Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table.
You're listening to Round Table with myself, He Young.
I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yang Wang in the studio.
Yang Wang, besides being here with us, where else can folks follow your game day insights?
Since I'm a big sports fan, I'm the host of our podcast named Sideline Story.
You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.
So don't hesitate to look for us, listen to our programs if you are sports fan as well.
I mean if you like Youngkwan, I'm sure you do, then just go follow them and then, oh yeah, also you'll get like really fun sports updates about all kinds of sports, right?
Yeah, every edition of the Beijing Hour I will present the sports news every day, every weekday.
Yeah, great. And also, well, we have a sports topic coming up and can't think of a better person to join the discussion with us than Yang Guang.
Coming up, it's more than a game.
Welcome to Suzhou, the Jiangsu Football City League.
No big name stars, no million dollar transfers.
Just students. small business owners and everyday citizens competing for home -town honor.
Suzhou has ignited a football craze across Eastern China's Jiangsu province drawing tens of thousands of fans and tourists to every match. What happens when local pride, full stadiums and a surge of public enthusiasm come together?
And, need a boost to crush the weak?
Our special segment Motivational Monday is your ultimate adrenaline shot to kick things off strong.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcast. Got a question that's keeping you curious from social issues to tech and everything in between?
Let us take a stab at it.
E -mail us at Roundtable Podcast at QQ .com.
E -mails are fine, but voice memos are always better.
Now let's switch gears.
You've heard of the premier league, you've followed La Liga but have you tuned in to Suzhou, officially known as the Jiangsu Football City League, and it has taken the internet by storm and turned the province of Jiangsu into China's unexpected football capital.
With 13 cities of the eastern Chinese province battling it out on the pitch, the starting lineup is just as diverse as you can imagine.
From high school students, noodle shop owners, to football professionals, all play for city pride.
Memes fly, stadiums sold out, tourism booms, so what makes such out Suchao so hot right now?
What kind of football match is this?
It's more than just a match. I don't, I'm on the topic, but it's more than just one big match, right, this is a brand, it is brand new, right, it's a brand new football league, but it's very different from what you would think about if you consider a new football league.
I love it. So what are, what are some of the details?
Yeah, if we refer to Suchow in the past, it stands for the Scottish Premier League.
Oh, Süge humming, yeah, Scottish, but now if you search Suzhou wherever you are on the internet, it refers to the Jiangsu Football City League, it's so hard. Apparently, this league kicked off May 10th and involves 13 teams with each of Jiangsu's 13 prefecture -level cities sending one team to participate.
Hence, its nickname Suzhou by netizens follows the name of Chinese Super League Zhongchang.
The thirteen participating teams comprise of a mix of professional players and amateur players, breaking the traditional boundaries of professional league entry, including individual business owners, university students, and high school students.
While their skill level may differ significantly from professional teams in leagues like the second -tier China League One or the top -tier Chinese Super League, They still showcase their highest level of play intense Confrontations, yeah, so that's what I said.
Well, that's what I meant when I said this is different, right?
So in China, you have China League one, you have the Chinese Super League.
Those are pro soccer players.
Those are professionals This is a little bit different.
This is all within one province This is not a nationwide league.
It's all within Jiangsu province, which by the way is down around the Shanghai area Korea, kind of, right?
Nearby. Yeah. So within that province, you've got these 13 prefecture level cities, and those cities will all have their own team.
So this is going to be really competitive.
And the thing that I love about this and I think that people on the internet are loving about this, is that these are not professional soccer teams. Like you said, these might be business owners or high school students.
So I'm assuming they had their tryouts for the team for the local teams. And if you're good enough, if you're a high school student, sure, you're in.
If you happen to be a local business person, you're in.
And that's what makes this so attractive to me is that you have, number one, the competitiveness that will definitely exist from city to city within that province.
But then you've got people of different ages playing together, people of different skill levels playing together.
I just think this is such a brilliant idea and I think it's going to be really popular.
Oh I think so too and the part that I really agree with you Steve is I think this is it's a fantastic story of everyday people.
It's just, just imagine this, it's like, almost like, um, you're in your regular uniform, maybe fixing a bike or delivering stuff as a delivery driver or whatever, and then, you know, wash the match time.
Now, just get rid of your strip off your uniform and then put on your jersey and I'm going to play football.
This could be a great idea for a film, or a short video series, or whatever it is.
The suspense builds, and people love these kind of sports stories.
The part that I got confused was, professional players are allowed?
And I heard that there's a limit, maybe three professional players.
Only three professional players allowed. Per team, right?
Yeah. So maybe they still need some professional help.
I don't play football, I don't watch football but I'm intrigued by the story.
I think it just balances the playing field, right?
Because if you happen to have seven pro players from your city in Jiangsu then that's not fair if the neighbor city doesn't happen to have any.
So that just helps to level out the playing field.
Okay, interesting. And tell us how popular is this?
It's all over social media.
Right, Sun Chao has rapidly gained popularity and gone viral since its opening in May.
First of all, high attendance.
Match venues are consistently packed with fans, described as people, mountain, people, sea.
For example, a match between Nanjing and Wu Xi, the final game of the third round, attracted over 15 ,000 fans.
Wow! Imagine, you can only have tens of thousands fans in professional games.
Now it's an amateur game we're talking about.
And parking was unavailable an hour before kickoff at the stadium for that match. Tickets for the match between Nanjing and Wuxi sold out quickly, leading scalpers to inflate prices from 80 yuan to 600 yuan compared to their original price of 10 yuan.
Yeah so that's about what under $10 to over a $100 per ticket for a non -professional sporting event people are so excited about this And on the internet slogans such as no match fixing no biased referees only long -standing rivalries and something like match comes first friendship 14th have become part of the online banter Put your friendship aside during these competitive matches.
Because usually it's friendship.
Friendship comes first and match comes second.
But in this case, friendship becomes almost last, I think.
Why did, or why have this Suzhou competition attracted so much attention?
Well, I think it's because of the geographically the complexity in Jiangsu, because Jiangsu is humorously known as scattered Jiangsu due to its distinct regional identities and competitive spirits among these cities.
For example, my wife is from Jiangsu, and according to her, the Yangtze River divides the Jiangsu province into two parts, the northern part and the southern part.
And the southern part, it's culturally more closer to places like Shanghai and Zhejiang but the northern part its culture is very distinct and it's similar to the culture of northern China at least with Shandong province so culturally there's something different between the two parts and some other things like Nanjing is the capital city of Jiangsu province but economically Suzhou is the number one in Jiangsu province, so there's obvious competitiveness between the two cities and in history for thousands of years, every city of those 13 cities has been the capital of the Jiangsu province.
Oh, really? Yeah. So there's a competitive nature within the province between the cities.
And another story, back after the Qing emperor thousands of years ago, there was a famous civil war in China between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu.
And Liu Bang was from Xizhou, and Xiang Yu was from another city in Jiangsu province.
so there's obviously a tradition there between the two cities of rivalry, so that's very interesting.
His history -wise, economy -wise, there's competitiveness between the province.
That makes the 13 cities so, I don't know.
It's really interesting, and this shows the richness of Chinese culture and geographic difference.
And also I don't know why this has come by a little bit of a surprise for some people.
First of all, there are that many people playing football.
Well, maybe we're not that surprised about that.
Also, it's about 516 players for these 13 teams. But there's so much enthusiasm for your own city or for your own region that people would actually spend the time and money to go and support these teams and this kind of activity isn't all necessarily new but if it did sort of blow up in your hometown then people sometimes are a bit surprised and they really want to add fuel to that flame.
I think and this is just my opinion that part of the the draw of a league like this is that it's professional yeah there are 29 pro players which include one high school player and three university players but there's 337 amateur players from different professions and the ages range from 16 to 40 so can you imagine the excitement of making your team like making the local team as you know 40 or 38 year old or whatever, like getting to resume your athletic career which you assumed was dead when you were 23 years old.
Or as a young high school student, being able to represent your city on a provincial scale.
This just is really exciting for the players.
Then you have the family members, then you have the students at the schools, You have the co -workers from the businesses who are gonna come out and support this, and it's all about pride, right?
This is all about local pride.
I'm from Nova Scotia in Canada.
That's a small province on the eastern side.
I totally understand how competitive and how exciting this is going to be.
What about for you, Yangguang?
You're originally from in Mongolia, in China.
Can you see this kind of thing being that popular over there.
You mean in Mongolia?
I just can't imagine in Mongolia organize such an event because would it be some other sport maybe?
Well, there is Naren in Mongolia, played by Mongolians in the autonomous region.
That's about riding archery and other entertaining sports activities.
But I don't see that in the same scale of Suchao here, because I never think Inner Mongolia could organize such an event because first of all economically it's not possible you're you're looking at it very matter of fact yeah i mean Jiangsu boasts the second largest economic aggregate in China what makes you unique it's not just its strength but its remarkable economic balance across each city.
A report shows that the GDP ratio between the highest and lowest cities in Jiangsu is only 5 .7 times significantly lower than the average of 17 .6 times for other major provinces.
This strong and balanced economic landscape fills the city's mutual competition and progress.
And geographically speaking, I think Jiangsu is big, but compared to other provinces, it's kind of tiny.
So transportation -wise, it's easier.
For the teams to get around, to play each other.
I also read that the matches will be held on the weekends, mostly.
Because that was a question I had, wait a minute, if you've you've got office workers and students in the teams, how does the scheduling work?" And then I read, yeah, they're gonna hold them on the weekend and this'll really help out obviously with that problem.
People will still be able to go to the office for their regular hours and maybe resume their studies during the weekdays, but on the weekends, that's one, this'll take place.
And I mean, filling up your social calendar, if you're in that region, is gonna be an easy thing to do if you're interested in this, although getting tickets might be a bit of a challenge.
I read a report that every city in Jiangsu province has an Olympic center, which means infrastructure -wise they are ready to host every match, but for other province, I don't see that coming.
Or maybe they're still on the way and maybe only the provincial capital or some of the bigger cities in that province enjoys this kind of infrastructure and this is longterm investment.
It can't be it can't happen overnight but we're seeing that a lot of Chinese cities are playing catch up.
And also before we move on to the next segment of today, could you guys quickly share your thoughts on we see these community driven sports events, they can shape a city's image and even boost the economy just like what Soochow has done for its local economy.
What are your final thoughts on this part of the discussion?
I see this bringing in more money for the local economies, because I think this is going to be, and I think the internet has proven already, this is going to be popular inside the province, obviously, but I think outside the province too.
And I can see people maybe not traveling hours and hours to catch one of these matches.
but if you live, you know, relatively close by I can see people taking a train or a bus to catch a match that's going to bring in more money to local economies and then you'll see a tourism boost as well.
Yeah, I mean, sports events can be an attraction millions, if not billions of people would fly to Madrid to watch the air classical between Real Madrid and Barcelona so I think can also happen in China in Jiangsu province.
Yes. And just a quick sort of footnote to offer you before we move on what Yang Guang referred to earlier, the tension between Qu and Han.
Referring to the historical conflict between Liu Bang, who's from Shuzhou.
you got that right Yang Guang, and Xiang Yu was apparently from Sichuan and I did not know that.
So yeah, there's definitely a regional pride and battle there in Jiangsu province.
Coming up, Motivational Monday.
Yang Guang, what do you have for us?
Well, my pick for this week's Motivational Monday is the slogan of the tennis French Open which is victory belongs to the most tenacious.
If you are a tennis fan you can't miss the French Open men's singles final this past weekend between Carlos Alcaraz and Yannick Steiner.
I would call it the best tennis match I watched this year.
Alcaraz fought from two sets down in the best of five, and survived three consecutive championship points from Sinner to win the Grand Slam final at Roland Garros.
The match lasted 5 .5 hours, the longest ever in a French Open singles final, it's definitely one of the most classic finals in Tennis history.
I mean, I'm not an Alcaraz fan, but after a match like this, I'm totally convinced by his performance.
He 100 % reflected that line, victory belongs to the most tenacious, shot by shot he crawled back from the desperate situation.
I guess it's also an example for everyone, never give up, never give in, no matter what adversities and difficulties you are facing, very inspiring and motivational play by Akris.
I recommend everyone to watch that recap of the match, especially if you have some hard time in your personal life.
Yeah, and also this is I believe the first time that you've got two Gen Zs, or Gen Z -ers, battling it out at the French Tennis Open Finals, Men's Finals.
They're both in their early 20s, right?
This is the world ranked number one player versus the world ranked number two player, right?
Sinners number one.
Al -Qaraz. is number two.
I didn't catch this match but I've caught them in different matches.
They're good. I mean these guys are good, good, good and they're very evenly matched I think as well.
So it does it does make sense that this was an epic battle between the two of them.
And also for the French Women's Finals it was the world number one and number two battling it out.
And then when you look at that you're kind of like okay then this is a credible match, I suppose.
kind of expected. Yeah.
And also what a great competition and performance to watch. A lot of fun for all fans.
And this week on Motivational Monday, I want to spotlight Chey Yi Chun, the 23 -year -old singer who just blew my minds on the music reality show Singer 2025 with a wild, genre -smashing rendition of the song Li Bai.
And quick refresher, Li Bai was a legendary Tang Dynasty poet.
He lived in the 700s, often endearingly called by us Chinese people Shuxian or the poet immortal.
And he's been known for writing phrases and verses that laughed in the face of fate, however of abominable it is.
And he, well, I'd like to say a little bit more about the version of the song.
It turned the original on his head, fusing electronic rock and gamer slang.
She even looped the cheeky chant.
So what? What can it do?
A mantra that Gen Z in this country instantly vibed with.
Internet users now are calling her the cyber Levi, a 21st century rebel with passion and punch. I have such little time but so much I want to share with you.
I just like to refer to her performance on, was it Saturday?
Her slightly unhinged performance.
You either love it or hate it and I personally loved it because sometimes you got to dance like no one's watching, and the world will stop to listen.
The part that really struck with me, she dropped gamer slang referencing the honor of kings, or wang zhu o rong yao.
Here's the Chinese, Wo beng shi fu zhu, Jin wan lai da yi, Qigiu san wen ti un, Shi shi you neng ze.
And here's my English translation.
I used to peel and heal, now I roam and steal, Just thirty thousand days ain't a big deal!
It refers to clarity in life.
Life is so short, roughly thirty thousand days, if you're lucky, so why spend it worrying about what others think?
This is a cool detachment of fearless shrug at fate.
Almost Taoist in spirit like poet immortal, Xu Xian Liba, would say, when Life is good, drink your fill.
Don't let the gold cup sit empty beneath the moon.
Now let's stop talking about music and feel it for ourselves.
Here's Shaheen's captivating take on Li Bai.
A tribute to breaking roles, bending genres and if you've only got 30 ,000 days might as well jungle your own way.
Crank it up. The ending song is Li Bai, reimagined by Shen Yiquan, like you've never heard of before.
And that brings us to the end of today's show.
Thank you so much Steve Hatherly and Yang Guang for joining the discussion.
I'm He Yang. Enjoy the music and we'll see you next time.
