cheering sections for each team and one of the most common songs they sing is, "安打! 安打! 全壘打!". 安打 (an1da3) is a base hit, or more accurately, a safe hit (to hit safely, i.e. reach base). So this song encourages their team to "Hit, hit a home run!" (which, by the way, they rarely do here). The other thing I love is that when a player makes a great play, the whole crowd shouts their name in unison followed by, "我愛你!" wo3ai4ni3 (I love you!) - very cute. Btw, just attended the MLB games in Beijing, where it was clear that they aren't quite as familiar w/baseball as they are in Taiwan - they had cheerleaders in Hooters pants! Jet Li did throw out the first pitch, though.
Posted on: Baseball
April 2, 2008 at 12:05 PMHey, so I live in Taipei where they're fanatical about baseball and a home run is actually called a 全壘打 quan2lei3da3 (sorry, I don't know the simplified character) or "all base hit". Here in Taiwan they have cheering sections for each team and one of the most common songs they sing is, "安打! 安打! 全壘打!". 安打 (an1da3) is a base hit, or more accurately, a safe hit (to hit safely, i.e. reach base). So this song encourages their team to "Hit, hit a home run!" (which, by the way, they rarely do here). The other thing I love is that when a player makes a great play, the whole crowd shouts their name in unison followed by, "我愛你!" wo3ai4ni3 (I love you!) - very cute. Btw, just attended the MLB games in Beijing, where it was clear that they aren't quite as familiar w/baseball as they are in Taiwan - they had cheerleaders in Hooters pants! Jet Li did throw out the first pitch, though.