After talking about ping pong at work today, a co-worker
asked me if I wanted to go to a Chinese ping pong hall. Of course I said yes, so straight after
work we hopped in a cab and he took us through the pouring rain to a large
building called Mr. Su’s. We first
stopped at the ground floor restaurant/bar to grab a beer and wait for one of
his Chinese friends to arrive.
Jerry is a middle-aged woman, whom he met while living out here in
China, and who according to her,
is just “ok” at ping pong and only plays “ping pong from time to
time.” My co-worker told me that
she was good and that she was just being humble about her skills. I figured I was in for a beatdown just
from her appearance though when she arrived at the bar. She was wearing gym shorts and a
t-shirt, tennis shoes, and had a small purse with two ping pong bats (paddles)
sticking out of the top. After we
finished our beers we headed up to the ping pong room. The second and third floors of Mr. Su’s
were both KTV while the top floor was the ping pong hall. As soon as the elevator doors opened it
was like something out of a movie.
There was about 12 tables lined up in a dimly lit gymnasium like
room. Almost all of the tables
were in use and old sweaty Chinese men sat around the tables with their shirts
off or in their tank tops, while mostly youngish men played the most intense,
fast paced, and skilled ping pong I have ever seen in person. It was highly intimidating to say the
least.
Above each table were two large lights. The tables that were not in use
had their lights off. It created a
bright spotlight on the tables with the players, but the rest of the room was
poorly lit and kind of dingy feeling.
Once Jerry asked for a table we headed over to our corner in the back
and began to rally a bit. Jerry
was just warming up but it was immediately clear that I was going to get
destroyed. She played Chinese
style with the handle between her pointer and middle fingers. She had nasty spin, a ridiculous chop
shot, and could get any of my shots back onto the table, no matter how or where
I hit them. Once we started
playing for real things just got worse for me. It really didn’t help that I hadn’t played ping pong at all
for a few years, but I don’t think it would have made that much of a difference
had I been playing regularly recently.
She was really good. We
played about 8 or 9 games to 21.
She beat me soundly in most of them. My highest point total was 18 and my lowest was 6. I only made it past 15 in two of
the games. Everything I did she
had a counter to. When I got my
slams down she had almost no problems putting them back on the table, and with
nasty spin. When I hit a chop
after backing her way away from the table on the previous shot, she was quick
enough to get forward and reach it.
It was utter domination. I thought
I was pretty decent at table tennis, but I couldn’t even come close to this
little Chinese lady.
It was an awesome night despite the ass-kicking. Also, the
fact that in China they have ping pong halls like we have pool halls or bowling
alleys is pretty damn cool. And it
was cheap. And it was full of
people on a Monday night at 8-9 PM.
Wish we had places like that back home. I hope to go back there, or find one closer to my apartment,
and go take on some more local players.
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