The FIFA Women’s World Cup is right now underway in France, and I’m sure many of you are following the U.S. Women’s National Team. After all the women’s team are multiple World Cup and Olympic Games winners, and their games are always such an exciting one to watch. While I am a soccer fan myself, I don’t usually have the luxury and time to travel to the actually host cities to follow international tournaments in person. Luckily, I have my hometown soccer team to support.
 
The Chinese Super League (men’s soccer) is the highest level soccer league in China. In Beijing, the Beijing Guoan FC is a club which many of the local Beijingers grew up watching and supporting. The club was the domestic cup winner last year, and is leading the League table right now. Its home ground, Workers’ Stadium, is only several bus stops away from my study site for the summer. So I got used to seeing many soccer fans hanging around every weekend.
 
Last week I went to game as well, and it happened to be a quite important one, between the two teams that are famous rivals in Beijing and Shanghai. Many people see the game as a competition not only for the soccer teams, but also for the two cities (think about football in Liverpool and Manchester, or a baseball game between Boston and New York). The atmosphere was absolutely fabulous, and I had a great time watching live sport in the huge stadium with 40,000+ fans.
 
There are many ways to ease our study and research anxieties. Getting out and see some live sports is one of my favorite. For one night I can fully concentrate on something that is not related to my work and writings, and embrace that atmosphere and moments of celebration. It is also a good social occasion among friends (as long as you support the same team!). If you can’t fly to France and watch the World Cup, why not find some other soccer games (or just any sports in general) in your city and go get some fun?

---Mingqian Liu
Mingqian Liu is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Architecture