Ping-Pong Diplomacy

by Nicholas Griffin

  “In villages a few miles outside Beijing, most peasants were grotesquely swelled by edema and were dying in sizable numbers.” Inside Beijing, things were better, but you didn’t have to walk far to see those suffering from edema, which, by the time the Ping-Pong tournament started, “affected roughly 10 percent of [Beijing’s] population.” Stores were empty, except for salesmen sitting passively in front of empty shelves. People roamed without hope, with “their heads well within their shoulders and scarcely lifting their feet, [they] went from store to store.”

  The Foreign Ministry apartments were heated for no more than two hours a day. Even in Zhou Enlai’s house, the rationing had begun to bite, as his wife served tea made from nettles. The letters that arrived inside the training grounds were specific enough to worry some players deeply. But what could they do? By now you couldn’t send food out to the countryside, and “There was no point sending money home. There was nothing left to buy.” Yet the World Championships program then heading to the printers called Beijing “a scene of booming prosperity.”

  Fu wandered through the practice hall with his pen, pausing beside tables to watch the practicing players; he “wrote everything down in a notebook.” His brilliance was that he was creating flexibility within a very taut system. While the rest of China was trying to pump out cadres that dressed and spoke and thought the same, Fu was trying to create a varied arsenal to launch at the Japanese and Hungarians. He would need expert servers, spinners, blockers, drivers, shake-hand players, penholders. He would then be able to deploy these weapons at will.

  Things weren’t going well for the women’s team. Officials at the National Sports Commission were worried that the Japanese ladies still held the edge. China’s best hope was the veteran Qiu Zhonghui, a tiny, bespectacled woman, the daughter of a high school teacher. She had spent the first years of her life watching other people play Ping-Pong at high school until someone had picked her up, put her on a stool at one end of the table, and placed a racquet in her hand. A student held her by the waist as she leaned side to side. As a tiny child, her performance was a schoolyard novelty act, but as soon as she could see over the tabletop, it became harder and harder to beat her.

  Qiu was raised in Changsha, where Mao had begun his political career. She wanted to be a volleyball player and made the high school team despite her size, but “frankly, my teachers pushed me toward Ping-Pong.” Back in 1953 the Hunan Sports Commission had selected her as one of four people from the entire province sent to Beijing. Even though two of her companions were men over thirty years old, the commission entrusted her with the travel money, which she sewed into the hem of her coat. It had an almost religious quality for her. “It wasn’t mine,” she said. “To me, it was the sweat and the blood of peasants.” The bus journey to Beijing took seven days. Qiu chose the cheapest hotels and restaurants, got the tiny squad to Beijing just in time for their table tennis examination, and returned to Changsha with half the money left, a fact that amazed the provincial officials. A month later a letter arrived. She had been chosen as the alternate for the national team.

  In 1955, she had toured Auschwitz after the World Youth Festival in Poland. A year later, she’d traveled to Japan, where she first met Ivor Montagu. “He brought us these special brooches,” she said, and doted on the Communist Chinese players. In 1959, when Rong won the gold, her own bronze medal had been overshadowed. Now she was China’s best hope for victory.

  She was experiencing pressure she had never felt before. What if the Japanese women had improved since 1959? How could Chinese women say they were holding up half the sky if the Chinese men won everything and the women went home empty-handed?

  He Long ordered a special practice for the women’s team, packed with noisy spectators. Qiu awaited her opposition at the table. In walked the ugliest women Qiu had ever seen, speaking loudly in falsetto voices. For a moment she was confused, until she finally grasped that it was the men’s practice players in drag. “We laughed and laughed. Honestly, no one could play. We were laughing too hard.”

  The audience played its part. When the women finally triumphed over the men’s practice squad, the audience rose, roaring approval, and hats went flying into the air.

  The Ping-Pong team had become symbolic of the utopian state China should be, and yet it was obvious that the rest of the country was failing, and in the most dramatic way. Marshal He Long arrived at the practice hall one afternoon and called a halt to their session. He would usually sit, because his feet were so scarred from wearing straw sandals during the Long March. That day, he stood before the men’s team. “Listen,” he said. “Playing Ping-Pong is like fighting a battle. If you are afraid of death, you will die. You have to control that fear. Conquer it and you won’t die out there.”

  The players nodded in understanding. “Let me tell you another story,” said the marshal. He paused for effect, brought his hands to his mouth, and removed his teeth. He continued, now lisping through his gums:

  Once I was in a cavalry charge in battle. We had to charge forward, and I was on the first horse. I was shot in the mouth—all these teeth were shattered. But if I hadn’t been sitting up firmly in my seat, that shot would have passed six inches higher and gone right through the center of my brain.

  “We were really encouraged by this speech,” remembered a player. “We just weren’t afraid anymore.” The constant attention from the highest levels had made the team feel both cherished by and indebted to the nation. Thanks to Coach Fu, there was also a high level of confidence in their own ability. And then, overnight, it fell apart.

  CHAPTER 22 | Ping-Pong Espionage

  The Chinese had already done an extraordinary amount of homework, especially concerning the Japanese. “The most studied of all was Ogimura,” said Coach Liang Youneng, who remembered an incident in 1962 when a Japanese player passed through Beijing on tour and came up against “himself,” a second-ranked Chinese practice player whose sole job had been to imitate his style. “He was amazed,” laughed the coach, “and also jealous,” because not even Japan had such resources.

  Now, just seven days before the tournament was due to begin, the Chinese received disturbing news. The National Sports Commission had had an article from a Japanese magazine translated. “It was a very boastful article, talking about how Japan was the best team in the world” and how this “supremacy would be kept thanks to a new secret spin that their players had developed for their serves.”

  Ping-Pong can be reduced to basics, as with Ogimura’s 51 percent doctrine, where an all-out offensive attack needed to succeed only just over half the time. The serve was key to the “three-ball attack.” Effective service would leave the opponent scrambling just to return it. A weak return, one that cleared the net a touch too high or was hit too softly, could immediately be punished. If the Japanese really had developed a new serve, then the Chinese would be at a huge disadvantage. In 1959, games had often come down to two or three points, and an unreturnable serve could give the Japanese the win. Politically, it would send the wrong message: the Great Leap Forward wasn’t truly great.

  What could be done in a week? It was a matter of the highest importance. The National Sports Commission believed it had one last shot. Table tennis, like war, was now an extension of Chinese politics, and Zhuang Jiafu was asked to be China’s first Ping-Pong spy.

  Zhuang grew up in Punyu, an impoverished town outside Guangzhou. No one in Punyu could afford a table tennis table. When Zhuang’s parents left early in the day to sell fruit, their children took the front door off its hinges and used it as a playing surface. Zhuang’s physical education instructor encouraged him to join the city team, where he excelled. When India sent a touring team to Guangzhou, Zhuang, now a postal worker, was the only player who won his game. His reward was a thirty-six-hour train ride to Tianjin to play against the best players in China. Having come so far, the postman had become a vital part of the national squad.

  On He Long’s orders, Zhuang traveled to H
ong Kong, that outpost of British imperialism, to spy on the Japanese. He didn’t want his wife, a member of China’s basketball team, to worry about him, so he told her he was going to Shanghai. Zhuang took a prop plane from Beijing to Wuhan, then flew to Changsha, where he was grounded by heavy rains. As a postman, he had memorized train schedules across China and knew he had to make the next train south or else lose a vital day. He requisitioned a local car and sped across Changsha to the railroad station. Arriving in Guangzhou at six in the morning, he took a taxi to the local sports commission. The commission’s director rolled out of bed and joined him on the last leg, a short train trip to Shenzhen. There the director handed him over to Mr. X, a Chinese intelligence agent based in Hong Kong.

  The first rule was that once Zhuang and Mr. X were in Hong Kong, they could not be seen together in public. They would walk apart and pretend not to know each other. The second rule was always to wear sunglasses in public. The third rule was to keep calm at the border crossing, no matter how tense the situation became. There were three different checkpoints between China and Hong Kong. Zhuang was told that Mr. X would take care of any surprises.

  Zhuang felt rising panic. He was on a mission for the Chinese government on behalf of table tennis, and yet, if he was arrested, he had no proper documentation. The best he could hope for was immediate deportation from Hong Kong; the worst would be his arrest and trial as a Communist agitator.

  At the first checkpoint for entry into Hong Kong was a uniformed Englishman with a policeman at his elbow to deal with translation issues. “Why are you here?” asked the Englishman.

  “Visiting student,” said Zhuang as instructed. From the corner of his eye, he could see Mr. X several people behind him in line.

  “Student identification, please.”

  He pulled his card from his pocket, and as he did so, realized that it had been issued by the Beijing police bureau. The Hong Kong policeman stepped forward and looked it over. “This one’s come all the way from Beijing—the fucking capital of Communism.” It was the moment when Zhuang’s legs began to tremble. Mr. X appeared at his elbow. “This guy,” he told the Hong Kong policemen in Cantonese, “his cousin is that travel agent in Shenzhen. That son of a bitch should have given him a bribe for you, but you know, he’s just the cousin.”

  Zhuang pretended not to know what was being said. He was amazed at Mr. X’s relaxed manner and felt as if he were watching someone else pass through the motions. “It was exactly like being in a spy movie,” he remembered. They were waved through. Mr. X gave Zhuang his train ticket into Hong Kong and whispered the name of their station. Zhuang, he instructed, was not to sit anywhere near him.

  When he left the station, Zhuang began to walk through the Hong Kong streets. Mr. X passed on the other side and, after a few minutes, disappeared into an apartment building. Zhuang followed, walking up several floors. He would be staying in Mr. X’s house, and there he would address Mr. X as Uncle; Mr. X lived with his wife, his son, and their servant. Only the wife knew who Zhuang really was. After an awkward family breakfast the next morning, Zhuang headed toward the stadium trailing Mr. X.

  Before they left, Mr. X presented him with two tickets to the table tennis match—one cheap, one expensive. He was instructed to use the cheap one to enter the stadium among the crowd and then the expensive one to sit close to the action. Their biggest fear was that Zhuang would be recognized. He had played against a few of the Hong Kong players in previous tours. He had even faced off against Ogimura in the World Championships. Mr. X checked Zhuang’s sunglasses and handed him an early edition of a Cantonese newspaper to hide behind.

  They arrived at Elizabeth Stadium half an hour before the matches were due to begin. Zhuang took his seat in the second row with his heart racing; he peeked out from behind the newspaper. The first match was supposed to be close—Hong Kong’s finest chopper against one of Japan’s top spinners. Within minutes, the Japanese had taken a ten-to-zero lead. Zhuang could see that the experienced Hong Kong player just couldn’t read the serve; the ball was flying to the “left, to the right, up and down, no two returns were alike.”

  The Hong Kong audience had little patience. They started to stand and boo. Shouts rained down on their own athletes. “You shouldn’t even be a player! Go back home!” Zhuang looked about him. It was hard to imagine this kind of dissent taking place in Beijing. “Go back to the farm! Go back to shoveling pig shit!” The next victim trotted up to the table and was again easily dispatched by his Japanese opponent. Yet, by the time the third game took place, Zhuang had a revelation. The Japanese could only capitalize on this kind of spin if the opposing player was kept away from the table. The spin could be counterbalanced if you stood your ground.

  Zhuang didn’t know it, but he wasn’t the only spy in the crowd. The Chinese had also sent a photographer with a specially adapted camera. He stood in the front row alongside the sportswriters, taking a series of high-speed photographs of the Japanese serves.

  After the match, Zhuang disappeared into the crowd, making his way back across the border toward Guangzhou to catch his plane north. Running late, he sprinted up the steps and, thoroughly relieved, ducked through the doorway. To his horror, he looked down the aisle of the tiny plane. It contained the entire Japanese table tennis team. They were on their way to the capital a few days ahead of the tournament. His rival Ogimura stood up, gave a short bow, and greeted him.

  “It’s lovely to see you,” said Ogimura. “Are you on your way to the championships?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Zhuang, quickly inventing a story that he had been visiting relatives in Guangdong.

  After a silent five-hour flight feigning sleep, Zhuang went directly to the training center. His roommate, Rong Guotuan, and the two young prodigies, Zhuang Zedong and Li Furong, were waiting for him, along with the responsible officials. They listened to his report and set a strategy in place. “Don’t be afraid to lose a point or two, but keep them close to the table with short shots, spread the ball left and right, but don’t let them put too much spin on the ball. When you have a chance, hit hard and hit long.” It remained to be seen if knowledge could be translated into victory, but at least Zhuang had given them hope again.

  CHAPTER 23 | Cheery Martial Music

  The authorities must have been worried by the prospect of so many visitors descending on China at once. That January, just weeks before the first foreigners landed, one province alone had seen five hundred cases of train robbery, as peasants made desperate attempts to find food.

  Most of the foreigners came to China through Hong Kong, an itinerary that the government could not control. It meant that their first taste of China would be Guangdong. “It was an incredibly depressing place” stacked with dilapidated buildings, remembered Alan Tomlinson, New Zealand’s top player. On the loudspeakers, cheery martial music played. It was the first piece of propaganda the group would hear. The fragile image projected by the Communist Party of a healthy, vibrant China was already very close to cracking. For their first meal, the championship participants were offered “an absolute book” of a menu to choose from. It didn’t matter what they ordered, they all received the same fish.

  If China’s image was going to survive two weeks with dozens of foreigners wandering around Beijing, the organizers had to ensure several things: first, that the foreign contingent did not wander far; second, that they didn’t speak Mandarin; and third, that they were always accompanied by translators chosen for their political allegiance and energy. “There was no chance you could be allowed out of their sight,” remembered Tomlinson.

  The outside world, knowing nothing of the intensity of China’s preparation, still considered the Japanese favorites. The Hungarians were also considered extremely strong, since the team contained wild-haired Zoltan Berczik, the current European champion. The Chinese were thought to have a good shot at third place.

  Ushered onto buses at the Peace Hotel, which housed every single player, coach, and journalist
, they moved along Chang’an Avenue, one of those intimidating Beijing thoroughfares wider than an American highway. The heads of delegations followed in chauffeur-driven black cars. Thousands of Beijing bicyclists parted before them like sardines swerving to avoid a pod of dolphins. Many of the players were struck by the strange combination of busyness and silence; seeing so few cars and hearing so little honking made them feel as if they were passing through a silent film. “To hear any noise,” wrote a British journalist, “is as rare as seeing a Chinese blonde.”

  The team buses pulled up in front of the brand-new Workers’ Gymnasium for the first practice session. The players stared at the building with a sudden sense of déjà vu. It was an identical copy of the building where the players had last seen one another in 1959, as if the Westphalen stadium in Dortmund, Germany, had spent the last two years being dragged slowly east.

  At a time when China could not afford to import grain or wheat, the building was a costly marvel. There were treatment rooms, TV and radio facilities, buffets, and clubrooms. The entire stadium was linked by loudspeakers. Specialists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences had ensured that the “velocity of movement of air” was kept far below Montagu’s recommended limits so that nothing could disturb the true flight of the little white ball. Within seconds, heavy curtains could blanket daylight. With no wind and no light, the stadium was the perfect metaphor for the country’s claustrophobic isolation.

  The approach to the building was marked by “statues of athletes of various sport events in different poses.” A German journalist staring at the stadium turned to an English counterpart and confessed, “I must admit the copy is better than the original.”

  When the New Zealand player Alan Tomlinson stepped from his bus on a tour that took table tennis players out of Beijing to the countryside, there was a strange request from the guide in charge of the foreigners. If they were not hungry and did not finish their boxed lunches, could they please return any leftovers to the bus. “Don’t throw anything away,” he was told, “just leave it in the box, and the staff or somebody will eat it.”