Explore "China's Son" by Da Chen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the early seventies, Ping-Pong became the rage of the country because Zhuan Zhe Don had won the World Cup championship for China. In PE class, instead of the regular running and jumping in the dirt field, we would sit in the classroom and listen to the live radio report of the World Cup match in progress. With each score gained by a Chinese player against a Western player, we pounded our tables and cheered. When the games were over, we all sang, "The eastern winds blow and the drums of war echo. In today's world, who is afraid of whom? We are not afraid of the Russian and American imperialists. It is they who are afraid of us." The success of this Ping-Pong diplomacy made us swell like hotair balloons. We were finally winning something in the international arena.
The school had a carpenter build two Ping-Pong tables. A stone slab served as a third table. During break, hundreds of kids crowded around the three tables and took turns playing. We played a three-point game.