村超cūn chāo

Village Super League

jīn wǎn qù kàn cūn chāo!今晚去看村超！Let’s go watch the Village Super League tonight!

村超 is the nickname of a village football league in Rongjiang County, Guizhou. In 2023 its matches, played by restaurant owners, butchers and students in front of huge crowds, went viral across China.

Took off: 2023
Started in: Village football in Guizhou
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

村 means “village”, and 超 is short for 中超, the Chinese Super League, the top professional league. So 村超 is a joke name: a super league, for villages.

The players are not professionals. Sixth Tone lists barbecue restaurant owners, butchers, students and construction workers among them. The top scorer that season sold steamed rice rolls.

How people use it

村超 is now the everyday name for the league, which kept growing: 62 teams took part in 2024, according to Wikipedia. The name also stands for the scene around the games: free entry, huge crowds, parades and prizes from the village.

里昂

你看过村超吗？
nǐ kàn guo cūn chāo ma?
Have you seen the Village Super League?
看过视频，人好多！
kàn guo shì pín, rén hǎo duō!
I’ve seen videos. So many people!
冠军还能拿一头牛
guàn jūn hái néng ná yì tóu niú
The champion even gets an ox.
那我也想去踢
nà wǒ yě xiǎng qù tī
Then I want to play too.

More examples

这个周末我们去贵州看村超吧。
zhè gè zhōu mò wǒ men qù guì zhōu kàn cūn chāo ba.
Let’s go to Guizhou this weekend and watch the Village Super League.
村超的冠军能拿到一头牛。
cūn chāo de guàn jūn néng ná dào yì tóu niú.
The Village Super League champion wins an ox.

Where it came from

Rongjiang has played village football for decades; Sixth Tone dates it to 1944. The 2023 season started on May 13, with 20 village teams playing every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Entry was free, and Sixth Tone reports more than 50,000 people at an average match. Villagers in traditional dress paraded around the field, and the prizes came from local villagers: an ox for the winner, then a lamb, a pig and a goose.

Clips spread on social media all summer, and the county counted about a million visitors in May alone. It followed 村BA, a village basketball tournament in Guizhou that went viral the year before. In December 2023 the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center put 村超 on its list of the ten media buzzwords of the year.

The original. Videos from the 2023 season: a packed stadium, village teams in matching shirts, and villagers in traditional dress playing lusheng pipes around the field. Sixth Tone describes the scene. Sixth Tone