For home country, table tennis is a way of life

BEIJING - The old man with no shirt wound up and crushed the Ping-Pong ball to a fit 40ish guy in tennis shoes and colored socks.

Colored socks returned it with all the casualness of a guy swatting a fly.

Ping-Pong balls rocketed back and forth on five tables manned by a bunch of middle-age men in printed shorts and T-shirts.

A fence and a forest of elm trees surrounded them. If the game were basketball, the locale would've been a park in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

No, this was table tennis. This little slice of Chinese life is found next to Beijing Workers Stadium, China's old national soccer stadium east of the Forbidden City. But it could have been any block in any neighborhood in Beijing. Or it could be in any city in China, from a frigid ramshackle village in Tibet to a steaming waterfront town in Guangdong Province.

Olympic table tennis begins today and a country of 1.3 billion people will put down their paddles and balls and park in front of their TVs. Here in China, table tennis isn't a sport where the people hang their hopes on their heroes. It is part of the fabric of life, the one common thread that has held this country together through World War II, the Cultural Revolution, and 21st-century economic growth.

"It's a sport everyone can participate in," said Sui Lai Yong, a 51-year-old cook with a vicious forehand. "It's like baseball in the United States. It's a simple game. Of course, it's good for your health."

A few miles away, in the shadow of three high-rise buildings, 40-year-old Zhang Jie politely hit the ball back and forth with his 8-year-old son, Jhi Yao. They weren't very good. Jhi Yao happily chased the wind-blown ball. But like a father patiently playing catch with his son in an American park, this was the Chinese version of the final scene in "Field of Dreams."

Out of 1.3 billion people in China, it's estimated 1 billion play table tennis, or, as they refer to it in China, Ping-Pong. Even if that's an exaggeration, it's not much.

More than 4 million Chinese are tournament players. In the US there are 4,000 tournament players. The court rats near Workers Stadium flock to the frequent rec tournaments the city promotes. Every province has intense tournaments in which the national federation sends scouts to find talent for a national team.

Top players make about $150,000 and an Olympic gold medal will earn a reputed $125,000 bonus. Average salaries in China's cutthroat pro league are $80,000 to $100,000. The average salary in urban China is $1,000 a year.

But the backbone of Chinese table tennis is at the grassroots level. Still, do 1 billion Chinese really play table tennis - 77 percent of the population?

"That's about right," Zhang Jie said through an interpreter. "But just because they play, doesn't mean they're good."

Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese did not invent table tennis. The English did in the 1880s as a way for upper-class Victorians to entertain themselves after stodgy dinner parties. It spread through Europe and came to China during World War II when British servicemen stationed here introduced it to the locals.

By the 1960s, as China barricaded itself from most of the world under Mao Zedong, it quietly produced immense table tennis talent. When China finally opened its doors by inviting an American table tennis team in 1971, the world saw a glimpse of the domination that was to come.

"Especially my generation was even more competitive because at that time the kids didn't have that many choices," said David Zhuang, of the four-member US Olympic team, all of whom were raised in China. Zhuang, 44, grew up in Guangzhou and is just part of the mass migration of Chinese table tennis players who figure if you can't beat 'em, leave 'em.

Since the Olympics included table tennis in 1988, China has won 16 of a potential 20 gold medals. China-born players are scattered on Olympic teams from Singapore to Holland.

Chinese sports officials chose US player Wang Chen as a table tennis specialist when she was in the first grade. She and her classmates were told to throw Ping-Pong balls into a basket. She was one of the few who made three and turned pro at age 11.

But she moved to the US in 1999 after twice being passed over for China's Olympic team.

"It's very hard," she said. "They only pick five on the team. You've got to be a genius."

To a billion Chinese, however, table tennis isn't hard. It's exercising with friends and bonding with your child. It's a small ball on a small table in a small park. And it has united a very big country.