battery of photographers: Times of India, April 16, 1954.
regard them with contempt: Ogimura, Ichiro Ogimura in Legend, 105.
much to the astonishment: Nippon Times, May 3, 1954.
help him back to his feet: Ogimura, Ichiro Ogimura in Legend, 158.
limb from glistening limb: “The Crowds Were Screaming,” Daily Mirror, April 9, 1956.
Chapter 15 | Reconnaissance
It was only twenty-five miles: Zhiyi, Champion’s Dignity, chap. 4.
the fishmonger was operating: Li Yu-wen, “Table Tennis World Champion,” China Reconstructs, July 1959.
Rong found himself part: Zhiyi, Champion’s Dignity, chap. 4.
in a solemn ceremony: de Beauvoir, Long March, 374.
in charge of over a million soldiers: Lijuan, He Zhenliang, 111.
a stevedore at the Seine quays: Suyin, Eldest Son, 55.
and a worker at a Michelin: Lescot, Before Mao, 278.
his true passion was Go: Ibid., 277.
kill a chicken for dinner: Bosshardt, Restraining Hand, 120.
Pay no attention to them!: Smedley, Battle Hymn of China, 158.
deported to remote areas: Frank Dikötter, notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, 9, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
would you be willing to return: Zhiyi, Champion’s Dignity, chap. 3.
Rong’s best friend: Steven Cheung would become one of Canada’s top economists before returning to Hong Kong in 1982.
he’d have liked to head: Steven Cheung, Remembering Rong Guotuan, Chung Lau, trans., http://home.covad.net/chunglau/021002.htm.
fed rice and vegetables: Li, Bitter Sea, 231.
installed in a large house: Zhiyi, Champion’s Dignity, chap. 5.
Chapter 16 | The Golden Game
electric cards to take a bus: Author interview with Xu Yingsheng, May 2011.
kept a bust on his mantelpiece: Tim Boggan, speech inducting Dick Miles into the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame, transcript, http://216.119.100.169/organization/halloffame/miles2.html.
To be honest: Author interview with Marty Reisman, March 7, 2012.
What were we going to do?: Reisman, interview.
the top foreign delegations: Author interview with Zhuang Jiafu, November 10, 2011.
I’m the premier: Ibid.
spiritual nuclear weapon: “Playing the Numbers Game,” South China Morning Post, July 31, 2008.
much more than: Frank Dikötter, notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
when there is not enough to eat: Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 134.
Foreign friends visiting: “How China Gets High Farm Yields,” China Reconstructs, April 1959.
It’s easy to mock: “Jung Kuo-tuan,” Daily Mirror, April 2, 1959.
In three months: “First National Games,” China Reconstructs, December 1959, 34–36.
Chapter 17 | Setting the Table
a monstrous villain: Daily Worker, November 7, 1948.
Lysenko gained three chauffeured cars: Becker, Hungry Ghosts, 64.
desired requirements: Clark, J. B. S., 174.
he first shook Lysenko’s hand: Box 11.5, Montagu Collection, Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester, UK.
This tickles Lysenko: Ibid.
personally drew up: Becker, Hungry Ghosts, 66–71.
Chapter 18 | The End of Brotherhood
they released balloons: “Peking Ovation for Tibetans,” Daily Worker, May 1, 1959.
caterpillars wrapped the foliage: Suyin, My House Has Two Doors, 266.
Among the buildings: Brownell, Training the Body for China, 131.
Brilliant sunshine: “May Day,” Daily Worker, May 1, 1959.
considerable contribution to the consolidation: “International Lenin Peace Prize Presented to Ivor Montagu,” Moscow News, May 1, 1959.
for about four hours: Evans, Coloured Pins on the Map, 46.
looking at the plans: Author interview with Wang Ding Hua, November 2011.
The forces of war: “International Lenin Peace Prize Presented to Ivor Montagu.”
signed off on forty-four hectares: Hung, Mao’s New World, 46.
margarine Marxist: Montefiore, Stalin, 523.
control China’s seacoasts: Burr, Kissinger Transcripts, 197.
This friendship will live: Moscow News, September 30, 1959.
Nigerian speakers: Moscow News, April 29, 1961.
vigorous advocacy: Tien-min, Chou En-Lai.
Chapter 19 | Preparation
the emperor’s garden: Nai’an and Luo, All Men Are Brothers, x.
with no windows: Jiang, Small Ball Spins the Big Ball, chap. 6.
half a dozen Ping-Pong tables: Chang, Wild Swans, 267.
took on the dual propaganda role: “Millions Take Up Table Tennis,” China Reconstructs, March 1960, 35.
every athlete was expected: Chen, One in a Billion, 78.
We weren’t encouraged: Author interview with Xu Shaofa, May 2011.
The new life: Author interview with Xi Enting, May 6, 2011.
downing ten bottles: Author interview with Han Zhicheng, November 8, 2011.
The two men would face off: Author interview with Marty Reisman, March 7, 2012.
no other apparent source: Ibid.
Everyone came to trade: Ibid.
The Buy Policy: Author interview with Wang Ding Hua, November 2011.
Whoever came up: Author interview with Robert Oxnam, May 19, 2011.
We were so nervous: Author interview with Zhuang Jiafu, November 10, 2011.
had all attended: Sports column, China Reconstructs, January 1956, 30.
Chapter 20 | Sacrifice
bumper harvest: Wu with Li, Single Tear, 108.
The men were reduced: Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 288–90, gives the death rates in the Chinese gulags as ranging wildly. The best-case scenario was a 4 to 8 percent chance of death in the North; at worst, an approximately 70 percent chance in an area near the Gobi Desert.
muddy rags: Wu with Li, Single Tear, 146.
deliberate murder on a mass scale: Jasper Becker, notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, 6, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
How bold the peasants: “Scientists Learn from Peasants,” China Reconstructs, October 1958.
open invitation: Zhisui, Private Life of Chairman Mao, 280.
Grain should be taken: Mao gave this speech in October 1958; it is included by Frank Dikötter in his notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
17 million: McGregor, The Party, 259.
between two and three million: Frank Dikötter, notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, 11, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
swell during the famine: Ibid., 20.
the people urgently demand: Domes, Peng Te-huai, 86.
Putting politics in command: Ibid., 92–93; direct quote from Peng’s letter.
he had once glorified in poetry: Ibid., 44.
Mao’s favorite movie: Zhisui, Private Life of Chairman Mao, 374.
Chapter 21 | Nourishing the Team
plenty of goat meat: Author interview with Wang Dinghua, November 9, 2011.
a roof that leaked: Author interview with Qiu Zhonghui, May 4, 2011.
there was little to buy: Author interview with Li Furong, May 2011.
the glory of our unit: Author interview with Han Zhicheng, November 8, 2011.
were very nervous: Author interview with Zheng Chuan Qiang, November 9, 2011.
If you lose a game: Author interview with Liang Youneng, November 11, 2011.
Mao stopped by: Yap
ing, From Bound Feet, 25.
the stadium was packed: Zheng Chuan Qiang, interview.
All 108 stayed: Author interview with Qi Da Zheng, November 8, 2011.
At the theater: Suyin, My House Has Two Doors, 318.
she was chastised: Ibid., 306.
affected roughly 10 percent: Becker, Hungry Ghosts, 199.
their heads well within: Suyin, My House Has Two Doors, 362.
for no more than two hours: Ibid., 388.
his wife served tea: Becker, Hungry Ghosts, 240.
a scene of booming prosperity: Program for the 1961 World Championships in Peking.
Fu was trying to create: Author interview with Shen Ji Chang, November 7, 2011.
the sweat and the blood: Qiu Zhonghui, interview.
these special brooches: Ibid.
Let me tell you another story: Author interview with Zhuang Jiafu, November 10, 2011.
Chapter 22 | Ping-Pong Espionage
The most studied of all: Author interview with Liang Youneng, November 7, 2011.
He was amazed: Ibid.
was a very boastful article: Ibid. Much of the rest of this chapter is based on an extensive interview with Zhuang Jiafu.
Chapter 23 | Cheery Martial Music
seen five hundred cases of train robbery: Frank Dikötter, notes for the World’s Greatest Famine: Witnessing, Surviving, Remembering conference, 29, Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, DC, February 15, 2012.
incredibly depressing: Author interview with Alan Tomlinson, September 10, 2011.
an absolute book: Ibid.
seeing a Chinese blonde: “Chou’s Chaps Doing Us Proud,” Daily Mirror, April 5, 1961.
recommended limits: “Sidelights on the Table Tennis Meet,” China Reconstructs, June 1961.
statues of athletes: Program for the 1961 World Championships in Peking.
I must admit the copy: “Chou’s Chaps Doing Us Proud.”
Don’t throw anything away: Tomlinson, interview.
best sports journalists: “Ban That Shames Us All,” Daily Mirror, February 22, 1966.
mourning bands: Lescot, Before Mao, 299.
legs of female dragonflies: Yuan, Born Red, 90.
The bitter joke: Cao, The Attic, 90.
a long, agonizing process: Oddly, cocklebur was also the inspiration for the creation of Velcro, a nylon imitation of cocklebur’s tiny hooks invented by a Swiss engineer in the 1940s.
What are you looking at?: Author interview with Qiu Zhonghui, May 4, 2011.
Chapter 24 | The Chance to Shine
It was like Cirque du Soleil: Author interview with Murray Dunn, September 19, 2011.
looked like the cat: J. L. Manning, “Ping Pang on the Avenue of Perpetual Peace,” Daily Mail, April 5, 1961.
the premier and Mao’s wife: Evans, Coloured Pins on the Map, 42.
something of a drawing-room Communist: Chargé d’Affaires in Peking to Alec Douglas-Home, letter, undated (presumably April 1961), FO 371/158437, National Archives, Kew, UK.
remarks were in lockstep: File 117-01285-01, number 26, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive, Beijing, PRC.
your reaction could be misconceived: Author interview with Bryan Foster, September 19, 2011.
Had they done that in Europe: Ibid.
lowly, grey tiled resting places: “Chou’s Chaps Doing Us Proud,” Daily Mail, April 5, 1961.
It was hard to tell: Dunn, interview.
British Railway engine drivers: Desmond Hackett, Table Tennis Topics, May 1961.
we’ll have to have a coffee: Dunn, interview.
British sense of fair play: Brownell, Training the Body for China, 291.
Even though Major Gagarin: “Sidelights on the Table Tennis Meet,” China Reconstructs, June 1961.
When are we going: Foster, interview.
in his own home: “My Boy Chaung Tse-tung, By His Mother, Le Chung-Ju,” China Reconstructs, June 1961.
didn’t know a thing about table tennis: Author interview with Xu Yinsheng, May 4, 2011.
no fleet worth speaking of: Suyin, Eldest Son, 292.
a sweat pit: “So Gentle Jap Rocks Diane,” Daily Express, April 14, 1961.
big brother loud-speaker: “Chinese Crackers As They Win the Swaythling Cup,” Daily Express, April 10, 1961.
every shot against the Japanese: Guoqi, Olympic Dreams, 71.
It was genuine happiness: Author interview with Yao Zhenxu, November 9, 2011.
China was champion of the world: “Chinese Crackers As They Win the Swaythling Cup.”
technician flashed the stadium’s lights: Ibid.
reverberated to the banging of drums: Author interview with Shen Ji Chang, November 7, 2011.
Everyone stood up to clap in his honor: Dunn, interview.
Zhou Enlai hosted a good-bye party: Chargé d’Affaires in Peking to Alec Douglas-Home, FO 371/158437.
reelected without any other nominations: “Behind the Championships,” Table Tennis, May 1961.
China’s fledglings: Hua Wen, “New Horizons for Table Tennis,” China Reconstructs, June 1961.
Chapter 25 | Fallout
not entirely negligible fillip: Chargé d’Affaires in Peking to Alec Douglas-Home, letter, undated (presumably April 1961), FO 371/158437, National Archives, Kew, UK.
the great roar of China: “Cheering Chinese Hail Harrison the Great,” Daily Express, April 6, 1961.
a lotus blossom drop: “Chinese Silent As Harrison Slams Russia,” Daily Express, April 7, 1961.
no room for doubt: Daily Mirror, April 7, 1961.
and failed to find a single pub: “Play? It’s All Work for the Chinese,” Daily Mirror, May 3, 1961.
seem to be well within: “The Three Generals Leading China,” Daily Worker, April 20, 1959.
the swollen faces: Suyin, My House Has Two Doors, 373.
no scruples in shattering world peace: Times of India, April 20, 1961.
Almost all the people in their fifties: “People Behind the Bamboo Curtain,” New York Times, July 30, 1961.
weighed every pig and chicken: Author interview with Herbert Levin, October 5, 2012.
a genuine democrat: Sydney Morning Herald, April 23, 1961.
the number of American advisers: Less than twenty Americans had been killed in Vietnam by May 1962. It was still thought of as a “great continuing war game” (Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie, 58).
Chapter 26 | Heroes of the Nation
down the back of people’s trousers: Author interview with Zhuang Jiafu, November 10, 2011.
good luck to touch the world champion: Author interview with Zhuang Xieling, May 2011.
to tour Guinea, Mali, Ghana: Chi-wen, Sports Go Forward in China, 50.
also happened to be the minister of defense: “They Tip Ghana as Future Champs,” Ghanaian Times, May 16, 1962.
was propelled into the air: Ti Chiang Hua, “In Peking: A Sports Horror,” Emily Wang, translator, Free China Review, January 1, 1986.
the Mao suits would have to be returned: Chen, One in a Billion, 185.
were immediately suspended: “Peking’s Envoys Ousted by Tunis,” New York Times, September 24, 1967.
he was the crowd favorite: “Complete Oriental Domination,” Table Tennis, May 1965.
a contingent of forty: Dick Miles, “No Defense against Murder,” Sports Illustrated, May 5, 1969.
otherwise elusive government leaders: Yaping, From Bound Feet, 100.
The only guests: Author interview with Qiu Zhonghui, May 4, 2011.
a visit to one’s own family: Suyin, My House Has Two Doors, 212.
small wooden twin beds: Ibid.
these special little meatballs: Qiu Zhonghui, interview.
close to both forests: Zhisui, Private Life of Chairman Mao, 174.
kept her feet covered with rubber shoes: Ibid.
danced alone in place: Lescot, Before Mao, 285.
accused of favoring a turn to the right: Suyin, Eldest Son, 202.
; the leader of world revolution: Shuman, “Elite Competitive Sport in the People’s Republic of China 1958–1966,” 22.
already famous for his part: “New Era in Asian Sports History,” China Reconstructs, January 1967.
Chapter 27 | Spreading the Gospel
was known for his fanatical love: Jojima, Ogi, 201.
Ogi lunched with Zhou Enlai: Ogimura, Ichiro Ogimura in Legend, 165.
There’s another reason: Jojima, Ogi, 202.
That’s why I want you: Ibid.
and fallen to his knees: Ibid., 204–5.
The Japanese were humiliated: Ibid., 201–8.
Flowers sometimes bloom: David Wilson to David Timms, letter, June 4, 1964, FO 371/175966, National Archives, Kew, UK.
I never thought anyone: Author interview with Xu Yinsheng, May 4, 2011.
not read anything so good for years: Mao Zedong, “Comment on the Article ‘How to Play Table Tennis’ by Comrade Xu Yingsheng,” Selected Works of Comrade Mao Tse-Tung, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_46.htm.
Mao made everyone read Xu Yinsheng: Author interview with Shen Ji Chang, November 7, 2011.
To rely entirely on the team: Hsu Yin-Sheng (Xu Yinsheng), “On How to Play Table Tennis,” Editorial Board of China’s Sports, 1964.
dwelled on the failures: Rice, Mao’s Way, 185–86.
In the middle of the room: Author interview with Han Zhicheng, November 8, 2011.
Chapter 28 | The Grinding Halt
If others attack me: Domes, Peng Te-huai, 94.
Only the lightness of traffic: Chang, Wild Swans, 288.
because the purpose of the training: “Sports Education,” China Reconstructs, April 1962, 40.
Every restaurant’s opened its doors: Author interview with Xi Enting, May 6, 2011.
at the forced pace: Heng and Shapiro, Son of the Revolution, 101.
their battered travel bags: Xi Enting, interview.
a man in a three-cornered hat: Jojima, Ogi, 214.
Ping-Pong Diplomacy Page 31