History of U.S. Table Tennis

History of U.S.
Table Tennis
Vol. V: 1971-1972
The Ping-Pong Diplomacy Years: ...please, write the truth

as best you can. Or at least the little lies that are true.
BY TIM BOGGAN
USATT HISTORIAN
East-West show of
Friendship: Chinas
Chuang Tse-tung and the
U.S.s Glenn Cowan
exchanging gifts at the
1971 Nagoya Worlds
Copyright 2005
TIM BOGGAN
Tim Boggan is a former International Table Tennis
Federation Vice-President, and a former three-term
President of the United States Table Tennis Association
(now USA Table Tennis).
For 14 years he served as Editor of the National
Publication, and is the author of Winning Table Tennis (1976)
and Volumes I (2000), II (2003), III (2004), and IV (2005)
of this multi-volume History of U.S. Table Tennis. For over 30
years he taught English at Long Island University in
Brooklyn, and since 1965 has been a prodigious writer
for the Sport. Having retired from teaching, he is
currently the USA Table Tennis Historian, as well as
the Associations Secretary.
He has received the ITTF Order of Merit Award,
the USTTA Barna Award, and was inducted into the
USTTA Hall of Fame in 1985. He has been on the
Halls Board of Directors since 1979.
He was a member of the 1971 U.S. Ping-Pong
Diplomacy Team to China, and since then has
attended, as official and/or journalist, 15 or more
World Championships. In 1975 he Captained the U.S.
Team to the Calcutta Worlds.
As a player through five decades, he has on
occasion, in addition to some modest early tournament
success, and, later, some success in World Veterans
Championships, been the U.S. Over 40, 50, 60, and 70
Singles and Doubles Champion.
Both of his sons, Scott and Eric, were U.S.
Junior and then U.S. Mens Singles Champions.
Both are in the USTTA Hall of Fame.
Price: $35.00
History of U.S. Table Tennis

VOL. V: 19711972:
The Ping-Pong Diplomacy Years: ...please, write the truth

as best you can. Or at least the little lies that are true.
by Tim Boggan, USATT Historian
Copyright 2005
This book is for Tom Dulack and Dick Miles
I want to acknowledge how much I appreciate Larry Hodgess

indispensible contribution toward the making of my books (scanning
photos, help in laying out the pages). Without his experience and
efficiency, its possible I would not have completed these Volumes,
or at least not have completed them as quickly as I have.
Id like also to give special thanks
again to Dave Sakai for his continual
effort and encouragement.
Larry Hodges
Dave Sakai
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ISBN NUMBER: 0-9707657-4-6
COPYRIGHT 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the
prior written permission of the copyright owner.
2
Acknowledgements
Books, Magazines, Programs, Memorabilia, Photos
Ill acknowledge my varied
sources appropriately throughout
the text. To Rufford Harrison and
Mal Anderson Im especially
indebted; their generous sharing of
on-the-scene photos encouraged me
to write this two-part book. I was
also greatly helped by the Chinese
publications of the day made
available to me, particularly those
having to do with table tennis.
Interviews, Conversations,
Correspondence
I remember and thank these people
for their help in allowing me to
Rufford Harrison
Mal Anderson
make this book: Mal Anderson,
Judy Bochenski, Milla Boczar,
Sally Boggan, George The Chief Brathwaite, George and Madeline Buben, Bernie Bukiet,
Mr. Chi, Glenn Cowan, Clarence Cross, Fred Danner, Charlie Disney, Tom Dulack,
Mrs. Vee Edwards, Alex Ehrlich, Dick Evans, H. Roy Evans, Alan Goldstein, Alice Green,
Mike and Norma Green, Don Gunn, Bob Gusikoff, Rufford Harrison, Wendy Hicks,
Pat Hildebrand, Larry Hodges, Mike Hoffland, Jack Howard, Steve Isaacson, Dean Johnson,
Bob and Barbara Kaminsky, Gus and Jean Kennedy, Ted Koppel, Bernie Krisher,
D-J and Linda Lee, Perry Link, Patty Martinez, John Masters, Mary McIlwain,
Dick and Mary Miles, Leah Miss Ping Neuberger, Mr. Oka, Peter Pradit, John Read,
Marty Reisman, Errol and Jairie Resek, Fuarnado Roberts, Angelita Rosal, Dave Sakai,
William Scheltema, Adham Sharara, Olga Soltesz, Graham Steenhoven, Doug Stewart,
Dell and Connie Sweeris, John Tannehill, Zdenko Uzorinac, Marge Walden, Derek Wall,
George Yates, and Jose Yglesias.
Foreword
I never thought that I
would be happy to see the
words Ping Pong, and in a
newspaper of all placesin fact,
in many newspapers. These
words are hated by all who
struggled hard in the early days
to persuade a general public,
derisive because of the ping
pong table in the basement, that
table tennis is a first class sport,
involving art and great physical
stamina.
Yet in May, 1972
newspapers all over the world
carried banner headlinesPing
Pong Diplomacyand I was
glad. It was scarcely to be
expected that journalists
anywhere would not leap to use
an onomatopoeia which not
only gave them a neat lead, but,
by the very fact of their Chinese
appearance, were a must in
understanding a story which
rocked the world!
The fact that British and
Canadian teams were invited to
From the Report of the 1971 Nagoya Worlds
tour China after the Nagoya
ITTF President H. Roy Evans addressing the opening of the
World Championships was news
1971 Nagoya World Championships
enough, for all physical contact
with the Chinese had terminated in 1965, and little if anything was known of their activities
throughout the Cultural Revolution.
But when the Americans were invited, that really got the wires buzzing, and the implications
were tremendous. Perhaps tremendous isnt an exciting enough word to use to describe the
impact in the United States. Probably there, for longer than anywhere, our game had suffered the
indignity imposed by the name by which it was known. And the fact that such a game had been
the means of establishing a detente between World Powers politically so far apart was almost
unbelievable!
Little wonder then that, as President of the International Table Tennis Federation, I was
so proud that our game had been used as a vehicle of approach that I instantly forgave all those
who used those hated words.
Because I was part of this extraordinary happening, it might be interesting to record the
sequence of events.
4
We in the I.T.T.F. had maintained a formal correspondence with the Table Tennis Section
of the Peoples Republic of China throughout the period of the Cultural Revolution, but information
as to actual playing activities only came to us by way of rumour via Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Towards the end of 1970 and in the early months of 1971, it became apparent that events
were moving towards the re-appearance of the Chinese in the World Championships in Nagoya,
Japan, in April.
Shortly before my planned departure for Nagoya, I was asked by the Chinese Charge
dAffaires in London if I would be prepared to go to Peking en route for Japan.
I readily agreed, as there were many items of importance in which I knew they would be
deeply interested, and in any case I wished to renew acquaintance with the Association that had
departed the scene in 1965 as the strongest in the World.
So I went via Hong Kong on a visit I had made before in 1959 and 1961, but under very
different circumstances,
I spent two or three days with the Chinese in deep discussions on the implications of
various political attitudes, a subject which looms large in any International Organization, but
which I do not propose to discuss here.
My stay culminated in a conference with Prime Minister Chou En-lai, who reinforced
arguments advanced by the Table Tennis Officials. During the discussion Chou En-lai expressed
great pleasure at Chinas re-entry into World Table Tennis, and talked of further steps they could
take to re-establish themselves quickly,
I reminded him of the Peking Invitation Tournament they used to hold each August, and
suggested its revival. I pointed out that all the strongest countries would be present in Nagoya,
and that it would be a good opportunity to invite them to China after the World Championships.
May I record here and now that no promise was given, and indeed no recommendation
on my part, as to which countries should be invited.
The subsequent invitations extended to England and Canada were therefore no surprise to
me, but that the United States, the unlikeliest guest of all, was invited, was of course a great shock.
I have been, all through the visit and its aftermath, critical of any person claiming to have
been the architect of any breakthrough. I am convinced that the Chinese did exactly what the
Chinese had planned to do. That the breakthrough occurred in our game is accounted for by the
fact that the International Table Tennis Federation is the only truly international sports organization
to which the Chinese belong. Table Tennis is second only to basketball as a Chinese National
sport, and the Chinese are amongst the best players in the world. What more natural than their
use of our game as a vehicle upon which to ride out of the obscurity of the Cultural Revolution?
All who go to China will have a fascinating experience. Hospitality is overwhelming,
friendship the religion of every moment of every day. Let us accept the fact that our organization
was used as a medium for the expression of Chinese determination to demonstrate its friendly
intentions in a world upon which it had turned its back for six years.
The euphoria which attended every Chinese visit to fifty countries brought fantastic
publicity to our game. We must be deeply grateful for that, but it would be as well to recognize,
and record, that the initiative really came from the Chinese.
H. Roy Evans
President, International Table Tennis Federation
[The late Roy Evans was President of the ITTF from 1967 to 1987]
5
Authors Preface
Ping-Pong Oddity, my subjective account of the U.S. Teams 1971 Diplomacy trip into
China, grew out of an essay, Travels With Chou En-Lai, that appeared first in the Long Island
paper Newsday (May 22, 1971), and then, as Portrait Of A Seven Day China-Watcher, in the
May-June, 1971 issue of the official USTTA magazine, Table Tennis Topics. It began like this:
Make the past serve the present and foreign things serve
That quote of Mao Tse-tungs that I brought back from my recent trip ought naturally
to end with the word China. But I have purposefully left it opento suit myself.
I suppose if I were Spiro Agnew and in the position of coming back from some
such obviously diplomatic trip I might feel used. But as I am not in my heart
indignant, it may be that, as our Chinese hosts kept assuring us, everyone can indeed
learn something from everyone else.
Hence, I prefer, romantically, to think that my past is now very much my
present, and that, if I have served China, it also has served me...
I greatly enlarged this essay into book form during the 1972-73 winter and hoped to
get it in print, but then I foolishly quarreled with the prospective publisher, the book didnt
come out, and I never afterwards tried to get it published. A copy later in the 70s went to the
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, to the Sino-American Collection there.
The Grand Tour, my subjective account of the 1972 visit of the Chinese Team to the
U.S., I wrote in the spring of 1972 immediately after accompanying them on their Tour. It
filled quite a few pages in Section 2 of the May-June, 1972 issue of Topics. I believe a copy of
this is also in the collection at Ann Arbor.
Later I put these two books on the USATT website, though without photos and
without the changes Ive made since.
Regarding this Ping-Pong Diplomacy phenomenon (about which much has been
written) I have all I can do, and all thats valuable for me to do, to just concentrate on the U.S.
Group-experience that my insider position allowed me to observe. My subjective account is
uniqueas opposed to the many political critiques and comments of experienced China
Watchers that have proliferated so after 30+ years.
This material of course makes up Volume V in my chronological History of U. S. Table
Tennis, a volume thats necessarily a bit different from the others, for this time Ive fewer
secondary sources to rely on; my main source for the text is usually primaryme. Few sports
have had such a rush of attention given themand I was lucky enough to be part of it all, and,
taking notes constantly as I traveled, first in China, then in the U.S., not trusting to the
vagaries of memory, I tried to make the most of my experience. Mine is a first-hand record of
the events, subjective, yes, but one to be believed.
Naturally its not the last word, or the only word, as to what definitively happened
there were quite a few others who shared those two trips with me, and one persons reality
is not necessarily anothers. But what I saw and heard, what I and I think others felt, as
truthfully as I can describe it, is what Ive tried to give you.
In Vol. VI, of course, Ill return to the summer of 1970 and continue my History from
there.
Tim Boggan
March 21, 2005
6
Our practice proves that what is perceived cannot at once be comprehended and that
only what is comprehended can be more deeply perceivedWhoever wants to know a thing
has no way of doing so except by coming into contact with it, that is, by living (practising) in
its environmentKnowledge is a matter of science, and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever
is permissible.
Mao Tse-tung (On Practice)
The great art of riding, as I was saying, isto keep your balance properly. Like this,
you know
He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he meant, and
this time he fell flat on his back, right under the horses feet.
Plenty of practice! he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was getting him on his
feet again. Plenty of practice!
Lewis Carrol (Through the Looking-Glass)
Nagoya Castle
From 1971 Worlds No. 1 Bulletin
Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium
PING-PONG ODDITY
Chapter One
The first time I saw the red Chinese I wasnt thinking of them as the Peoples Republic
of China. In fact, for one brief moment or two, I wasnt thinking of them as people.
It was an afternoon in late March of 1971, and I was playing table tennis in the Aichi
Prefectural Gymnasium in Nagoya, Japanpracticing hard with one of the U.S. Team
members the day before the start of the week-and-a-half-long World Championship matches.
Because every one of the 54 entered teams (the Swedes, I remember, had just come in
and were warming up) had been allotted two hours private playing time away from the
practice areas a short bus ride off, all competitors would be able to familiarize themselves with
the actual conditions in the Gymthe lighting, the floor, the tables, the bounce of the ball, and
the sense of space in which to attack or defend.
Only a few scattered teams were scheduled at that hour to share the 16 enclosed-off
courts in the Stadium, and few if any of them, for of course it was a non-tournament time, had
attendant supporters. So at first it was strange playing therefor, all around, echoing the
sound of ping-pong balls, was the emptiness of the circle of stands above.
Or so I thought until, once, on retrieving a ball, I chanced to look up and see that,
unknown to me, or, I suppose, practically anyone, they had entered silently, some thirty or
forty strong, in uniform maroon jump suits or official, gray, button-down tunics, had formed a
block of seats in the empty air, and, all together now, were intently watching, as from a
hovering space ship, a particular player in a court adjacent to me below.
Of course I was startledthe Chinese had so caught me by surprise. And yet I wasnt
in any way embarrassed, for they didnt seem to be observing me. Rather just the opposite, it
was I who had the advantage and could stare
unashamedly at them.
Where had they come from?
Six years ago, before the Cultural Revolution,
they were the greatest players in the world. Since then
(Chuang Tse-tung, Li Fu-jungwas it true theyd been
cut down like irreplaceable statues in the purge of the
Red Guards?) they had dropped out of sightonly
now, miraculously, to suddenly reappear.
And whom were they watching with such laser
beam concentration?
A Swede. But not whom youd expect, not Alser
or Johanssonthe World Doubles Champions. No,
their attention focused on an unspectacular-looking 18year-old named Stellan Bengtsson, seeded 10th in the
Mens Singles.
I didnt know it then, but 10 days later, even if
the Chinese were not the least bit astonished, I was.
Stellan Bengtsson would be the new Mens Singles
From the 1972 English Open Program, 16
Champion of the world, and I and the rest of the U.S.
Stellan Bengtsson
9
Team and its official party would be going, as it were, to a different planetMainland China
spirited off in the name of some new-found friendship by these very same Chinese, the
mysterious, all-knowing strangers of the moment.
How could I, could any American of my time and place, be on that night plane to
Peking?
A giant firefly:
that way, this way, that way, this
and it passes by.
Now, looking back on this translation of Issas firefly haiku, its anything but a
digression, I hope, to comment that more of my life has passed me by. True, over the years,
much of it seems to have been lost in the blackness. But its enough, is it, that even though I
didnt know what was going to happen next, was indecisive, lacked direction, I more than
occasionally lit up, had energy, was seen for moments here and therean identifiable moving
object, an insect caught breathing in, breathing out, the air of this spaceship Earth?
In showing a little spark of life here, in speaking of that unforeseen flight two years ago
through the darkness to Pekingand, later, down to Shanghai and over to CantonIm
immediately reminded of the back-and-forth, zigzag line of thought that I took in originally
trying to find my own dark way to Nagoya.
It was really this three-line Japanese poem about the brevity of lifewith its
accompanying idea that one ought to at least try, if only in the perspective of the moment, to
move in some directionthat, more than anything else, even the prompting of two close
friends, made all the difference to me.
For the U.S. Team (unlike other, comparable teams abroad, it had never been
government subsidized) just wasnt prepared to have me (or, for that matter, anyone) free of
chargewhich was the only way I, an Assistant Professor of English at Long Island University
in Brooklyn, could afford to go.
Being a second-tier player (U.S. #15), I was not one of the five men picked on the
basis of his tournament record for the Team by the USTTAs Selection Committee. However, I
had some claim to join the U.S. contingent. I was a Vice-President of the Association, the
appointed U.S. First Delegate to the International Table Tennis Federations (ITTFs) U.N.like Congress that would be meeting at Nagoya, and, most importantly, was the Editor of the
USTTA magazine, Table Tennis Topics, which for nine months or so Id been transforming
into a successful publication.
I felt that by economizing two issues of the magazine into one, I could save enough
money out of my budget to cover my transportation expenses to Japan and back, after which,
on my return, I would give the membershiplargely isolated from international competition,
and hence ignorant of what the sport was really all aboutby far the most detailed report
theyd ever had on any tournament abroad.
Two things, though, were stopping me. The first was the fact that none of the Team
players (not to say officials) were being funded by the USTTA. And so it really wasnt fair to
fund me, was it? For certainly any one player was more important than any one official, wasnt
he/she?
Well, if I had to answer my own nagging question, no doubt he was, but, in the end,
when Id hesitated so long it was almost too late, I convinced myself that, though no Topics
10
Editor had ever had his way paid to the Worlds in the 40-year history of the magazine, no
Topics Editor had ever done the work Id done or could do in the future.
Once Id decided that, the second obstacle, the one I feared, had to be overcome. I
would have to call and convince, practically beg for the help of, the sure-to-be-surprised eight
other members of the Executive Committeesome of whom I personally didnt like, and most
of whom, I was afraid, would naturally be jealous of me.
There was also the not so minor problem of getting my University Department Heads
approval for my leave and as many substitute teachers for my classes as I could.
that way, this way, that way, this. Through all the hassles my unconscious
continued to see the comet tail of that long dead poets jagged line of lifeit kept passing me
by, signaling the way in darkness.
Eventually I could work out my situation at the
UniversityId be able to get at least half my classes
covered. And as for the rest, well, I knew the students
would be sympatheticthey liked me and understood I
had to seize the opportunity. Meanwhile, at home, amid
the day-by-day indecision, Sally, my wife, continued to
give me the lipstick kiss of encouragement.
After a series of phone calls and a letterin
which in responding to USTTA International Chairman J.
Rufford Harrisons view that the Association ought not to
give me the money, I strongly intimated I would resign as
Editor of the magazine if not given the go-aheadI
finally saw the Executive Committee bring the matter to a
vote. The results were: 3 for (including my own vote), 3
against, and 2 abstentions. The tie had to be broken by
President Graham B. Steenhoven, the man who was to
lead our Team through the U.S.-China exchange visits.
Tim Boggan
He voted for meas hed
assured me he would all alongand, inside, I rocketed away,
lit up the sky.
I, whod never veered outside the U.S. and its border
countries, had for a moment suddenly taken hold of some
strange controls and clumsily changed, at least a little, the
course of my life. And because it was the first time Id ever
tried to hustle money, I surprisingly, at 40, felt more alive, and
not quite the innocent adrift I almost certainly knew I was.
For the other Team officials, it was relatively easyat
least six months earlier they had made up their minds to go to
Japan.
White-haired, bespectacled President Steenhoven of
Detroit was the North American Vice-President of the ITTF.
Hed been active in U.S. Table Tennis for most of the 40 or
more years hed been with Chrysler (though I could never
Photo by Tony Spina,
picture him in playing clothes, always in Management, with a
Detroit Free Press
business suit and a lapel pin).
Graham Steenhoven
11
Harrisonfrom Wilmington, Delaware, a 40-year-old Dupont

chemist (hed come to them in 1953 as a specialist on adhesive
resins)had a Ph.D. from London University and was something of
a pedant. As our International Chair, hed been corresponding with
ITTF members abroad and going to the biennial World
Championships for many years. As dedicated Chairman of the ITTF
Equipment Committee, he, like Steenhoven, would be given free
hospitality while in Nagoya.
George Buben was a metal
pattern worker in his forties who,
along with Steenhoven, had been
very active in Detroit table tennis,
especially in organizing and running
the biggest of our (regretfully,
always unpublicized) U.S.
Rufford Harrison
tournaments. He was taking his
wife, Madeline, to Nagoya, and
since theyd saved up for the trip it was understood that he
had few if any USTTA duties and that it would simply be an
enjoyable vacation for the two of them. True, he was given the
token position of U.S. Second Delegate to the ITTF Congress,
but this, aside from allowing him to get down on the playing
floor close to the matches, meant little, for the World
Championship Organizing Committee was offering room and
board to only the U.S. First Delegate, me.
It was, I thought, much to George and) Madelines credit
(Madeline had been appointed to the USTTA E.C. post of
Corresponding Secretary by her Detroit neighbor Steenhoven)
that she registered her (that way, this way) abstention on
whether I should be given the money to go to Nagoya or not. I
assume that, in my absence, George would have been First
Delegate and have been given hospitality for the duration of the
tournament.
Or, come to think of it, was Georges hospitality as
Photos by Mal Anderson
Second Delegate (and even E.C. member Madelines) being paid George and Madeline Buben
for by the USTTA anyway? Its a little thing like that, so
important to the players, like what was being done with their membership money, that would
often not register with me.
As I think back on this little in-group of officials, I cant help but speculate on how
alike or how different we were. Bubenusually unassertive, agreeable, like me a longtime
mid-westerner, now a Delegate going to his first Worlds to sit passively, unknown, while wily
walruses in Congress met. Harrisonwith his Royal Canadian physical fitness exercises, his
Air Force brush-cropped hair; both a match for his carefully trimmed beard, and the glasses
through which he looked so precisely (not to say coldly) at the written word. And
Steenhovenwho, on the one hand, served to remind me that (despite the duties my Topics
magazine demanded and the essential vote right function I had as one of the several
12
unimaginative USTTA Vice-Presidents) I was still much

more a player than an official; and who, on the other,
allowed me to understand that, in the table tennis hierarchy
to which I apparently aspired, the less the officials were to
play, the more theyd be separated from the competitors
they were to speak for.
But, o.k., enough for the moment about the officials,
now a little about the players.
Two of the four women selected for the Team, Irene
Ogus and Alice Green, could not, or would not, go to
Nagoya.
Irene, an English girl living in California, who was a finalist
to Canadian winner Violetta Nesukaitis in the 1970 U.S. Open,
and whod previously played in international competition for
England, expressed her disappointment in an article in Topics.
All that effort, she wrote, aborted by the parsimony of the
Photo by Mal Anderson
USTTA. Despite warnings, I constantly remained optimistic
Irene Ogus
that they would open their purse strings in the end. Its just too
bad, just too bad. Im not sure what the next step is from here.
The USTTA had much depleted its International Team Fund at the 69 Worlds in
Munich. And now, though there might be enough in their thin little purse for #1 ranked Irene,
there would not be anything like that amount for all the others on the Team. So how could the
officials show any favoritism? Each of the players would get $96 expense money in Japan. As
for Irene, she, like anybody else, would have to get herself a sponsor.
That is, if shed try. Did she? Or, overcome with disgust at the inability of the Association to
raise funds for its many orphaned children, did she feel it was just not her job to (what?) prostitute
herself so? Was there no one, now that shed left England for America, who still valued the integrity
of an amateur, a sportswoman? Must she become a hustler walking the streets?
Irenes next step was to quit the Game.
The other girl, Alice Green, a veteran of those 69
World Championships and currently a student at Barnard
College in Manhattan, was later to convey the impression
in at least one reporters wordsthat there have to be more
important things than getting a celluloid ball over a net, even
if that net is in Japan.Alice could go to Nagoya if she
wanted, but the price she would have had to pay would have
been the loss of class time and possible postponement of
some mid-term examinations.
Coming in to take these two girls places were
alternates 17-year-old Olga Soltesz, from Orlando, Florida,
and 15-year-old Judy Bochenski, from Eugene, Oregon.
They understood little or nothing about the world-class play
they would find in Nagoya.
According to an article in the close-knit communityminded magazine Orlando Land, funds for Olgas trip to Japan
were raised by her classmates at William R. Boone High School.
Alice Green
13
Each home room had a special

delegate, John Pitts, the principal,
told reporter Elaine Schooping. I
met with them and they eagerly
accepted the assignment. They were
willing to underwrite Olgas
expenses before another organization
volunteered. They said, We can do
it.
They collected the money in jars
which they placed in the cafeteria
and other spots around the school.
They took up a collection each
From the 1972 U.S. Open Program
morning during home room period.
Olga Soltesz (L) and Judy Bochenski
We used a gimmick.Wed make
an announcement in the morning, saying, Weve got enough money now to put Olga over
Nevada.Now shes over L.A.Now weve got her half-way back from Japan. It took
them only four days to raise nearly $800.
Judy Bochenskis family, in jarring contrast, though they were helped with $250 by
local table tennis clubs, had to pay $850 to send her on her mini-skirted way to Japan. When
she gets back, her father Lou said as if in compensation,
shell have changed.
The other two spots
on the Womens Team
went to the finalists of the
1971 U.S. Openrunnerup Wendy Hicks of Santa
Barbara, California, who,
because she kept smiling
often, even in defeat, Id
always thought of as
Wendy Darling (though
the next year, 72, she
was to get tough enough
to come back and win the
Open), and the mightymite who beat her in a
five-game, 25-23 in the
5th, thriller, Connie
Wendy Hicks
U.S. Champion Connie Sweeris
Sweeris of Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
Each of these young women was helped by an outside sponsorso that Connies
biggest worry was leaving two-year-old daughter Michelle (Shelly) at home, along with
husband Dell, the unused 1st Alternate on the Mens Team (Mr. Connie Sweeris, he
laughingly called himself); while all Wendy had to occasionally think about was keeping her
scheduled meeting with a friend in Hawaii on her return from Japan.
14
U.S. Champion D-J Lee
From The Asia Magazine, June 20, 1971
Errol Resek
Naturally each improvident member of the Mens Team,

too, had, in the best interests of the Game, to think in
dollarsthat is, if the U.S., once, 25-35 years ago, a great
power in world table tennis, was going to show up for battle
with even the residue of some kind of melting-pot Team in
force.
Dal-Joon (D-J) Lee was a 30-year-old Seoul Korean
who later this year would become a U.S. citizen. The National
Champion the last four years, he was kept busy by hustling
back and forth between exhibitions and weekend money
making tournaments (more money of course in selling
equipment than in prizes) and managing a table tennis and
billiards emporium somewhere in the neon-lit smog of
Cleveland, Ohio.
From the Mie, Japan

Friendship Games Program
George Brathwaite
Jairie Resek
A former Champion of the Dominican Republic, Errol Resek, 29, had been a U.S.
citizen as of December, 1970. He was an affable if not a particular passionate researcher in
Adjustment and Control at a branch of the Chemical Bank in Manhattan. He would be
accompanied on this trip, as he was always accompanied, by his great, outgoing, open-armed,
come-to-me-Ill-gather-you-in, you-and-whatever-gossipy-news-youve-got-to-give-me wife,
Jairie.
Independent-minded George Brathwaite held a dual citizenshipcould claim both his
native Guyana and, only two weeks before he was to leave for Nagoya, his second country, the
United States. He worked in the Documents Section at the U.N., which couldnt have been
more appropriate, considering the image, the portfolio, of International Sportsman he so
assiduously, civilly carried with him. He was a modish, smiling, gentlemanly fellow, but inside
very tough, very determined to be his own Minister of State.
A disappointed runner-up to D-J Lee in the 1970 U.S. Open, John Tannehill was a 19year-old sometime sociology student at the University of Cincinnati. Generally a rather quiet,
15
self-preoccupied person, he preferred puzzling moral

abstractions and only a few well-defined
particularslike wearing Farmer Brown overalls in
defiance of almost everything complex he thought
Steenhoven and Harrison in their corporate
cleanliness stood for.
Glenn Cowan,
also 19, a former
two-time U.S.
Junior Champion,
was another
sometime (hadnt
really got a major)
college student,
often more out of
Santa Monica than
in. He might best
John Tannehill
be characterized,
perhaps caricatured, as a long-haired hippie opportunist,
willing to be a respectable representative of the with-it drug
scene so long as it involved the flair of big business.
From The Asia Magazine, June 20, 1971 Otherwise, he was Byronic.
Glenn Cowan
Captaining this individual team of nine players, trying to
be proud of them, when most of them, without any
sense of real kinship or obligation to the Association,
were not proud to be identified to the masses as a
Table Tennisyou know, Ping-PongPlayer, was
Jack Howard. The
1968 U.S. Open
finalist to D-J, Jack
was a flexible,
brooding, Seattlebased and hating it
IBM systems
engineer.
There was also
an outsider, who,
though not a member From the Mie, Japan Friendship Games Program
of the official party,
Jack Howard
was quite well known
to our Group. This was Dick Miles, a very good friend of
mine, who for months had been urging me to come to Nagoya.
He was the table tennis color man for ABCs Wide World of
Sports, a writer for Sports Illustrated (he would be covering
the World Championships for them)and, as 10-time U.S.
Mens Champion and a semifinalist in the 1959 Worlds at
Dick Miles
16
Dortmund, Germany, was generally regarded, even

by those who disliked him, as the greatest player the
United States had ever produced.
And, oh, I almost forgot, still another outsider
way outwas Leah Miss Ping Neuberger, 9-time
U.S. Womens Champion and, like Miles, a former
World Mixed Doubles holder. By traveling to
Nagoya with the Canadian Team via the
Commonwealth Games at Singapore, and with them
afterwards to Peking, she so successfully disguised
herself, even to most of our Chinese hosts, that her
later claim to being the first American to enter China
(the Canadians preceded us there) could never be
taken seriously.
Naturally, amid this galaxy of stars, bound as we
were for the real world of international, not to say,
intergalactic table tennis (lost to us somewhere in
the light-space of the last decade), I had, as the
invisible rocket fired, to flash the news to the New
Leah Miss Ping Neuberger
York Times, to the Sports Editor no less, a Mr. Jim
Roach. (Could that be right? I was scared to pronounce his name.)
The U.S. PING-PONG Team! he said, catching the
onomatapoeia, precisely, mockingly.
Thank you, but, no, my services would not be
necessary. All that anyone of the Times needed to know he
would be able to get over the wires.
But, as you can imagine, I had already come too
far to be discouraged by what was merely the expected.
As we took off, I couldnt help myselfmy seat was
pulled forward, I looked up and out in anticipation.
USTTA Executive Committeeman Jack Carrs cry, Whats
the sense in sending a Team when we cant finish in the Top
20? was left far behind, lost forever in our wake.
17
Chapter Two
As our chartered JAL jet from Tokyo, team and its dozen well-wishers, dropped down,
down, down over the strange blue roofs below, we heard piped into us, as if from another
world, that old familiar song from Home. Incredibly, into the twilight of the Nagoya afternoon,
wafted the strains of .
Then off and away, it would seem, from the Westernized conveniences of the plane and
into the Orient-crowded terminal, the confusion of the baggage area encircling us, tying us up.
Met there by a delegation of maroon-jacketed would-be interpreters devoted to our
mysterious ways. (Cowans gameseen two years before at the last Worlds, perhaps that was
explainable, but, oh, the unknown of his hair!) Given the same polite recognition afforded any
serious teamNigeria, for instancecoming so far and at what expense to play in this the one
Championship of the United Nations world.
And now bussed importantly, past the unseen windows of how many little greencovered Japanese inns, to one of the citys finest hotels, the Nagoya Miyako, and into the
Rotary-like safety of WELCOME, 31ST WORLD TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS.
As for the room, small but accommodating. Pajamas, bedroom slippers, and a no-needto-leave-a-call alarm clock provided. The new Testament. And the oldThe Teaching of
Buddha (endurance is the most difficult of all disciplines, but it is to the one who endures
that the final victory is given). Glenn Miller music in the halls. The Japan Times under doors.
Shoes left out, waiting to be picked up and rubbed into shine. A masseuse available for ones
own nightly rub down.
And in and out, hungry now, down to the cushioned comforts of the Atlantis Grill.
Grill? Where theres the most continental of supper bands. And a pretty long-gowned goldenbaubled anything but Geisha-like singer, spotlighted, smiling, always smiling, to render again
and again those World War II love songs so many of us will never forget.
The bobbing, bowing head waiter spoke little English, but the menu was bilingualand if
the Ugly American was careless and ordered with a casual, that is to say imperious, gesture some
wine (A bottle of dry winenot too expensive) and was charged at the end the price of a good
steak, 3,600 yen ($10), well, he wouldnt make that mistake again, now would he?
Settled in then at the Nagoya Miyako we were, not only for the evening but for the
duration of the tournamentI given the night clothes I was to wear (only within my room),
and the booklet of meal tickets to be used tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (In this
hotel only, please).
18
Daily busses ran on half-hour schedules from the hotel to the Aichi Prefecture Gym. If
you were impatient, it was the cheapest of ten-minute taxi fares. The white-gloved drivers,
however, were often whimsical. Sometimes theyd stop and then as youd try to open a door
(they controlled them all with a little lever up front), theyd decide they didnt like the look of
you and drive off. Other times theyd let you in and off youd go pell-mell up the left hand side
of the street into what would seem the most certain of crack-ups.
The Gym you arrived at that beginning morning of the Championship was an exciting
place to be, especially for anyone attending his first Worlds. The 16 courts, barriered all
around in company-advertising green, were divided into four quarters of the arena floor
separated by a gigantic plus sign of aisle-ways. Some of the tables had two electric scorers, ten
feet or so high, black, box-like in shape, like big TV sets, studded on all sides with marble-like,
bright yellow lights that flashed out the pattern of a number. Similar marble-like lights at the
top, though smaller, flashed red, and by their lit-up position indicated who had won the 1st
game, who the 2nd, and so on. At the very top of an electric scorer, you might read, say, FR
(for France) and PH (for the Philippines)so even if you were high up in the tiered-around
stands you wouldnt have any difficulty seeing at a glance how a match was going.
At every one of the 16 tables, for every single match, there were, in addition to the
players themselves, five other people in the court, all dressed in the uniform of immaculately
white shoes, gray trousers, and matching maroon tie and jacket.
The umpire who called the score (and youd have to look long and hard to find an
umpire who, thinking for just a moment of something else,
From Chinese Delegation to 71 Worlds Portfolio of Photos
19
miscalled) sat in a high chair to the side of the table and was flanked by helpers who would call
nets and sides and edges. To the other side of the table were two scorers seated at a greenclothed table who were responsible both for turning the leaves of two green calendar-like
scoring cards (00-99) and for calling nets and sides and edges.
Each table was an eight-legged Butterfly International-DX of underneath interlocking
design guaranteed to give the impression of sturdiness. (Though as the tournament
progressed, one very good player told me that this table would be worn down around the
edges and so wasnt, in reality, any more durable than, say, our own Detroiter.) The lighting,
the unwaxed, scuffed-up floorthese, too, gave no cause for complaint.
Right outside each end-table side of the court, on either side, was a row of half a dozen
chairs. Each team was allowed to have a combination of seven players or officials this close to
the playing area.
On the two long sides of the
rectangular arena there were special
seating arrangements. A row of
scoring tables ran the length of one
side and behind them was just barely
enough room for cameramen. On
the other, a few rows of INVITED
GUESTS ONLY seats. The
Japanese are very proud of their
Champions and here sitting under
the oft-engraved World
Championship Cups displayed above
could be seen such players from the
past as Eguchi, Watanabe, Namba,
Photo by Rufford Harrison
Goto, Matsuzaki, Tanaka, Tomita,
Japanese
Champions
Watanabe, Eguchi and Namba
Kawaii, Kodami, and even ex-U.S.
Open Champion Fukushima.
On one short side of the arena, the courts extended to a curtained wall; on the other
short side they ended in a special section for the press where boards were nailed together to
form desks on which telephones and typewriters sat and waited to be heard.
High above, billboard-like advertisements (Hey, says an
American, theres Pepsi!) hung over the sometimes-5,000 tiered
spectators watching the varicolored play below.
As the tournament progressed toward the end of its first stage,
the Swaythling Cup (Mens) and Corbillon Cup (Womens) Team
events, it became increasingly difficult to get down into the playing
area. Players and officials were given something resembling wardecoration medals, members of the press white arm-bands. However,
despite the attempted restrictions on them, all our Team supporters
maneuvered quite well.
Jairie Resek quickly became my Topics assistant or, I dont
know, maybe they mistook her for a nurse, as if our Team might
get sick at any time. Anyway, they let her in. Milla Boczar, one of
our most avid rooters, who owned the Hollywood Table Tennis
Milla Boczar
20
Courts in Los Angeles, also quickly became a press

woman interested in looking at all these players from
her private womans angle. And the be-ringed Miss
Ping, Leah Neuberger (whose flower-colored outfits
blooming from day to day struck you with flash-bulb
suddenness), certainly she could only be from the
press. A glossy magazine, perhaps? At any event, she
obviously knew lots of people, must have been
covering this racket game for a long time.
As for Doug Stewart, a native New Zealander
now living in Californiawas it possible that the
Japanese Table Tennis Association had not paid his
expenses here from the States? After all, he had to be
covering the tournament for a great many
newspaperswhy, 14 in California alone. Gus
Kennedy was with his wife Jean and little boy. No
Doug Stewart
problem for them. Presumably six-year-old Roger there
in the Press Section was
also writing for a Minnesota paper. Other Minneapolis Magoo
Club members, Charlie Disney and Alan Goldstein, showed up
after their 25-hour journey from the States wearing track suits
and so were naturally assumed to be on the U.S. Teamthey
were kept busy signing autographs for any number of proud
fathers and happy little boys.
The unknown Mr. Richardson (Lorenzo, is that his first
name? In fact, Richardson, is that his last?), mysteriously arrived
from Phoenixas if suddenly risen from the ashes of old burnt
sponge to speak again and again of plywood and Judas wood
and Poros and so many millimeters of Mark IV. He merely
showed his half-palmed passport, lettered side down, and, like
magic, it became the requisite green ticket into any countrys
Charlie Disney
competition.
Shooting from the
stands above were Californians Norma Green and her
husband Mike who, with Daedalian ingenuity in the
subterranean maze of tunnel shops under the streets
of Nagoya, found a place to develop his track suit
bag full of photos. Meanwhile, one, Manuel, said to
be from L.A., appeared and disappeared after being
detained for some reason unknown to me by the
authorities.
Of course from time to time down there on the
floor of the arena was our Mens and/or Womens
Team. Also George Buben and that first day or two
his wife Madeline. ITTF Equipment Chair Harrison
Photo by Angelita Rosal
was sometimes there, taking a respite from being on
Mike and Norma Green
21
the run between Meetings. Irv Wasserman, who its rumored

manages or doesnt manage the N.Y. Table Tennis Courts, made
his presence knownever ready in his raincoat to chop down
any member of the U.S. Team who could give him practice. And
of course our USTTA President, Graham Steenhoven, I need
mention. But as our Teams were getting ready to play their first
matches, he was back in his hotel room, sick.
It was my first Worlds, so I wandered about, just trying
to get a sense of what it was like. West Germany was playing El
Salvador. Schoeler, the near Singles winner at the last World
tournament, was warming up6-0, 7-0, 8-0. An easy forehand
here, an easy backhand there. Just keeping the ball gently in play.
Trying out different strokes, varying his steady chop, passing up
a kill shot to suddenly surprise his serious, wrist-banded
opponent with a difficult forehand counter.
Klaus Schmittinger I happened to see (hed later beat
Cowan in the Consolation Singles on his way to losing in the
From the Mie, Japan
finals against the Yugoslav first-round loser Korpaformerly
Friendship
Games Program
ranked #7 in the world, now married and with a kid).
Irv Wasserman
st
Schmittinger, winning the 1 game here, 21-1, was exchanging
smiles with his German teammatesas if to say, Lookthe
guys come all the way from Central America. What do you want? Blood?
Playing little Singapore was North Korea, their players delighting the huge, highly
partisan crowd. No wonder, as the days went by, Japanese high school students, reading exWorld Champion Ogimuras book in curled-up sleeping bags, kept up their all-night, sometimes
rainy vigilonly a few tickets would still be available come the inevitable rising sun.
And why was that? Because the North Koreans had bought out seats by the hundreds,
perhaps by the thousands, for every single hour of the tournament. Every single hour, that is,
one of their players playedotherwise theyd go home. So many people. Didnt they have
jobs? Were they on a long lunch
hour? It was as if a gigantic
machine had stamped out, along
with all those blocks of colorless
tickets, the ties, the suits, I saw
them wearing.
They were all intently
watching, applauding every
point one of their players made.
Pak Sin-Il, it might be, who
after ricocheting enough balls
back and forth, stops, shakes
hands with his vanquished
opponent, bows a winner to the
crowd, bows, bows, and bows
againas if to every applauding
corner of the earth.
North Koreas Pak Sin-Il
22
Theres England playing Vietnam. Just crowned

Commonwealth Singles and Doubles Champion, Trevor
Taylor, Englands #1 lion in the absence of Barnes and Neale,
is soon to beat Schoeler in a Swaythling Cup match. He greets
me with, Is there any truth in the rumor that the Vietnamese
wanted the Americans to play for them?
Regarding the unpredictable Barnes and Neale, the official
story was that they didnt want to come to Japan because, first,
there had been the tiring week of Commonwealth Games in
Singapore, and, second, after the ten-day Nagoya tournament was
over, theyd be required to spend three more days touring
aboutwhich was just too bloody much.
All this of course was
long before the first day of the
Worlds when its suddenly
announced that China had
invited England to play some
Friendship Matches in
Peking immediately after the
Championships were finished.
From Table Tennis News,
George Yates, the Editor of
May/June, 1972, cover
the English Table Tennis News,
Englands Trevor Taylor
told me that Barnes and Neale
just might get the big stick for refusing to come to Nagoya.
But maybe missing the China trip was punishment enough?
From the 1972 English Open
Oh, oh, Australias playing Japan. The Japanese
Program, 5
insignia, centered strategically under the v-neck of their
Editor George Yates
playing shirt, is a white square, white as a table tennis ball,
with a dark sun in it. I never saw any topspin like that! says Australias Alan Frankenburg
limping over from his lopsided encounter with the great 1967 World Champion Hasegawa.
Alan had given himself a nasty gash in the first few minutes of play by running into a barrier
trying to make a retrieve, and had to finish with his right knee tightly bandaged. Later, he
found out, hed strained a tendon and tore two ligaments in his foot, so after his first match he
was hobbling abouta casualty of international competition.
And now, something weve been waiting for. Our women are about to play France,
whose symbol is a very male cock. Team Captain Howard is told by the Japanese officials
which side of the court his players bench is on. Its the side where the French are now seated
(the male players are there too, waiting, watching). Our present side, up against a wall, is not
as roomy as the other side, and the floor is a bit sticky with spilled soda. Jack asks the French
to move. Play is delayed while the cocks feathers are ruffled.
In the 1st match of the tie (tiethats what the block of best 3 out of 5 matches, Davis
Cup-format, is called), Connie Sweeris looks to be a loserhas lost the 1st game and is down
9-14 in the 2nd. But then she rallies to lead 20-17. And now, shaken, her opponent, Miss
Rioual, almost serves the game away. But then Connie makes some blocking errors, cant
handle the French girls loopand its deuce. And deuceand deuce. And, too bad, Connie
doesnt win this best 2 out of 3-game match.
23
Against Miss Bergeret,

who is not listed in the
Program (were not the only
country who has can-you-goor-not financial problems?),
Wendy Hicks, trying again and
again to kill the first ball, is
down 6-12 in the 1st. But she
pulls up to 16-18, then wins a
furious counter-driving
exchange and runs the game
out. The 2nd is close after
Bergeret overcomes a bad start,
but, down 19-20, she misses a
hangerand the tie is tied up.
Wendy Hicks (R) on her way to defeating Frances Claude Bergeret
One of our players
thought that for the doubles
Jack should have partnered Wendy and Olga Soltesz. Why, I dont know. As play proceeds,
Connie still cant handle Riouals loop and Wendy cant hit her forehand.
Now with the tie 2-1 against us, Hicks must win her singles against Rioual. It would seem
she can do this by looping and hitting. But after trading off the first two games at 19, shes down 810 in the 3rd, then rounds the table and serves off. From this point she cant recover.
Well, says Jack philosophically, maybe its not the worst thing to happen to her, to
lose. Maybe now shell play better, watch the ball closer. But I didnt believe it, and I dont
think Jack did either.
Says another player, Look, the loop is ruining her hit. Shes locking herself up trying
to get so much
topspin on the
ball.
At any
rate, the women
had their
chancea good
chanceto
advance to the
top bracket.
They had a good
draw, had only to
beat France to be
ranked in the
first 10 or 12
teams.
Theres
a professional
class and an
amateur class,
U.S. Team watches Tannehill play against South Korea
24
says aficionado Alex Ehrlich, 3-time Worlds Singles finalist, whos been watching the U.S.
women play. Theres China, Japan, Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. All the rest is
amateur.
Over now to the American men. They are to play (in a best 5 out of 9 matches) a
3-player round robin singles tie against both South Korea and Hong Kong to determine
which bracket they go into. Unfortunately they must play the weaker team first. Naturally,
since they didnt arrive like some serious teams a week or two earlier to practice and get
their heads together (no one, Im sure, even thought, dreamed, of doing this, of being so
serious about it all), they were hoping to draw, for their first match, for the practice, the
tough South Koreans.
It would be embarrassing to lose to Hong Kong, for we would fall way down in the
rankings. Resek opens against Ma Lung Sang (who was later in the Singles to take a game
from the great Chinese 3-time World Champion Chuang Tse-tung) and immediately began
having trouble. Errol has just not been prepared in the isolated table tennis world of the U.S.
for Mas deceptive serveshe doesnt know how to read the spin. Its a 7-point game.
The experienced D-J, our National Champion, does better. Against this same Ma he
loses in threethough he might have won two straight. Up 18-16 in the 1st, he serves
offand then, worse, up 20-17, he loses one, two, then fails to return serve, then whiffs one,
then watches helplessly as Ma gets in a fast forehand loop. In the 2nd, from 17-all, Lee
produces some very good clutch hitting to send the match into the 3rd. But then, leading 12-11,
he loses a flurry of points and cant recover. Its not ridiculous for Lee to lose, says a
veteran of these Championships. There are dozens of Lees here.
Cowan, too, drops a match he might easily have wonto Ma Cheung Kwai, who
beats Errol two straight. Up 1-0 in games and with an 18-16 lead in the 2nd, Glenn is playing
very well. But Kwai now makes great returns of Glenns best smashes, gets in a few of his
own, and 21-19 stays alive. The 3rd game goes back and forth crazily. Cowans up 11-5. Down
11-14. Up 17-14. Down 17-19. Then at deuce he picks the wrong ball to hitand loses. You
got to talk to me, he keeps saying after the match. Jack, or you, or somebody. Ive got to
know what to do out there.
And its true. Every player on team after team is constantly coached both during actual
play (though this is, stupidly, illegal) and back at the sidelines after each individual game. (The
French even have thermos jugs and little cups ready for their players as they come to the
sidelines.)
Whats it take to be a good coach? I ask Ehrlich.
Thirty years practice in different countries, he says. And then adds, To be a player
you need to practice 12 hours a day and forget about going to school and making money.
Glenns last matchour last matchagainst Hong Kongis with Lau Sek Fong who,
Miles recalls, beat him twice in Hong Kong nearly 20 years ago. Fong, a blocker, has lost to
Lee but now beats Cowan 2-zip. Perhaps if the tie score had been, as it could have been, 3-2
our favor, Glenns adrenalin would still have been strong.
Anyway, though we lost 5-1, and were of course going to lose 5-0 to the much
stronger South Koreans, had you been there to see the Hong Kong tie, you probably would
have agreed that, if wed just had more experience, or even more time to think of ourselves as
a Team, we might well have beaten Hong Kong and finished with a ranking in the teens
depending of course on how we would have done with the teams in the second bracket,
Austria, Thailand, Nigeria, Netherlands, and Denmark.
25
I am very disappointed, says Alex. I have never seen a

U.S. Team so weak. (One former great French player, Guy
Amouretti, said that, If the U.S. had played their old timers,
Miles, Reisman, and Bukiet, they would have been in the top
bracketmeaning they would have beaten South Korea,
including the two top players D-J lost to. (This I strongly doubt.)
Alex, I thought, was a bit hard on our men.
Comparatively speaking, he said, the standard of the girls is
better. But they have no technique, they dont think.
I agreed that the younger women, particularly, didnt use
their minds as they could. What have you been doing with
yourselves? I asked them.
Sitting, sitting, sitting. Theres nothing to do but eat and
sleepand watch, said one.
I also thought
and here you
Alex Ehrlich
couldnt defend
them by saying they were youngthey didnt
even have the necessary interest to be really
good players. The South Korean girls, who
just two years ago were only a little better
than ours, were playing the Japanese (the
current World Champion Kowada and her
teammate Konno, the current World Mixed
Doubles Champion, who were later to beat
the Chinese women for the Corbillon Cup)
From The Table Tennis Report, 2/69
and our girls were writing postcards!
Japans Yasuko Konno,
They just didnt want to dream about
1969 World Mixed Doubles Champion with Hasegawa
being good. Wouldnt under any
circumstances want to haunt the matches.
And then you had Olga cry on being beat so badly. To sentimentalize so, to express
that amount of emotion without having realized the expectant hard work, without having a
real passionate love for the Game was, well, understandable. But through these tears, our
weakness, our lack of toughness showed.
Of course Im being hard on themas if I were a coach. Its true that in some ways they
were on a pleasure trip, which they themselves literally, at least in part, financed. And doubtless, on
seeing the great players here in Nagoya, they felt over and over again their helplessness at having to
compete in the isolation of the American continent. Certainly they were responsible, if not ideal,
team members. But anyone knows that without the dream there is no reality.
The dream, having it, or not, was precisely at the source of my own success and failure
at Nagoya. I played in a traditional event for Over 40 players called the Jubilee Cup. And as
chance would have it, I not only defeated the Defending Champion, Ferenc Sido of Hungary,
the 1953 World Champion, but went on to become a finalist in the event, losing at the end to
the Czech Ladislav Stipek, an ex-World Doubles Champion, now coaching in Peru. Later, side
by side with the great Chinese Champions I stood, head bowed in unusual humility, the first
American in recent years to be beribboned with a silver medal. A significant accomplishment, I
26
Hungarys 1953 World Singles Champion Ferenc Sido
From New York Sunday News, May 23, 1971
Jubilee Cup Runner-up Tim Boggan

Courtesy of Zdenko Uzorinac
Boggan (far left), behind Jubilee Cup Winner Laci Stipek
27
Japans Koji Goto awarding Tim Boggan

his runner-up medal
thoughtone that would win me a little interview in the Long Island paper Newsday when I
got home.
And yet, though I was pleased, I was also irritated that I could not quite get my head
together against Stipek in the final. Opposite Sido, I was unmistakably an underdog, an
upstart. I had every right to come out swinginglike an amateur against a professional. And if
I got lucky, well, crazy things happened.
But by the time Id moved into the final, an unknown, unable even to rank in the Top Ten
anymore on the lowly American scene, playing now against an out-of-shape Stipek, I began to feel
somewhere, just a little, that it would be almost obscenea gross violation of the spirit of the
Jubilee Cup (offered more or less to honor worthy participants in World Championships of years
gone by) to hold that trophy round with a smile high to the stands above.
Of course at the same timeI dont want to be stupid about thisI certainly wanted
badly to win against Stipek and consciously I tried as hard as I could. Its just that the height
of anyones inner image of himself, and his place, and his Teams place, on whatever plateau
hes arrived at, is determined not just by one precariously catapulting himself there but through
the experience of making a long, slow, steady climb, looking always forward, up the moonstruck mountain to his dream. Against Stipek I couldnt get the moon to come out on top of
the mountain.
And in unconsciously not being able to do this, here in the Worlds arena, I was not
alone. For all the U.S. players, there was too much artificial light and laughter, gaiety and
glamour, and with the novelty, no moon, no night, and, deep down inside, no real dark
pressure.
No, I wouldnt want to come to America as a coach, said Ehrlich. Even if they
started now, it would be three or four years before there would be any kind of success.
If this sounds gloomyhow about a parade?
Sunday, the opening day of the tournament, every one of the 58 teams represented
takes its turn marching into the arena (though no team swings in like the Chinese to the
accompaniment of a martial, drum-beating band). Every country is dressed smartly in jump
suits or matching jackets and slacksthe Germans, for example, in matching brown even
down to the buckles of their street shoes; the large host-contingent of Japanese saluting the
fans as they march in. Every country but one is uniform.
There, bringing up our Teams rear, is a man, an American, in a raincoat. Hes not on
the Team, isnt connected with the Team. Who is he? Whats he doing there?
Ill tell you. Hes Nemesis. Our nemesis. That which has made the U.S. something of a
bad joke in the table tennis world. Hes a visible presenceshameful, but in the tradition of
individual Americabecause nobody in our contingent actually tried to stop him from
marching. He represents the looseness of American table tennis, the lack of psychic force thats
needed on the U.S. Team and at the USTTA Executive Committee Meetings.
But he also represents a dark vitality, for hes the New York player who loves table
tennis, who well remembers the netherworld side of what hes experiencedwhich is also the
passionate, dramatic sideand who, having grown up learning how to play the Game under the
cramped, cracked ceiling of an underground club thats always harbored an unwanted element, has
felt the rain, as it were, and is ever inwardly prepared for it, indeed seems to thrive on itlike some
strange weed or, difficult to tell, some perversely beautiful black flower.
All of which may or may not be a far cry from the parading little flower girls in white
holding onto their guide rope.
28
From Chinese Delegation to 71

Worlds Portfolio of Photos
29
Chapter Three
And now, with all due respect to our U.S. Teams, which needless to say I often felt
duty-bound to watch, I must naturally speak here only of the most interesting ties in these
Championships. What, really, is it like to watch the best table tennis players in the world?
France, though quickly knocked acock by China, Sweden, and Hungary of any
pretensions to the Swaythling Cup crown, sat perched securely at tournaments end in the #7
position. In large measure this high-up achievement was due to a 5-4 win over favored North
Korea.
Jean Paul Weber, the French chopper, had been, up to a short
time ago, the #8 player in France. Then, the story goes, he
discovered in some little shop somewhere a special anti-topspin,
anti-loop kind of dead sponge. With this secret weapona sponge
of air, somebody called ithe came to do battle. And beat
Bengtsson in the Swedish tie.
Now, in addition to having given Chung Ryan-Woong fits, he
has another Korean, Kim Chang-Ho, looping and rolling awry. One
serve particularly is effective, has a crazy spin. Weber, up 10-1,
holds his bat like a hand mirror, squats down as if to look at
himself, then twists, and its as if one sees the image of a basilisk.
The effect is instantaneous, deadly.
Jacques
Jean Paul Weber
Secretin, the
French #1, wins all three, the big match
against Pak Sin-Il. Pak (ranked World
#15) told newsmen that he was writing a
poem on the theme Loyalty to Premier
Kim Il Song to express my determination
in the Championships.
Secretin, a calm lefthander with a
hawk-like seriousness, lobs and lobs and
lobs so that the huge audience cheering
Pak on rocks on waves of Ohhhs until
the tide is turned and they drift out and
the gym is silent.
One eagerly awaited tie is Sweden
vs. Hungary. Will the doctor of the
Hungarian team please come to the
information booth? A team doctor?
Just in case? Why not?Hasnt the U.S.
got Dr. Alan Goldstein around
somewhere, still painstakingly signing
autographs, though illegibly just in case
anyone would care to match them up with
the U.S. Team members names in the
Program.
French Champion Jacques Secretin
30
Hungarys 1971 World Doubles Champions Istvan Jonyer and Tibor Klampar (far side).
Near side: Chinas Chuang Tse-tung
Two-time European Champion Kjell Johansson hadnt played for three months because
of a (slipped disc) back injury. Then last month he returned to win the Swedish Championship.
Hans Alser this season has taken three big European tournaments. And the youthful lefthander,
Stellan Bengtsson, was also considered a dangerous threat.
Against such balanced strength are Hungarian Champ Matyas Beleznay, and two
young players considered to be even better, Tibor Klampar and Istvan Jonyer, who are later to
win the Worlds Doubles here when the Defending Champs, Johansson and Alser, tired from
their all-out effort in the Team ties, are upset in the 1st round.
Bengtsson begins against Jonyer, whose hooking sidespin loop comes swinging at him
like the ball of a huge crane. Boom! Its enough to knock the elf-like Bengtsson over. But, no,
artfully he stands up to it, blocks the ball quick as he can, short, to Joyners backhand and
proceeds to keep him locked up there. When Bengtsson has the serve, he keeps it short,
hovers marvelously, indefatiguably in tableward, and takes over play with his very consistent
forehand. Against this style, Jonyers feared loop can never get off the ground.
Johansson, whos got an excellent block to go with his powerful forehand smash, his
so-called Hammer, is just too poundingly steady for Beleznay. So its 2-0.
But Alser, who loses two straight to Klampar, seems misplaced into nightmare the
whole match. Its as if Klampar, hooking that long extended arm at him, were playing some
strange sort of jai-alai, the point of which, here in this court, keeps escaping Alser forever.
In the 4th match, its Johansson over Jonyer. Once the Swede, who loves to counter
knee-high from far back, gets the hang of Jonyers vicious sidespin loop hell be pivoting his
weight into that too.
31
In the 5th match, Klampar plays horribly against

Bengtsson. Loses the 2nd game under 10. Sweden needs
only one more.
In the 6th, though at least one official Chinese
photographer has come round to take pictures, Alser,
down 1-10 to Joyner in the 3rd, does not look good.
Perhaps the picture he wants to see is not competitively
in his mind.
In the 7th, Johansson, forced away from the
table, often carefully cradles back Klampars curving
topspin. But the sad-faced Hungarian (Hes like that
clown, Emmet Kelly, I hear someone say) is relentless.
In the 8th, Jonyers heavy hop comes from under
the table, has all the Hungarians tip-toe follow-up
spring to it. Alser tries hard to block the ball, tries to
catch it just as it hits, but, no, he cant do it, cant win
the match in three. Hes just too tired. At least he looks
tireddidnt march in the Opening Day parade, I
heard, because he wanted to conserve his energy.
In the final match against Beleznay, Bengtsson,
swinging beautifully into the ball, comes back from a
bad start.
Beleznay, like
Photo by Mike Hoffland,
Klampar and
from Tim Boggans
Jonyer, has this
Winning Table Tennis, 1976, 156
flat, straight out
Swedens Kjell Johannson
backhand that
oscillates like one of those Stiga ball-spitting robots
it gives Bengtsson some trouble. But moving, moving,
ever moving to cover the table with his forehand,
shaking his fist, he wins in a flurry 15 out of 16 points!
The Swedish gallery rises up, responds appreciatively.
I, too, am impressed by the Swedestheir
concentration and determination, their togetherness.
(Though Alser lost three in this tie, he won three in
Swedens 5-3 victory over France.)
Against China, who is strategically playing a lefthanded blocker, a right-handed one-ball hitter, and a
chopper with two different kinds of rubber on his
racket, Johansson, taking a bit more time on his socko
shots, beats the impassive Li Ching-kuang, picked as
one of the favorites to win the Singles. (Lee Kingpong, Miles called him in his Sports Illustrated article,
punning of course on that gigantic Kong who was so
humanly shot down in that famous U.S. movie back in
Photo by Bora Vojnovic
the days of our black depression.)
Stellan Bengtsson
32
But then against the shakehands chopper, 21-year-old Liang Ko-liang, Johansson,
leading 1-0 and 17-12 in the 2nd, is the victim of more than some inspired pick hitting.
At this critical point in the game, a Mandarin-suited official, seated on the Chinese
bench outside the court behind Johansson and so facing Liang, reaches into his breast pocket
and pulls out a little red book. Never mind its only a notebook, it certainly looks like the real
thing: The Quotations of Chairman Mao. Liang sees it held uplike a Sacred Heart or
crucifixand almost mystically pulls out the game.
In the decisive 3rd, Liangs strategy of twirling his bat under the table before he serves
clearly suggests he doesnt want his opponent to see which of the two different kinds of rubber
hes about to strike the ball with. Moreover, as he serves, he stamps his foot so that his
opponent cant hear the difference in the sound of the rubber as the ball comes off the servers
racket towards him.
Johansson, therefore, is often not sure which spin he must try to counteract. Because
the hard-to-see, hard-to-read serve comes at him so quickly, he is always in danger of either
setting the ball up for Liangs quick follow-up hit or of pushing it into the net. In this very
uncomfortable position he can only look with one eye at his fellow Swedes, sitting out of the
court behind Liang, who, watching this Chinese serve, are trying to signal the spin, while with
the other eye he must of course watch the ball he has to stroke.
No wonder, then, that Liang wins the match.
Johansson, however, comes back to beat Chuang Tse-tung in three. Chuang, who, like
Li, favors the lower trajectory of the pimples-out bat, and who is all quick short-step business
at the table, again and again looks puzzled when he misses a shot. (Chuang is the near perfect
player, Miles has said on more than one occasion. Has perhaps the greatest forehand of all
time.) Now, six years after his last Championship, he stands, left hand on hip, and stares at
the place where his ball went off.
But, o.k., his opponent comes back, hes got to get on with it. He rubs the sweat off
his face with a hurrying little motion of his sleeve, and, all right, buttocks slightly out, he
prepares intensely to do his best on the next
point. Crack! Crack! As if by rapidly moving
the game along, he might make his serve-and
Bengtsson (R) defeats Chuang Tse-tung
Chuang Tse-tung
33
one reflexes, the circle of his swing, move faster and faster to the point where, 15 pounds
lighter, he might recover the past.
Now, though, try as he might, he cannot beat the 18-year-old Bengtssonwho, in
turn, faced with the muscular block of Li and his repertoire of serves, cannot work for his
teammates the miracle of upending this Chinese giant.
As for current European Champion Alser, he cant win a match. He has his best chance
against Liang. In the 1st, all the way up, theres a running dialogue between Alser and the
Swedish coach, Kjells brother, Christer Johansson. Alser is up 15-12, 19-17, 2019whereupon Liang looks to his coach, gets the signaland the point. Then wins it at
deuce. (One of our players remarks that on every shot the Chinese looks at his coach. He
never has a chance to go wrong. Howards a good Captain, he says, but what we need is a
good coach. Perhaps, he says, we ought to have D-J as our official coach.)
In the 2nd game, Liang, though primarily a defender, is hitting the Swedes topspin very
well, is making some magnificent jump hits off Alsers lobs. Miles comes down out of the
stands and talks to the two Johanssons. They listen. He urges Alser to push down the
centerline then back up between pushes. Otherwise, he says, Liang will continue to get the ball
by him. But its too late. Alser loses the 2nd at 19and that means China has won the tie.
Later, a tired Alserafter the tournament was over he was to make the point that Japan
had played three ties in 40 hours, Sweden three ties in 20 hourssays he would have beaten Liang
in expedite. Theres not a soft chopper like Liang in Sweden, he complains. Against a hard chop
I can get a much better curve on the ball. Well, what can you do. We play the Chinese one hour. We
play the others 10,000 hours. Still, if I play
normal we win.
Miles shows him a Mao button
that he has just bought at a stand
outside. Yes, theres nothing new,
Alser replies wearily. You can get those
in Sweden too. One of our girls is a
Maoist. She doesnt know yet that all
systems have advantages and
disadvantages. Some of our players have
no idea how mean the world is.
One loss was enough to knock
Sweden out of the Championship and
they knew it. Never mind that hard-luck
Hungary who lost to Sweden 4-5 almost
beat China in a three hour and 40 minute
marathonthat both Jonyer and
Klampar downed the 30-year-old baffled
Chuang, that Jonyer beat Li Chingkuang and Klampar Liang Ko-liang.
According to one Japanese newspaper,
Chinese coach Hsu Yin-sheng told
newsmen that these four losses meant
nothing. He also said, We are all here
Yugoslavias 1968 European Champion
to promote friendship and goodwill.
Dragutin Surbek running down a fly ball
34
Over in another Mens group its a fight between Japan, the Defending Team
Champion, and Yugoslavia to see who is to oppose China for the title. Actually, the Japanese
with their topspin are beginning to play very much like the Europeans. Mitsuru Kohno, the
1967 World runner-up, opens against the athletic 1968 European Champion, Surbek, who is
perhaps the physically strongest player on the circuit. The Yugoslavs over-developed right
arm makes his normal left one look like its been stricken with infantile paralysis. Oh, alright, I
exaggerate a little.
I once toured with Surbek, says Miles. Every night it was beefsteak and fruit salad.
I dont think he ever ate anything else. Kohno, one of the few Japanese to use pimpled
sponge, keeps nodding his heada fighter losing on points to the bigger man but in no way
battered into submission. Down 5-13, he cant recover the 1st game. But he wins the close 2nd,
then breaks open the 3rd by smash-smothering some of Surbeks best lobs. Japan 1
Yugoslavia 0.
But now Stipancic downs both Hasegawa and
Kohno, and Surbek beats the current World Champion
Ito. In the 5th match, Karakasevic, an agricultural
student in Belgrade making his debut in the World
Championships, takes a 5-1 lead over Ito. At which
point Ito smashes in a serve with all his might, then
turns to the audience and, clinching his fist, yells
TSHHH! The crowd loves it, including the Chinese,
who are all sitting in a block, watchingall but three.
Chuang, Li Ching-kuang, and Liang are strangely not
to be seen.
Karakasevic is extremely excited, is bobbing
up and down as hes ready to receive service, is
yelling after every point and getting yells in turn from
all over the stands. The umpire asks Karakasevic to
stop yelling. Karakasevic says he cant help it. This
seems to satisfy the umpire. The Yugoslav keeps it
upand Japan is soon down 4-1 in the tie.
The Asian domination is at an end, a fellow
next to me says. The Japanese just havent had much
practice in tournaments, says another. Theyve
slipped. Theyre not as strong as they were. The
Europeans practice, practice, practice.
Stipancic, whos on the court now, is the only
good player Ive seen who is constantly showing his
temper. Down 7-13 in the 3rd against Ito, he bangs his
racket head on the edge of the table. But there is no
help for him, any more than there is for Karakasevic
against the tumbling, retrieving Hasegawa. Back,
back, back goes the former World Champion, gets his
racket up, makes contactsends back a perfect
throw. Then he races in, makes a shoestring return.
Japans 1967 World Champion Nobuhiko
Then hes up in the air, like a short center-fielder,
Hasegawa, lobber extraordinaire
35
snagging the liner not quite over his head. The

crowd cheers as if they were at a baseball game.
Yoose! says Hasegawa who, up 18-17
now, has been jogging around every point.
Yoose! he says, up 19-17. And yooseI mean,
yeshe wins.
Now the match between two of the worlds
best spinners, Hasegawa and Surbek. And Yoose!
Yoose! Its Hasegawa again. Yugoslavia 4
Japan 4.
The final match is between Karakasevic
and Kohno. Up 19-18 in the 1st game, the
Yugoslav fails to return serve. But then Kohno
tries to hit in two and misses both. Karakasevic
jumps high into the air. He is the happiest man
alive. Kohno, though, keeps jogging, keeps
Japans Kohno in control over
noddinglike a punch-drunk fighter still in the
Yugoslavias Karakasevic
bout, but going on instinct.
He rallies, wins the 2nd. Begins the 3rd by hitting in Karakasevics serve. ROAR! from the
Aichi Stadium. Kohno, his head clear now, hits in another. ROAR! And another. ROAR! Up 9-8 he
passes the Yugoslav with a running cross-court smash. With the crowd wildly behind him, Kohno
bangs his way to victory. Karakasevic throws his racket overhead, maybe 30 feet into the air.
The final between China and Japan, after the usual ceremonial exchange of flags, is a
bit anticlimactic. The special, enlarged court, as Miles says, doesnt give enough illusion of
hand-to-hand combat.
Hasegawa wins the 1st
match, 19 in the 3rd, from Liang
whoaccidentallybreaks his
racket at the end of the 2nd
game. It doesnt matter how
much of a high-flying kick his
opponents gotHasegawa
backhands up the hardest hit
ball. And his lobs repeatedly go
up so high and just hang there
its like youre watching some
sort of trapeze act.
In the 2nd match against
Ito, Chuang shows that, despite
his several losses, he can still
block and hit with the best of
them. Over and over he spins a
serve, then one-balls it in with
his penholder backhand. Wins
two straight. But then later he
falters against Kohno.
Chinas brutal attacker Li Ching-kuang
36
All that Japan can win are these two matches. And, oh, along the way, what Li Chingkuang did to World Champion Ito! You wouldnt believe it, wouldnt think it possible: 21-3,
21-6!
The Corbillon Cup final was also between China and Japan. In the beginning, Yukie
Ohzeki (the Japanese manager said they held a secret practice to build up her game) carries
on a pushing match with 1965 Singles runner-up Lin Hui-ching until she can find a ball that
doesnt come too much into her backhand. Then she swats it.
Down 11-13 in the 3rd, she socks two in hard, runs the score to 18-15 her favor. The
largely Japanese spectators yell whenever they feel like it. Please do not applaud during the
play, says the interrupting loudspeaker. Up 19-18, Ohzeki misses a hanger. Then both women
make errors right on into deuce. Finally Ohzeki wins. I look over to see one lone, black-coated
figure in the Chinese contingent politely clapping.
World Champion Battling Kowada is forever
stroking topspinas if, at right-handed play, shes
intently splashing water on all the smoldering hopes of
Chen Min-chih. (The Iranian player, Houshang
Bozorgzadeh, who later, for many years, will be the
U.S. Team Captain/Coach, said that if Miss Cheng
were an unknown and came to his Club and he saw her
footwork, he would tell her to go out and run for two
months, then come back and try to play.) After winning
the 1st game, Kowada 21-9 hurries through the 2nd,
jogging here, jogging there, one-balling it in or first top
spinning then dropping short.
Tie score: Japan 2China 0. But now the
Chinese pair take the Doubles.
Kowadas turn againthis time her dancingdoll steps must help her to beat Lin. Again she
topspins, but this time (shes been getting shots for a
sore arm) shes not as effective. Up 20-19 though,
shes ready to win. She takes over with a top-drop
attack until she finally drops one so strike-zone high to
the backhand that Lin, rushing in, does and does not
want to risk hitting it, so ends up pushing it into the
net.
Kowada throws up her hands, runs wildly
crosscourt to her teammates, while the vanquished
Current Japanese World Champion
Chinese, without so much as a handshake, slumps
Toshiko Kowada
down onto her players bench. Quickly, then, Kowada
hurries over to Lin and shakes hands. Then comes off
court into what seems unending applause. Slowly she makes her way past the hundreds of
cameras and newsmen, toward the pressroom, crying now for happiness, covering her face
with her racket.
All the Japanese girls are laughing, sobbing, as the newspapermen mob them. At the
interview Kowada cant compose herself enough to speak. Never mind. Her tears say what the
tears of our Olga cant say.
37
Chapter Four
On one side of the Mens
Singles Draw, an interesting
match to follow is Chinas 3-time
World finalist Li Fu-jung vs.
Hungarys Istvan Jonyer. Li, who
earlier had rolled by West
Germanys great defensive star,
Eberhard Ebby Schoeler,
runner-up in the last Worlds,
follows a foot-stamping pattern
of serving every ball to the
backhand. The idea is to keep the
Hungarian, arm curled right from
the floor, from leaping at Li with
that mighty sidespin loop of his.
In real life, the 21-yearold Jonyer, who looks like a
blond beach-boy, practices 4 or
5 hours a day, and in his spare
moments is said to be a worker
in a textile factory in
Photo by Mike Hoffland. From Tim Boggans Winning Table Tennis, 1976, 147
Budapestis, of all things, a
Jonyers much-acclaimed loop
spinning machine operator.
Li survives a very important deuce game in the 3rd to go 2-1 up in this best of 5 match,
but is helpless in the 4th when the score spirals to 11-2 Jonyer. On into the 5th they play, with
Jonyers coach, former European Champion Zoltan Berczik, taking notes fast as he can.
Jonyer has a backhand loop that he practically scrapes the floor with, and Li is kept very busy
blocking left and right. Down 15-16, Li gets in a forehand. Down 16-17, he makes a perfectly
timed, angled-off block. But at 18-all he fails to return serve. Then, from the reservoir of all
that experience, he immediately tightens in just the opposite sense fearlessly smacks in the
next serve. 19-all. Jonyer serves and on Lis return makes an untimely error. But then, match
point down, he too fights back, gets in a marvelous forehand loop on the run. Li maneuvers
some quick forehands, wins the ad again. And now
Oh, oh, whats happened? Jonyer has put his hand up during the play of the next point
and has looked inquiringly at one of the maroon-coated boys in the court who assist the
umpire. Now everyone else is looking at this boy. The boy merely looks back at them.
Li Fu-jung quickly rounds the table, shakes hands with a bewildered Jonyer and goes
back to his players bench. Jonyer does not want to believe the match is as over as the umpire
says it is. Never mind that he thought hed served a net ballthough of course since it wasnt
in his power to call a let, he had to continue. But then he thoughtwho knows exactly
what?that this boy had called a let for him. Still, Jonyer stands at the table.
Li Fu-jung, who with alacrity had seized the moment, is now back behind the barrier
with his teammates. He looks puzzled. Whats all the fuss about? he seems to say. The rules
are clear on this point. But he is nervous, excited.
38
Spectators are gathering round. A number of people are speaking definitively as to

what has just occurred. But I cant make out a straight story from any one person. Jonyer was
serving.No, Li was serving.The ball hit the netI myself saw it.The boys hand went
up, didnt you see it?.The umpire is the only one who can call a let.No, any
linesman.But why didnt his hand go up after the first return?.Wasnt it up after the first
return of serve?
Through all this Jonyer stands strong. But, according to the officials, he doesnt have a
leg to stand on. As for Coach Berczik behind his dark glasses (ah, those glassesplayers can
see him in an instant, feel his psychic presence), what can he do now but try to pin down a win
with his other fine player, Tibor Klampar, whom Ill speak of shortly.
The nextand lastmatch for Li Fu-jung is against
Ito who earlier had been 2-1 down to North Koreas Chung
Ryang-Woong, and down 2-0 and at deuce in the 5th with
Japans inspired Masahiko Ohya.
Just to face Ito across
the net, to see him flexed
to spring, his bat hidden
under the tablewell, its
not what our Olga saw
when she had dinner with
him. (It was Japanese
style, she said. Shoes
off. A little room to
ourselves. A plate of raw
meat, cooked on a little
Chinas Li Fu-jung
grill. Really authentic,
you know?)
Li begins very well by blocking lots of Itohs hard hit
one-ballers. He wins the 1st and, up 12-11 in the 2nd, looks
like he
might be
Talk of the Tabloids?
a winner.
But then
Ito bats in ball after ball, and, winning 10
straight points, runs out the game. After that
there are too many holes in Lis defensive
wall.
Yugoslav strongman Surbek (he
looks like a heavyweight boxer) is Itos
opponent in the semis. At the end of his
successful quarters match with the Czech
Orlowski, Surbek had amused the crowd by
doing a handspring. He has that kind of
drenched-shirt energy.
Earlier, Surbek was scheduled to
play Chuang Tse-tung, but to everyones
Strongman Surbek
39
disappointment
the Chinese
(contrary of
course to ITTF
regulations that a
player from one
country cannot
refuse to play a
player from
another) withdrew
Chuang rather
than allow him to
meet a
Cambodian player
who was the
representative of a
puppet clique.
In Table Tennis,
Japans Yukie Ohzeki,
politics and sport
1971s World #6
do mix.
Chinas Chang Shih-lin, World Mens
From Chinas Table Tennis, 1983
Doubles Champion in 1963 and 65, who was to
Chinas 1971 World Singles and Doubles
take the Mixed here in Nagoya with Womens
Champion Lin Hui-ching
Singles winner Lin Hui-ching, didnt play in the
Mens either. But didnt, said a friend of mine, for a different reasonbecause the Chinese are
specialists. Some specialist, too, that hat-trick winner Lin must be (though Ohzeki beat
her in the Teams, Lin ousted her in 5 in the Singles)and some specialist Lins winning
Womens Doubles partner, Singles runner-up Cheng Min-chih.
Against the hustling, ever jogging, never still Ito, Surbek starts off badly, is down 6-13.
Itos aim is to block down the Yugoslavs forehand, get him away from the table so that when
he goes to loop his forehand he, Ito, has time to get into position to at least counter-loop the
ball, if not crack it. Ito moves very, very fast as they battle for forehand domination. Down 1220 in the 1st, Surbek, back at the barriers, falls to his knees, stays there for a while.
Ito will lose the 2nd game at 19, but will win the 3rd and 4th. The players exchange
fantastic spinning counters from 20 feet out. Some of Surbeks loops start with the Yugoslav
crouched way, way down and then, on the rise, he hooks the balllike a basketball player, just
off his knees, hurrying in one smooth motion to get the shot off. Every point is such a sweat
Ive never seen two players work harder at the Game.
On the other, much stronger side of the Draw, Stipancic, last years Yugoslav
Champion, defeated Alser, a player he had never beaten. For a while he had a difficult time
with the Swedes topspin. But then, in the 5th, he started hitting hardwith the result that after
this tournament Alser would announce his retirement. Hed be going to West Germany to
coach for $30,000 a year.
Following that fine win, Stipancic, up, looped his two-deuce-game way by Liang Ko-liang,
the pick-hit chopper who I thought (he seemed so sure of himself) might win the Singles. (Any
one of 20 players can win this tournament, former great Victor Barna had said.
40
Now Stipancic, who always looks arrogant, and/

or disgusted (though somehow not with himself) at
not living up to his arrogant expectations, is out there
playing Klampar. (When Klampar hits his forehand,
says the Czech Stanek, his right legs in front. Thats
against all table tennis schooling.)
The Hungarians long, swinging ball (different
from Jonyersas if there were some
unpredictable, even crazy operator at the control
of that crane) has been spinning so furiously at
Stipancic that at one point it looked like the
Yugoslav flinched and quick put up his blocking
racket purely in self-defense. Miles, watching
Klampar win in 5, says he thinks they ought to
outlaw inverted sponge. The game just isnt
interesting as a spectator sport, he complains.
Some sport, he says, when non-athletes can be
the best players in the world. Within five years
they ought to make it mandatory that pimples be
1970 Yugoslav National Champion

Anton Tova Stipancic has dreams
used. But, oh, these guys looked

like athletes to me.
His mouth drooped open or
not (The fellow still likes to play
with boats in the bathtubthings like
that, Trevor Taylor said to me),
when Klampar makes one of his
seemingly effortless loops, its as if
hes hit one of those little rubber
balls that kids play with that
unexpectedly bounce and bounce and
bouncehis topspin has that
acceleration, that force.
Ive heard it said that Klampar
feels he ought never to lose a game.
Klampar flinches?
His long, easy arm-swing is like, swat,
a golf club coming in. You cant play
the stiff old game any more, said a veteran player. Now they come into the ball smoother,
faster.
Here then in the quarters, playing another China bruiser, Hsi En-ting, is Klampar.
(Hes really very shy, says the sociable Iranian, Bozorgzadeh. Really, hes a nice boy.)
Their 1st game goes to deuce. Hsi stares blank-faced at this nice boy and beyond, into space,
as it were, where he adroitly deflects the meteorite of a ball that hurtles into view. Then, ad up,
he twistsnot Klamparbut a serve that the Hungarian cant return.
41
In the 2nd game, Hsis

blockshis reflexes, his fine
touchallow him to build up a lead
that will determine the match.
Ugh! he grunts (hes as big as
Lee King-pong). Ugh! and hits
that last hanger in. And now
Klampar, too, is out.
On the under side of this
half of the Draw, the player to
follow is Stellan Bengtsson. Against
From Table Tennis and Friendship Supplement to
Li Ching-kuang, who in the Team
China Reconstructs, Oct., 1971
matches demolished Ito, Bengtsson
World Champion to-be: Chinas Hsi En-ting
is given the role of giant-killer. Li
stays at the table, wont be dislodged. His blocks
couldnt be better, his hand speed faster. He seems
never to serve two balls alike.
Whenever gamin-like Stellan serves, he tries
to keep it short. But Li is so quick with his angledoff, turnover backhand, thrusts even Bengtsson so
out of position, that the young Swede, trying to
take forehand control, has to get in a pretty hard hit
shot to begin with.
Still, Bengtsson, all concentration and
desire, keeps constantly pressing his attack. Li
constantly neutralizes him, threatens at any moment
to become psychically larger than life, to break out
of the corners assigned to him.
On into the 5th they go. Li brings out every
weapon in his strange arsenal of serves. Bengtsson,
down 6-10, is moving as fast as a fit young player
From Table Tennis Topics, May/June, 1971, 5
can, rolling, blocking. Though his long hair is in a
Li Ching-kuang
frenzy, hes not outplaying Li in the exchanges. His
ball gets higher and higher. Li rears up, mercilessly slams down. Bengtsson is behind 8-14.
Still, he keeps at it. Keeps at it. And Liits 11-14cant continue his extraordinary
play. Or can he? Hes up 16-11. Still, Stellan keeps at it. Movingrolling, blocking. And
suddenly Li starts to falter. Hes humantheres an abrupt falling off, a drastic one. After
Bengtsson catches him at 17-all, Li serves into the net.
The game is over, says the Czech Stanek. Does he know something I dont? Li will
get to 19, but Bengtsson will win. And thats exactly what happened.
Li, in defeat, is extraordinarily disciplined. Even manages a smile. He actually looks like he
enjoyed the match. Which brings me to say what I certainly mustthat among the many
participating countries at this Worlds no team was more professional, had more dignity, than China.
Now its Bengtsson against Hasegawa. What a marvelous player Hasegawa is, says
Miles, whos apparently forgiven him the use of his inverted racket, and perhaps even his
eccentric grip. Its a shame hes not betterhe just covers the ball too much.
42
In the 5th, the Swede is up 9-6, looping to the right, the left, and Hasegawa, who has
earlier burst through the barriers chasing the little white circle of his ideal, is returning balls
from all over. In a firm crouch, he looks down to where the ball will be, then, like a
weightlifter, raises his lob up and out. Bengtsson, like in some teenagers tale of derring-do,
thrusts a block through Hasegawas backhand.
Down 16-17, Hasegawa bounces the ball before he serves, then serves offan
unforgivable error. Up 20-18, Bengtsson jumps high on hitting the ball into the net. But then
Hasegawa lobs one last ball up
and, falling, it just misses the edge.
Bengtsson bows his head in
victory, as is the custom.
In the semis, its the teen
Swede against Chinas Hsi En-ting.
Bengtsson wins the 1st at 19.
(Does he ever lose a close game?)
Wins the 2nd on a perfect drop.
Stellan is the Ariel sprite in the offcourt, on-court tempest of
International Table Tennis. He has
a magical steadiness to him, an
unexplained greatness. Soul. His
head of flying hair is into the
Sport. His win is in the air.
Down 17-18 in the 3rd,
Bengtsson whiffs his serve return.
No matter. He immediately sets up
a forehand. Keeps at it. Keeps at
Shigeo Ito
it. Wins the game, again
at 19, when Hsi fails to
return serve.
As for
Bengtssons 17, -19, 13,
10 final against Ito, it was
almost a foregone
conclusion. An
anticlimax. The crowd
roared for its own
naturally, especially when
he took the 2nd game. But
the Swede was pure
spirit. And yet a man. He
won and wept, was what
a Champion should be.
As it happened,
however, I didnt see the
final. Incredible to come
Stellan Bengtsson
43
all this way and then miss what most enthusiasts would regard as the high point of the trip. But
it was something I had no control over. For late that very morning another drama was
strategically starting to unfold. The Peoples Republic of China had just startled the world by
extending an invitation to the U.S. Teamits first such invitation to any organized group of
Americans since the Communists took over in 1949to come directly to Peking for some
Friendship Matches.
And so, even at the very blossom time of the Swedish victoryBengtsson, after all,
was the first non-Asian to take the Mens Singles title in almost 20 yearshalf of all the
photographers and reporters in the Gym must have been crowded together in what ordinarily
would have been an obscure part of the Aichi Stadium waiting for the closed door of that
Chinese-American meeting room to open.
In there, as outside play for world domination of the Sport was being furiously waged,
I was seated, watching, with the other officials of the two Teams, a different sort of game, one
that, with or without me, had already begun and that I little understood.
PekingYou know what that name meant to me? Somebody had told me at the start
of the World Championships that at the railroad station in Peking there were 400 ping-pong
tables. The trains never ran on time, he said, and there were always lots of people waiting. And
you know what? I had a romantic readiness. I believed him.
So while the many onlookers ringed round the playing floor outside were trying to
explain Bengtssons surprise victory, the considerable larger question, for those on the inside,
was, Who, or what, had suddenly prompted the Chinese to change the course of History?
44
Chapter Five
There are a number of
explanations as to how we
came to be in that meeting
room the last night of the
tournament, discussing, with
Sung Chung, Deputy
President of the Chinese
Delegation, and his now eversmiling interpreter Wang
Chia-tung, details of the
forthcoming trip.
The ITTF (94
member countries in our
Federation) was then the only
Olympic-like sports body that
China actively belonged to.
From H. Roy Evanss Colored Pins on a Map
Its President, Welshman H.
Evans meets Chinese Premier Chou En-lai in Peking, 1971
Roy Evans, had been in
Nagoya following the progress of the tournament and chairing the policy-making International
Congress meetings.
In a letter to the London Daily Telegraph written while the American Team was in
China, Evans took issue with the papers recent suggestion that there was something absurd
about attaching so much importance to the visit to China of the American table tennis team.
He made it clear that hed been in Peking before the World Championships talking to the
Chinese sports authorities and Premier Chou En-lai himself on sport generally throughout the
world and steps China should take to take up her contacts after the Cultural Revolution.
Evans said he suggested invitations to teams playing in Nagoya, at the World Championships,
and the invitations were subsequently issued there.
He then went on to add, half-ironically, half-indignantly, I suppose you can blame me
for the absurdity of a situation which could be the beginning of a great change in Chinese
policy!
The implied suggestion, some thought, was that on Evanss recommendation, the U.S.,
too, along with Canada, Columbia, England, and Nigeria, was given an invitation to come to
Peking.
Another explanation involved the flamboyant American player Glenn Cowan. From
time to time he was very much into the tournament, but his thoughts were sometimes scattered
and, as weve seen, he might on occasion need help in knowing what to doon court or off.
Still, he was also independent-minded. One afternoon when he mostly had things hashed out
and was taking himself and his potential quite seriously Glenn had gone to one of the practice
areas (it was in an old YMCA-like building, the first seven floors of which were devoted to
karate) and had played a few sets with the English star Trevor Taylor. Then a Japanese official
came in and everyone was forced to leave.
Downstairs, Glenn was looking in vain for his special bus when he saw to his surprise a
Chinese waving to him to hop aboard Chinas bus, join their ultra-private group. As he
45
clambered up, floppy hat

over long, DArtagnan
locks, he realized that some
of the Chinese were
smiling, even laughing at
him. But he could tell they
were being very human,
and this made him get all
happy. Wheres the
interpreter? he called out.
And, on finding
one, he began to talk to the
Chinese. I know all this,
he said, my hat, my hair,
my clothes look funny to
you. (The way Glenn
talked, he wanted to keep
it, the language, as
uncomplicated as
possibleas if he were
talking to children?) But
there are many, many
Chuang and Glenn - they made friends on the bus
people who look like me
and think like me. We, too, have known oppression in our country and we are fighting against
it. But just wait. Soon we will be in control because the people on top are getting more and
more out of touch.
Later, when Glenn was telling me this story, he said he was thinking of himself as a
revolutionary. Was thinking of their Revolution, of how the Chinese were free, and how
communism had freed them. (A Reuters man, interviewed about this time, said Glenn would
come across as a Communist sympathizer.)
You have many friends in my country, Glenn was sayingwhen Chuang Tse-tung
came up from the back of the bus and, interrupting, presented him with a silk-screen portrait
of the Hanchow mountains. Glenn, of course, was very pleasedand then, in something of a
panic, he hurriedly started looking through his bag. Jesus Christ, he said, I cant give you a
comb. I wish I could give you something but I cant.
And then, though Im sure the interpreter had, by mutual consent, gone off duty, Glenn
continued talkingto himself. Hey, wow, they really dig me! Im gonna see if I can get
invited to China too! And then his other self, coming in to reprimand him, answered, Hey,
man, dont do that! Thats really uncool. But obliterating all was his deep secret self. And so
Glenn said to that other voice, Fuck you! Though, as he admitted later, he didnt know what
he meant. He was just getting excitedthough not wildly excited.
It was like that first day when the Team was practicing. Every time Glenn looked
around and looked up into the stands at the Chinese, he saw they were watching him. Wow!
That ones Chuang, he thought. It was really weird, he said later. I played really good.
When it came time to get off the bus, there were hordes of photographers waiting
cameras raised like walkie-talkies. Glenn followed Chuang out, where, after displaying the ups
46
and downs of the soft-silk mountain, they shook hands, and, in response to a question, Glenn
said, No, I have no gift to give Mr. Chuang at this time.
When Glenn got back to his hotel, he was so excited he called his friend and soon-tobe business manager (for already he was getting the feeling he was going to need one), exU.S. Open Champion Bobby Gusikoff, in Los Angeles. Yes, clearly, he was to capitalize on his
good fortune. He would have to find some appropriate gift for Chuang, obviously one of the
most important members of the Chinese Delegation. Chance favors the prepared mind: it
was a line going round in Glenns headfrom Pasteur, he thought, heard in some long since
forgotten afternoon of childhood.
Get Chuang what? Something that would be both personal and representative of
America. Only what in the world would that be?
Underground, amazed in Nagoyas tunnels at the never-ending passageways lined deep
with shops and shoppers, Glenn wandered into a Japanese teenager who blew his mind. The
boy had on a red, white, and blue, peace emblem flag of a shirt with the words Let It Be
written on it.
Good. Very good, Glenn told him. Buy? Right now! Six yen!
The boy had a friend with him. He hesitated.
Six yen! repeated Glenn. He wanted to tear the shirt right off the kids back.
Finally the boy agreed. He would give it to Glenn. Only his friend wouldnt let him.
No, hold it! What are you doing? Glenn cried as the two Japanese boys drifted away,
were swirled out of sight.
But then he got lucky. Found the same T-shirt in a shop on down the line. And bought
one for himself and one for Chuang.
Now how to find the right moment to present the gift publicly?
Japanese TV cameras had been set up in a certain section of the Stadiumand of
course it was hard
for Glenn to stay
away from them.
The
photographers
had seen the
picture of this
strange, longhaired American
shaking hands
with Chuang in
the Nagoya
papers and now
one of them asked
him, Are you
friends with Mr.
Chuang?
But Glenn,
since hed had no
other contact with
From Table Tennis and Friendship Supplement to China Reconstructs, Oct., 1971
the man, could
Chuang and Glenn exchange gifts at Aichi Stadium
47
hardly reply anything meaningful. Fortunately who should be coming off a nearby playing
court precisely at this time but the person in question. Glenn saw his chance, beckoned
Chuang over andsurprisehe came as if, inscrutably, he were supposed to.
Glenn had brought both the gift he was going to give and the one hed received. He
moved Chuang, for more privacy, around to the telephones. Within 10 seconds, it seemed like
very reporter, every photographer, in the Gym had surrounded them.
How are you? Glenn said to Chuang.
In the absence of an interpreter, Chuang smiled.
I have a gift I would like to give you, said Glenn.
There were now so many newspapermen about, according to Glenn, that he could
hardly get the shirt out of his bag. But he did, and Chuang took it, smiled again, and they
shook hands, and still without saying a word Chuang left.
In the end, there were only two Japanese reporters leftat least they looked Japanese,
looked like reporters, Glenn thought.
Mr. Cowan, said one of them, would you like to visit China?
Dont be political. Dont be political, said one of those voices deep inside him.
Well, Glenn answered, Id like to see any country I havent seen beforeArgentina,
Australia, China. (Surely that made sense, he thoughtit had the logic of the alphabet
behind it). Any country I havent seen before.
But what about China in particular? said this reporter who was left almost all alone.
Wouldnt you like to go there?
Of course, said Glenn.
(Later, to my surprise, what did he tell me?
I answered as if I were you, he said, because, you know, when things get too
complicated or too stupid I project into a different body.)
So, from Glenns point of view, he, unlike the other Americans, most of whom had
confined themselves to polite,
passing nods, had actually
communicated with the Chinese,
and so had made it easy for them
to extend this larger invitation to
all the other Americans to join
with them in friendship.
Still another explanation
of the changing course of History
was given by Miss Ping
Neuberger.
When the Canadian Team
received its invitation to go to
China, Marge Walden, Secretary
of the CTTA and its Delegate to
the ITTF Congress, naturally
asked about the status of Mrs.
Neuberger, the American who
was traveling with them and who,
Miss Ping, accompanied by fellow Canadians, shaking hands
as a former Worlds Doubles
with Chinas 1965 World Mens Doubles Champion Hsu Yinsheng
48
Champion, was recognizable, at least by name, to anyone who had been an avid follower over
the years of international table tennis.
A Chinese official professed some interest in finding out just who Mrs. Neuberger was.
Yes, in answer to a tactical question, Marge Walden said she certainly did know Leah. In fact,
she said, Miss Ping was a very good friend of herstheir friendship dated back to 1938.
Anyway, he could always look her up in the Program. Neuberger: World Mixed Doubles
Champion, 1956.
Naturally the Chinese didnt want to be insulting. He was not aware of their longstanding friendship. Perhaps, it if were at all possible.
But the day before the tournament was to end, this same Chinese official approached
Mrs. Walden with the decision from Pekingthey were very sorry, but no American would be
allowed into China.
This, however, was followed on Wednesday, April 7th, the last day of the tournament,
by further word from Peking that now not only would Mrs. Neuberger be allowed into China
but that an invitation was being extended to the whole American Team.
What had happened in just 24 hours to change the Chinese thinking?
Miss Ping supposed that it was the awkwardness of her established position with the
Canadians, her down in black and white application for a visa, that made the Chinese decide in
her favorand hence in favor of all the Americans. Had
Peking planned this invitation so calculatingly
beforehand, as some were later to say, they would
hardly have told her one thing one day and the opposite
thing the next, now would they?
The consensus of opinion on hearing these
stories was that no one person could really be held
responsible for the sudden dtente (and, oh, now there
would be coming into my very non-political ear the
language of Ping-Pong Diplomacy).
No one person, that isunless it was President
Nixon, who some time earlier had referred to
Communist China as The Peoples Republic of China,
and who, in expressing the hope of broader
opportunities for contact between Americans and
Chinese, had lifted restrictions on visits by Americans
there. (And of course only therenot North Korea,
North Vietnam, or Cuba.)
No one person, that isunless, as Premier Chou
En-lai was to say, as reported in an article in the New
York Times exactly six months to the day of the
invitation later, it was Chairman Mao Tse-tung himself.
However you try to put the jigsaw puzzle
together, though, you must have the one not to be
overlooked piece which shows how the Chinese casually
put the question to the Americans. J. Rufford Harrison,
our International Chairman, and a familiar figure at
From China Revista Illustrada, 1971/3
World Championships over the years, was outside his
Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Oct. 1, 1970
49
hotel at 10:30 a.m. in the morning

trying to hail a taxi. One stopped
andsurpriseChinese Deputy
Leader Sung Chung and Interpreter
Wang got out. It was as if theyd
been waiting for Harrison to wave
them over. After all, they knew he
was on their side. Hadnt he
diplomatically told Sung Chung over
coffee during an ITTF Congress
break that the Council needed a
Chinese member?
They asked Rufford to come
into the Miyako and have a talk. In
the lobby, Sung as straightforwardly
Rufford
Harrison
with Ping-Pong Diplomacy trip facilitators:
as possible in such a public place
Japans Kinichi Salongi and Chinas Chao Cheng-hung
asked the question, How would
you react to an invitation for your players and officials to visit China?
When President Steenhoven (whatever else hed done,
hed not been spending much time at the Aichi Stadium) found
out from the press (Team Captain Howard was supposed to
have called him earlier but forgot to) that the Chinese had
given their guarded invitation (or would you call it merely a
feeler?) to the U.S. through Deputy Leader Harrison, he was
furious. He did not attend a mid-afternoon meeting of the
players. And rumor had it that over the phone to Harrisonas
if scissors in hand, he were at that very moment maniacally
snipping away at the wires of anyones future communication
with himhed snapped, Maybe were not going anywhere.
From the Mie, Japan
But though we didnt really take himor his cry in the
voidseriously enough to think that in the name of the Team
Graham blindly angered?
he would turn down the invitation, some of us were a little
worried when he remained incommunicado for the rest of the afternoon. I began to think that,
if he were to come on like Captain Queeg, we could relieve him of his command I was sure
Id seen in the movies there was a military precedent for it.
Most of the players of course were over-the-top enthusiastic. Judy Bochenski and Olga
Soltesz, the two girls who were under age, had to call home and see if they could get
permission from their parents for the trip.
Fifteen-year-old Judy (Ill go! Ill go!) was sure her parents would agree with her,
and when she, with Jack as her Captain to say a few words just in case, called them, sure
enough, her father, Lou, a schoolteacher, thought it would be a great education for her and a
chance to help build world peace.
Olga, Judys roommate in Nagoya, wanted to go tooshe was curious, she said. But
she was not so sure her father would give his permission. He had fled Communism in Hungary
back in 1957, had escaped from Budapest on foot with his wife and 3-year-old Olga (If Id
have been brought up in Hungary, Olga told me, Id have been a top player by now). Hed
50

Ill go! Ill go!
run away because he didnt think he could go

on keeping his mouth shut. But, 15 years later,
at 3 a.m., about all he could say, sleepily, was.
Yes. Go. Olga was ecstatic.
Our older teenager, however, Wendy
Hicks, apparently wanted more reassurance
from Jack or somebody that there wouldnt be
anything to worry about. (Jack himself said he
planned to ask the Chinese at a later meeting if
they were going to guarantee wed be
adequately guarded when we walked the streets
or played before large crowds.) Maybe Wendy
was thinking what, for a moment, when I called
her, my wife was?
Id told Sally, In case anything should
happen to me in there, save my unpublished
stories and see that Scott and Eric get them
someday. Left back home with the kids, she
was understandably envious of the wives who
Photo courtesy of Marty Reisman
Could ones imagination picture something like this?

51
got to make the trip, and of my freedom to just get up and go to Japan, to China. Though
outwardly composed and cooperatively beginning to make up the most believable answers to
more and more reporters who fancied their questions, she was inwardly apprehensive. She
remembered seeing a man on a talk show whod been imprisoned by the Communist
Chineseand how for years hed sat and watched the ants.
So why have to worry? Wendy must have thought. Besides, she had plans to meet a
friend in Hawaiiand who knows when shed ever have a chance to see her again? She
decided not to go to the Never-never; thered be more surety, more satisfaction for her in the
world she knew.
One other member of our Team decided against it too. D-J Lee, our #1, had an
unfriendly South Korean passport, and, since the Chinese themselves seemed at first in some
doubt of his status, he was afraid that something unforeseen in one or the other dark rooms of
Peking would develop that his imagination didnt want to picture. So, perhaps more on instinct
than anything else, he made up his mind to return to Seoul and his motherand then, as hed
earlier planned, to take her on a trip, camera at the ready, back to his wife Linda in the States,
whod not as yet had the pleasure of meeting her.
As the afternoon wore on and the final great matches were being played in the arena,
newspapermen everywhere were trying to get hold of the Americans. Glenn had come in redeyed with a Japanese girl Id seen him with before, and when people told him he was going to
China, he became so shaky he just about fell on the floor. Then, when somebody said to him,
And heres the guy we have to thank for it all, he went over and sat down at a table and hid
his face in his hands.
Meanwhile, no one seemed able to get through to Steenhoven, who may or may not
have been high up in his hotel room. Later, Graham was to logically say, I had not been
approached because the leaders of the Chinese Team probably were waiting for clearance from
Peking. A contact with me at that early stage would have placed an official stamp of approval
on the invitation.
But the invitation was official all right.
52
Chapter Six
Harrison had arranged an early evening appointment with the Chinese to finalize the
details of our trip, so when it seemed obvious to some of us that Graham was going to be late,
I thought Id take up the offer of an Associated Press man Id been speaking to earlier, who
happened to be standing nearby and who looked like he could provide anyone with anything
he wanted anywhere in the worldfor a price.
He would loan me the use of his car, he said, so that the two of us could go back to the
Miyako Hotel and pick up Steenhoven. But then, when we walked away from the others and
were alone, he askedas if were friends, or, rather, since we were both men of the world, as if
we could be friendshow much money I wanted to write articles for the AP. He could arrange
it, he said. And nobody would even have to know.
When I saw he wasnt just a nice guy trying to be helpful (how could I have thought
that anyway?), I was very uncomfortable. What did he mean, nobody would have to know?
Was I somehowin letters, over the phoneto sneak articles out to him? I didnt have the
slightest idea who Id write anything forpeople were starting to contact me, would be
contacting me. I didnt want to owe any favors that would commit me to anybody. I told him
Id have to talk it over with some people and find out what my writing was worth. I just
wanted to get away from himthough of course that wasnt so hard to do since now he had
no intention (did he ever?) of going to pick up Steenhoven.
Later I asked Miles what he thought I ought to get, and so when the fellow came
round again I was ready for him. $5,000 is what Ive been advised I ought to get, I said
firmly. But nothing happened in the mans face. He didnt look surprised or anything.
Ill tell them, he said, and walked away. But then, because I never saw him again, I
thought, Was it good to scare people away who maybe wanted me to write for them. Oh, why
didnt I know who I wanted to write for, or who it was best for me to write for?
The real world, I assumed, was going to take care of itselfand things, willy-nilly,
would happen to me there. But since Id be in a group, conveyed about, cared for, given
company, that would be o.k.for a while. But where I really needed help was in getting an
image of me, as a reporter, a correspondent, I could look at in my own head.
If I could just see for a moment the way I really wanted to dress, talk, act, the things I
really wanted to do, I would right away be able to have peace of mind, could function so much
better.
But Ive never looked ahead, Ive never had the foresight to imagine such a mana
figure I could follow in the footsteps of, could catch up to as he opened the door of his room
and flicked on the light, who by his writing desk as he turned round I could find myself
looking into the mirror of.
So I couldnt then and probably never will find the direction in which the man I wanted
to follow was going. I was lost. And so, somewhere, was he. In that, we were alike. And
though with my limited vantage point I was in a group trying always to look and listen
carefully, I was always alone, and sometimes near paralysis.
And yet, still, it was fun to go on, persistently scribbling away what seemed to matter,
if, to no one else, to me. And to try to convince myself and others into thinking that the words
shaped into sentences and sections of paragraphs would stand strong as old stone round my
own little domainwhich, the further I got away from in some point of time and space, would
bound to be less and less significant. Wouldnt it?
53
Finally, Steenhoven arrived, and so he and Sung Chung could get down to business.
We all went single file through the newspapermen into the meeting room. A few more pictures
and then the photographers were forced out.
Sung, through his interpreter, Wang, made it clear that our National Champion, Lee,
like anyone else in the American party, could go to China without fear if he wanted to. No, we
said, he was not going. Sung asked againhe didnt want to press the point, but, really, Lee
could go and, I could see he was trying to tell us, it wouldnt be embarrassing.
But o.k., so then if Wendy Hicks wasnt going, that made 14 in our party. Agreed.
Fifteen, I said, while Steenhoven and Harrison looked onI wont say blankly,
because they knew what I was going to say, and what I knew they felt they had to let me say.
Fifteen, because we have one more member in our party, Dick Miles, who Im sure you know
and whom some of your players remember as our greatest player. We would like very much
for him to go. I said We quite consciously, thinking that Steenhoven and Harrison wouldnt
choose to contradict me, especially at this early time where a solid-looking front for our Team
was still possible.
The Chinese bent their heads in question. Interpreter Wang,
in black, polite, agreeable, smiling away all those crows feet,
wanted to know if Mr. Miles was in the official party.
Well, no, technically, he was here as a writer for an
important U.S. sports magazine, Sports Illustrated, but his
recognizable ability, his close association with us over the years
Yes, they understood. But they could not give us an answer
now. They would take it under advisement. Which meant, as we
would find out later, that (For old friendships sake) he could go.
I was very pleased with myself for successfully speaking up for a
friend.
Now, before we went too far, one other little problem. All
our players had tickets to return to the United States on a certain
Interpreter Wang Chia-tung
day. If we didnt use them on that day, theyd be void.
The two soft-spoken Chinese noddedas if theyd expected this and assured us that it
would be no problem. These Friendship Matches, they said, were solely at the expense of
the Chinese. They would fly us into The Peoples Republicand they would fly us out again,
back to our homes.
Now, how long would we want to be staying in China? Two weeks? A month? Sung
hoped our visit would not be short. But, oh, we said, so many of us had jobs. We were sorry,
we said, wed like to stay longer, but we would have to come backin, say, a week?
These, along with some questions of itinerary, were the central points of discussion
that evening as we made plans that would headline our countries future.
I was amazed at how calm and cooperative the Chinese were, how cordial. Earlier, at the
so-called Jury Meeting just before the start of the tournament, Harrison, on first hearing Wang
speak, had gone up to himSung Chung was with himhad congratulated him on his excellent
English, and had welcomed himthat is, China, reallyback onto the scene. But on introducing
himself, Rufford had been coldly rebuffed. Sung Chung had simply turned his head.
Or again when Id seen Wang at the ITTFs first U.N.-like Congress meeting, he had
become, it seemed, very nearly hysterical. He was responding to Malaysias support of The
Republic of Chinas (Taiwans) application to the ITTF.
54
For years
Taiwan had not
been able to join
the ITTF, as was
the case again this
year. (The matter
will go to the
Advisory
Committee where
it will receive
constitutional
study.)
Sometimes it
deliberately had
not gotten its
entry application
in on time; other
times, when it had
From the Washington Post, April 27, 1971
gotten its
application in, it had insisted on being called The Republic of China. What happens, asked a
reporter, if they change their name to Taiwan? Will they be allowed in? Answered ITTF
President Evans, We dont know until they present an application, do we?
The name Republic of China, the Malaysian Delegate was saying to the Congress,
implies a de facto territory with its own control of the Game as distinct from
The Peoples Republic of China, replied interpreter Wang, firmly opposes dragging
into the ITTF the despicable political plot of the Chiang Kai-shek clique long since cast away
by the Chinese people. And then he began to speak very loudly, very quickly. Soon he was
saying, Malaysia, South Vietnamthey harbor ulterior motives. We are the sole organizers of
Table Tennis in China, not those entrenched in Taiwan by the U.S. imperialists
Point of order! Point of order! shouted Harrison, waving his hand like a flag. I
dont think we can tolerate this behaviour! Some Delegates, agreeing with him, began
pounding on their desks.
When order was restored by President Evans, who, throughout, seemed so
unperturbed, so civilized, there was talk of how the 22-member body of the (TTFA) Table
Tennis Federation of Asiawhich The Peoples Republic had renounced in great indignation
for their stand against 600,000,000 peoplewas, in trying to retain Taiwans membership,
violating the Constitution of the ITTF, damaging it. Indeed, the Chinese speaker went on to
say, there is a plot here to disrupt the Congress of the ITTF.
And now a Delegate from Australia wanted it made clear that he for one deplored the
obviously political statements being madesaid that the rhetoric he objected to ought to be
stopped and the person making such remarks censored.
But, again, until everyone had his say, on it went. (The discussion will cease in 10
minutes for coffee.)
Mr. Makarov, the Russian Delegate, stated that he was against the application of
Taiwan, said it had no right to be a member of the Asian Federationand that we should
strictly observe our Constitution.
55
In opposition to which the Peruvian Delegate got in a shotclaimed that Taiwan had
the 5th best team in the world, so why shouldnt it be allowed to join?
Which prompted a spokesman for North Korea to stand up staunchly for China. It
would be totally wrong, he said, to admit Taiwan, for Taiwan is incorporated into China.
And now he, too, began to get carried away. The bringing of Taiwan as a political state into
the sports theater is an imperialist intrigue, prompted by reactionaries, in flagrant violation of
the spirit of the ITTF
This question, said the voice of a Delegate from somewhere, shouldnt be discussed
any longer. Who here wants politics to get involved in our Sport?
That night, after we came out of the meeting, Sung Chung, caught in the bright lights,
told newsmen that China had primarily invited the Americans because they have many times
in the past several days made requests to us. Graham, at a remove some distance away, and
blinded by the cameras, on being questioned about this statement, said that he didnt know of
any other members who might have approached the Chinese.
He meant, quite rightly of course, that if I, say, wanted to give copies of my Topics
magazine to the Chinese Mens Coach to show that I, personally, was receptive to an
invitation, well, that was o.k. But understand that he, as the USTTA Presidentas opposed to
himself as a friendly ITTF official who could hardly be accused (anymore than Cowan) of
trying to bribe the Chinese when he presented one of them with the gift of a Kennedy halfdollarcertainly didnt know any official request other than his own.
The finalizing U.S.-to-China meeting over, the newsmen addressed, we went, with all
the rest of the players and officials who had been a part of the World Championships, to Koji
Gotos lavish $100-a-person party.
Party Time, L-R: Olga, Connie, Lin Hui-ching, and Wendy

56
Koji Gotothe so-called King of Nagoya, who, as head of the Japanese TTA, had
gone to Peking and come back with the players of The Peoples Republic in hand, and who, as
head of the TTFA, had come back determined to oust not himself, as actually happened, but
The Republic of China (Taiwan) from the Asian Federation.
Koji Gotowho, after Id gone out there on the dais for the Old Boys Jubilee Cup
Award presentation, had put down his long wand of a cane, and, as I bowed my head, had slipped
the beribboned medal round my neck, had given me my noose of silver, if not that very special Cup.
Koji Gotohis World tournament finally at an end, and he resigned and soon to die,
whod known much before the Championships, with Logic absolute, that in our time no sport
could possibly be as pure and bubbly as the champagne, that last night in Nagoya, his cup
runneth over with.
Swaythling Cup
goes to China
From the Report of the
1971 Nagoya Worlds
Premier Chou En-Lai (L)

and Koji Goto meet
before the Worlds in
Peking
Asian Table Tennis Union holds its first (1972) tournament - Taiwans not welcome
57
Chapter Seven
Thursday
morning we checked out
of the Miyako Hotel,
and in a straggling,
stumbling caravan
carried our luggage (it
seemed to scatter in all
directions) the few
blocks to the Nagoya
railroad station, where
we boarded a train for
Kuwana and our
mornings destination,
the Toyo Bearing
Company.
(I remember
how, as I was
momentarily guarding
some of our bags on the
platform, I stared at an
absolutely motionless
old man in black,
wearing white socks and
boards for shoes, who
had a very white,
unbelievably long, Rip
Van Winkle beard and a
U.S. Team would have spent three days in this area touring Old Japan
flat black hat onand
how this strange sentinel of a man apparently never even saw our Team, though occasional
passersby with newspapers would point at us.)
Originally wed scheduled three days in the Mie (Me) Prefecture, including a visit to
Pearl Island and, after a nights stay at the International Hotel at Toba, a visit to the shrine at
Ise. After that, most of the group had been looking forward to spending some time at Osaka
and/or Kyoto before wed all meet back in Tokyo to catch our flight home. Now all that had
changedwe could keep only one day of our earlier commitmentand so wed be seeing
very little, if anything, of old Japan.
Earlier, though, Tannehill, after the Team events, had given up all thought of table
tennis for a day, and, sick of the city air and tired of the crowds of Westernized people, had
taken the bullet train (120 m.p.h.) up to Nara to go on a sort of religious retreathopefully,
as he put it, to learn about the old Japanese style of life.
But too often riding past smoke stacks pouring out their pollution, John could only
blackly be reminded of Americas ghettoes. Still, he tried to take heart that almost all the
families had their little plot of land behind their houseswhere they grew rice, tomatoes,
potatoes.
58
Arriving in Nara, John said he had a strange experience.

He asked and received directions from a Japanese man on
how to get to the famous Toshadai-ji shrine. But when he got to
the Buddhist Temple there (established, according to the guide
books, in 759 to teach moral precepts to the nation), he noticed
that this man from whom hed asked directions had followed him.
And then the man was buying him fruit and souvenirs.
What hotel was John staying at that night? the man
repeatedly wanted to know.
Of course Tannehill tried to find out who he was, or what
he did, but the man would only shake his head and say, I dont
understand.
So that soon John began to find his impressions of the
Temple stained, as he put it, by his experience with this man
and he wanted to escape from him immediately.
Finally, at the end of his patience, John forced the strange
man to turn from him with, as he thought, an ingenious question.
Why arent you married? he said to him.
But although the stranger abruptly vanished, John found
that the incident touched heavily on his thoughts of the shrine at
Toshodai-ji.
The U.S. contingent, after arriving at the Kuwana station,
were driven by taxis to the Toyo Bearing Company and there
properly welcomed. We were taken to a large room, seated along
John Tannehill
both sides of a long table, and given visor-caps to put onas if
(golf is such a popular sport in Japan that, passing a garage in
Tokyo, I was to see a mechanic, driver in hand, practicing his swing) we were all touring pros
at a country-club sponsor orientation.
Our host went mechanically on and on with his presentation to us, outlining, detailing
all the time-clock operations of the 3,000 employees of the Company that he himself,
obviously a working part, was giving his life to. That he continued to drone on to these
outsiders, disinterested even when he spoke of jet engines or high speed trains, was perhaps
his own way of getting his bearings. But I began to feel self-conscious about the disrespect
being shown him. The yawning, the talking, the fidgeting, the giggling, the passing round of
little notesit was all so ridiculous, especially from my point of view as a teacher, that,
though I officially, intently, tried to be polite, I could hardly keep a straight face.
The bearing you see before you, the man was explaining, cost $10,000.
That has no bearing on the present, said Glenn in a stage whisper to no one in
particular.
Lunch. This was appreciatedwould be served after our factory tour (about which I
can remember only that I was surprised to see this tiny plant, midst crates and crates of
bearings, growing undisturbed on, of all things, a manhole).
Tannehill, in continued defiance of some USTTA E.C. members talk about the Teams
personal appearance (meaning Cowan and Tannehills) and to them everyone elses image of
America, had had his long hair cut alright, but cut monk-like, ascetically short. Now, on
coming to the table that had just been set for lunch, he was wolfing down the bread already
59
there, then more bread, then

from other parts of the table
more bread. On finishing his
soup, he asked for more.
More soup, he said. more
soup.
John, I said, thats
only the first course.
Oh, I thought that
From the Mie, Japan
was it, he said, suddenly
looking down at his
silverware.
At which point
Cowan gave me an Oh,
wow look.
Then it was More
steak, and Havent you any
more steak?
Meanwhile, down at
the other end of the table,
there was a decision being made on how wed have to hurry up and get some appropriate gifts
for the Chinese players in the coming Friendship Matches. Here today, as earlier in Nagoya,
it would be a little embarrassing with these Toyo Bearing people. We had only our USTTA
pinsand werent we beginning to run out of those?
We needed variety. Parker fountain pens, ball point pens. The Parker 51 for $8; a ball
pointcross, gold at $5.50, 9 of those; the Papermate at $3.65 (how many?); the Parker 108,
119 with cross, chrome, at $2.85; andwith or without a box, at $1.15?
It was big business all getting mixed up with friendship.
After lunch I made a phone call to Connecticut, to one of those friends responsible for
giving me psychic strength to maneuver to make the trip to Nagoya. He was a novelist and I
wanted to get in touch with his agent.
Id had so many bewildering offersTime, Life, Newsweek, CBS, New York Times, some
newspaper in Australia. All wanted the same thing. Please write whatever I could, take pictures, use
a tape recorder, cable, phone (Moscow, Tokyo) wherever, whenever I could get through. I didnt
know which offer to accept, or, if I could possibly manage it, if I could accept more than one.
I thought, after the bad experience Id had with the AP man yesterday, that if I kept talking
to each Bureau Chief or correspondent and held off on a decision until the last possible moment, I
could decide by accepting the offer of the man I instinctively most liked, most trusted. But Mr.
Chang of Time-Life, Mr. Oka of the New York Times, Mr. Cross of CBS, and Mr. Krisher of
Newsweek each acted and sounded as if he understood that I understood that hed made me a fair
offer, and, now, what was I waiting for, what did I expect, what did I want?
And though I was aware of the irony of ping-pong reporter turned foreign correspondent,
and how my background as English professor was rightly valuedstill, who else on the Team
could do a better job than I? And since we were the media of communications only hope, I wanted
to be paid, just on principle, in money or prestige, what men of the world everywhere thought I was
worth. I didnt want to be so easily taken for an innocent.
60
Harrison, I knew, had committed himself to a leading Philadelphia paperand cleverly,

opportunistically, I thought, everything he would write for them would go to a Japanese paper
as well. The Bubens, the Reseks (Errol and Jairie were often kept busy writing postcards and
lettersErrol, I heard Jairie say, put the stamp lower), Brathwaite, the girls I supposed
for their local papers, everyone was being chased and bird-dogged down by packs of reporters
with offers.
Everyone, that is, except Tannehill, and of course Steenhoven who, as President, was
resolutely keeping away from it all. It just wouldnt look right, Graham would say later, if he
were walking with the head of the Chinese Delgation and had a camera. If you will pardon
the comparison, he said, it would be like President Nixon taking his own pictures of China,
Chairman Mao, and Premier Chou En-lai.
I knew I was in a competitive situation thatwhat with long distance phone calls,
cables, notebooks, tape recorders, cameraswas already beginning to put a strain on me.
More and more people were expecting information, decisions, from me. I needed help.
The call went through. But my writer friend wasnt there. I tried to make myself clear
to his wife. Left a $23 message to have Toms agent get hold of me at the Nagashima Grand
Spa Hotel, where we would be staying the night. Then I went out into the rain and over to the
gym where I heard we were going to be playing a bunch of serious-minded high-school kids.
As Id expected, the Japanese had everything ritually planned. The Mie students and,
along with them, the Toyo Bearings own Mens Team, in pressed, spotlessly clean uniforms,
made their professional entrance (as we did too) and then, inside the barriered-off courts of the
brightly-lit, highly polished gym, stood impassively nervous and excited beside our 28th-ranked
world-caliber players and the kids on the Australian Team that ranked right behind us whom
Id seen drunk and sick in Nagoya.
Gaily-colored pennants and pins were ceremoniously exchanged, the players given the
honor of being introduced individually, and then, while an ABC camera crew that, from the
looks on their faces obviously wouldnt be going to China, covered our already everfascinating move, play began. Our men against their boys.
To add our own particular color to the dignity of these Friendship Games, we played
a few street-shoe members of our entourage. One, George Gus Kennedy, from Minneapolis,
had unexpectedly taken on the peripatetic role of Team Manager, and had been of great help to
From the Mie, Japan Friendship Games Program
L-R: Gus, Jean, and Roger Kennedy

61
us counting heads and scattered pieces of luggage lying about in the often devastating
departure of our heavily-camera-armed little party. Gus would be flying with his wife and sixyear-old son to Hong Kong with us in hopes that the Chinese would relent and let them too
American televisions first familybe screened and officially cross over to the Mainland.
Right about this time, after Id played some matches (the best I managed to do against
one kid was split setsthe others were easy), I was, as Vice President, in the momentary
absence of Steenhoven, called to the phonerequested by an unknown voice a long distance
away, by a Mr. Cunningham, to take the following message:
The Department of State views favorably the U.S. table tennis teams trip to
the Peoples Republic of China. This trip is consistent with President Nixons expressed
desire for greater contact between the American and the Chinese people.
The Department of State notes and is pleased that Mr. Steenhoven and the
Team recognizes the political implications of the visit and that we have no desire to
engage in politics and that we recognize the public relations aspect of the visit.
Any reciprocal invitation to a Chinese Team from the U.S. Team would have to
be in the name of our team or in the name of the USTTA. The U.S. government itself is
not likely to be able to fund such an invitation.
The USTTA would probably have to secure private funding for a Chinese visit
to the U.S.
On the matter of visas for a Chinese team we expect no difficulty. In fact, the
Department of State would view a reciprocal visit of an athletic team or teams to the
U.S. with favor. As a general proposition, we would expect no difficulty with regard to
visas.
Click.
It was the reassuring voice of official fact.
I went back into the gym and played some more scheduled matches, then watched as
about 700 workers (Let!) came running in, all expectant, all thrilledas if for a moment
theyd lost their bearings.
To everyones immense relief, the U.S. scored a triumph over (it was printed in big letters
on the back of their blue jump suits) the ALLMIE. Then
both teams administered the last rites of their polite
goodbyes, and we were off, driven to a restaurant (I almost
said a Japanese restaurant) nearby. There we sat on the floor
and watched our dinner cook, and ate, and talked in little
private groupsmore about table tennis because our
imaginations hadnt anything much to grasp about China yet.
We talked, as people sometimes do, about those who
werent in their immediate presence. D-J, one of his
teammates began, didnt seem to be playing too well towards
the end. Yeah, said another, he was tired. Tired? Why?
Because, came the answer, hes like an American now.
Someone else said that the Russian girl, Rudnova, a
penholder, could beat the whole American team, including
From 1971 Worlds Program
Lee. One might have thought differently, but no one said so.
Russias Zoya Rudnova
62
An earlier comment of Tannehills (he was sitting

elsewhere) was passed around. Hed said his teacher
(which meant his guru, the one and maybe only teacher he
respected) had told him that table tennis was a fascist, anal
sport and that it required a complete devotion to a god.
Which eventually allowed someone else to pick up
on how Maria Alexandru of Rumania, after losing a game
on a net ball, came over and, cursing like a man, kicked
down a barrier.
Which prompted a re-play of Olgas remark after
shed lost in the 1st round of the Consolations, I just
didnt feel like trying.
In the middle of dinner I was called to the

telephone. It was long distanceTokyo, Mr. Chang of
From Table Tennis News, May/June, 1972
Time-Life (how did he know where I was? I didnt know
Rumanias Maria Alexandru
myself). Of course he asked if Id made up mind who I was
going to write for. And because I hadnt, I told him Id
meet him at the
Takanawa Prince Hotel
Nagashima Grand Spa Hotel
in Tokyo before the
Team left for Hong
Kong.
The Nagashima
Grand Spa Hotel,
where we were staying
that night, was indeed
grand. Howard and
Cowan and I shared a
large, long room, and
after John had
explained how the
Japanese squat-down position forced the bowels to move, and after wed all taken turns
soaking in (it was like a little swimming pool) the 7-foot-long deepest sunken bathtub wed
ever seen, we had some beers at a little table in a screened-off section of the room looking out
to sea. Jack said he hoped Glenn wasnt taking any stuff into Chinaand Glenn said, dont
worry, he knew better, had flushed it down the john of his hotel room last night.
Mr. Oka of the Times abruptly called (really, you neednt worry about contacting them,
they almost always knew where you were) and when I couldnt give him any more of a
definitive answer than Id given Chang, he became irritated. Said I didnt seem to be playing
straight with him. I didnt know what to do. I told him Id meet him at the Takanawa Prince
Hotel before the Team left for Hong Kong.
63
The fact that Id provoked Oka, and that I could sense his reaction was absolutely
genuine, started to help me, unconsciously, to get my head together. Instinctively, Id felt from
the beginning that, though writing for the Times would be a much harder, day-by-day job
(Newsweek or Time or Life, after all, wanted only one story, at the end, when I got out) I still
ought to, as someone who kept saying he valued the Word, who maybe could try to stand with
vorpal sword against the jabberwocky, do it.
Oka, I felt, was a man I could respect, the more so because he upfront criticized me
even while he was urging me to accept the Times offer. And though right then I couldnt
consciously have put any of this into words, I sensed he knew worth, offered the kind of value
I in my best moments was looking for and believed in. Unknowingly, he had just set a fee I
could be sure we agreed on.
With the Times I would have a prestigious by-line, and they wouldnt edit my stuff very
muchit would really be my own writing. Whereas in the weekly magazines, in their rewriting, Id be edited, left out, anonymous, refined out of existence.
Id no sooner hung up when a call came through to
Glenn. It was Bobby, his manager in Los Angeles. As they
talked Glenn began to breathe heavily, became very
excited. I got it, he almost shouted. I got it. And, after
another pause, I got it. And after another, I got it. He
was almost gasping. Apparently he had an exclusive with
Life (was it then Time Mr. Chang wanted me to write
for?), was going to be on their cover. He was listening very
carefully to every word of advice being given him.
After he hung up, he began telling us how important it
was he get the U.S. equipment rights to Chinese table
tennis rackets, balls, netsanything that he could.
As I lay down on my hard bed on the floor and listened
to him talk, I wondered how in the world he could go
about trying to convince the Chinese of anything. And then
Bobby Gusikoff
I fell asleep.
Later I was awakened by the ringing phoneand had to
grope for it in the blackness.
Tim? the voice I couldnt begin to place said from (Long Island?) I hadnt the
slightest idea where. I got your message.
Maybe it was because Id been asleep, but it took me the longest time to understand
that the voice speaking so familiarly to me was that of my friends agent from far away in New
York whom Id never met or even talked to. Is this Theron? I finally said. He must have
thought me a fool.
I know we talked for a while, but when I got off the phone all I remembered of our
conversation was that hed advised me to take the best offer of the Times. It was strange, his
voice floating all the way out there to the furtherest edge of the Pacific. Faced with a different
sea outside my window, I lay back as if in sleep, as if in dreambut, whether I was awake or
not, I had the sense of being still very much in the dark.
64
Chapter Eight
Friday morning dawned dark and drizzly. We left our grand hotel in a fog (There must
be more baggage than this, I heard someone say. Gus, are we leaving any players behind?),
and were taken, according to the most exacting of time-tables, in a zigzag line of careening
taxis back through the geometric greens and browns. Here and there were yellow flowers, and
way out in the middle of a waterlogged field there was a refueling station for taxis. We passed
little farmhouses and their additions going up, over roads that looked like those in Ohio Id
traveled on in my boyhood, until we were back in Nagoya. There we boarded the ultra-modern
bullet train to Tokyo.
Down, away from the passing trainset off from the tiled, multi-tiered roofs of small
suburban homesouthouses and leftover pagodas, shrines to God and Nature, sat privately
upright, by little pools of reflecting greens and browns. Apartment complexes with concrete
playpens, mirroring the gray inroads of industrial Japan, continued to plop down oh just
anywhere in row after row of soggy, splashed about fields.
Someone was talking about Soewindo, the Indonesian
player whod beaten Tannehill in the Singles. No wonder he
was so good, he went to a university in Tokyo where he did
nothing but train all day.
Cowans reply was, Dont worry, baby, were gonna
play 50,000 tournaments when we get back.
Tannehill was carrying round with him a paperback on
Che Guevara and that black book, Teachings of Buddha, that
was in each of our hotel rooms in Nagoya to read when it was
night (I remember wishing Id stolen mine). As if in despair, he
slowly shook his head and said, Now were not going to China
to do anything else but play ping-pong. And then the Chinese
are going to come to the U.S. and be welcomed by General
Motors and DuPont.
From 1971 Worlds Program
I might have made a reply to this, but I was suddenly
Indonesias Utomo Soewindo
startled to hear my name being called over the loudspeakerI had
a long distance telephone call. I was absolutely astonished. And very proud, for who else sitting
around me had ever gotten a call on a train? As I walked up the aisle, it was as if I were going to
get a trophyfor winning not in Table Tennis but in the game of Life.
It was Bernie Krisher, the Bureau Chief from Newsweek. (I had never been found in so
many places. How did they do it?) Bernie had decided that his earlier offer of $400 for a piece
was just unrealistic. Hed talked to his superiors about thisand now he was willing to offer
me $2,000. I had only to come to his office the minute the Team got out of Chinait would
be very easy, hed have a man there who could help me. Cmon, he said. At least talk about
it with me. Hed meet me with his chauffeur when I got into the station and drive me to the
Takanawa PrinceI had to go there anyway, right?and we could talk in the car.
What could I say after all the trouble hed gone to, but o.k. and that I had
appointments with Mr. Chang and Mr. Oka. Still, Id made up my mind to go along with the
Times, hadnt I? What were they going to give me? $1,000 and some percentage of
syndication? How much that would be I didnt know, but I was pretty sure it wouldnt be as
much as what Bernie was offeringfor just one piece.
65
When we got to Tokyo, Bernie and his man were waiting for me. Bernie had a casual,
American playboy side that made him easier for me to be with than the others, Chang and Oka,
whose Oriental faces I could envision now together, each waiting for my decision.
It was supposed to be a short drive to the hotel. But, as luck would have it, an exit that
we were going to use had been blocked off. Bernie apologized, continued to urge me to do the
piece for Newsweek. He confessed that, yes, he thought Id be impressed by the telephone call,
said that he often used that ploy when he wanted to impress someone. Honestly now, he said,
wouldnt I like my own by-line, my own accompanying pictureshe of course could give me
a camera or two. But the thing was, it would all have to be done fast.
Meanwhile, we just
seemed to be driving
around, getting no place. I
had this appointment with
Chang and Oka. I began to
have the strange feeling that
I was being taken for a ride. For the most incredible moment, I was scared. I wondered if
Bernie was really who he said he was, if he had anything at all to do with Newsweek. How
much further? I asked the driveras if I were a child, watching myself, this man caught, in a
very real B movie.
Again Bernie apologized for the delay, repeated things I didnt want to hear.
As soon as we were within sight of the hotel, I told Bernie I was going to write for the
Times.
You mind telling me why? he asked.
I did. But I told him somethingand suggested that he get Howard, who was a good
man, and who, as Team Captain, would always be
right there on the scene.
When Bernie dropped me off, I saw both
Chang and Oka looking at me through the window
of the hotel lobbyand, oh, how Id empathized
with them. Then I went in, spoke briefly,
apologetically to Chang, who never changed
expression, and, very pleased with myself at having
made a decision, I turned to Oka, whom Id felt I
slighted. Now, in a moment of shared triumph, I
could more than make it up to him.
Soon President Steenhoven was calling for
a meeting of the Team. Id not seen much of
Graham, but I knew that he, along with Rufford,
had paid a visit to the American Embassy in Tokyo
(theyd gathered up everyones passports to have
the Mainland China restriction blacked out).
Now he, too, was beginning to show some of the
enormous pressure he, as leader, as the one most
responsible of our group, would be feeling on the
trip.
Miles, meantime, had also returned to join
66
us. After getting a haircut, he, too, had gone to the Embassy to see about his passport. Even
though originally he hadnt officially been one of us, he was now, and would of course be
going into China with us, and so might have given, had he wanted to, Steenhoven or Harrison
his passport to take with ours.
Dick had images of those 1967 Life photographs in his head200,000 Red Guards in
Pekings Tien An Men Square chanting out all their hatred as they burned an effigy of Lyndon
Johnson. True, hed heard from a Hong Kong friend that the Chinese were essentially a
peace-loving people, and that we neednt fear going into China (one always said ominously
going in and coming out). After all, we were invited guests and our safety would be a
matter of honor. Still
Look, brief me, Dick was saying to the professional China-watcher at the Embassy.
What should I do in China, and what should I be careful not to do? There must be a hundred
sacred Chinese customs I could violate just by accident.
And now, as to the mans reply, I can do no better than to quote Dick:
The China-watcher swayed back and forth contemplatively in his large leather
chair. Then he said coolly: There are, of course, some basic things. For instance, dont
steal any dinosaur eggs.
I blinked and he went on. As a matter of fact, archeologists do occasionally
dig up dinosaur eggs intact, and, some years ago, a few American students, as a prank,
pinched some from the National Museum in Mongolia. It caused us, and them, too, a
good bit of trouble. And then there were those Americans in Leningrad three years ago
who picked up that bronze Russian bear in their hotel and landed themselves in jail.
What Im trying to say is, Dont take any souvenirs in Chinanot unless theyre
wrapped up and handed to you.
Also, dont goose any girls. A year ago, or so, a Japanese businessman visiting
China got fresh with the elevator operator in his hotel. She complained to a superior
and that gentleman from Japan underwent a five-hour tongue lashing, after which he
found it expedient to apologize for his mischievous capitalist habits.
More seriously, you must remember that few Chinese have ever seen an
American, and that the younger generation, the under-20s, have never seen an
American. Undoubtedly, they will have a gut reaction to you. They may even find their
reaction hard to control. But I want to stress this. I ask youpleaseshould some
untoward incident take placeshow yourself at all times as an American. And, lastly,
dont sign anything. What I mean is and the China-watcher paused, as if trying to
find the most diplomatic formulation for his idea, it is conceivable that under certain
circumstances you might be given a statement to sign on Vietnam or Taiwan. Dont
sign it.
Of course, as it turned out, the controversial subject of Vietnam or Taiwan was seldom,
if ever, to be brought up by the carefully guarded Chinese. But back then we didnt have the
slightest idea what to expect. In the absence of anything else, most of us were willing to listen
to Steenhovens cue.
It was easy for Graham to talk publicly of mutual goodwill and good sportsmanship. If
asked by a reporter what the purpose of our trip was (We expect to meet friends), he would
always have the smile, the diplomatic posture, the politic answer.
67
But he was very much worried about Cowan and

Tannehill, and he wanted to leave no doubt, most of all with
himself, that he was in authority. Im not an unreasonable
man, he said. And wasnt it true? Did he ask Cowan, say, to
cut his hair or take out the tie-dye spots on his trousers?
Our President said he wanted to make it clear to us right
at the beginning that he didnt want any political statements.
We dont want the peace sign. We dont want clenched fists.
We dont want you to call them Chinamen. He said that wed
have to subordinate the luxury of personal feelings and that,
if we wouldnt, wherever he had any control he would take
very serious disciplinary action. Where I can use my authority
as USTTA President, he said, I willto the nth degree.
He said we were going to China only to play table tennis
and that we were not to show our displeasure at anything we
might be presented with there. We were to act as guests in
another persons home. Were to be responsible, well-mannered
representatives of the USTTA. Were to act as Americans
act. Were to be ordinary, decent human beings.
And then he told a little story about a doctor, a visiting
European, in a hotel elevator in China whod given a friendly
pat to a Chinese girl standing in front of himafter which hed
been interrogated by the authorities for five hours.
But Cowan, for whom the story was obviously intended,
seemed preoccupied. The still camera he had couldnt do the
job. As for the movie camera, how did you work the zoom
lens? He couldnt wait any longer. He had to find out.
About the time Connie Sweeris was asking, Are there
any dietary restrictions? Glenn slipped out of the meeting
Photo by Norman Webster, Toronto
room. When Graham found out he was missing, he said, grimGlobe & Mail.
faced, That Cowan wont go if he doesnt watch it.
From Time, April 26, 1971, 28
Glenn Cowan in uniform
And then when Glenn, in a short while, returned,
Graham immediately said, I remind you again that I will be
the sole arbiter of your actions. We have to be disciplined. People are trying to help us but
because of certain individuals
Cowan, as if slightly chagrined, as if he really didnt understand, asked, Why do we
have to stay here?
Steenhoven, accepting this posture, and countering with one of his own, answered, Liken
it to a tournament where, before you want to take temporary leave, we give you permission.
Finally, Graham as President appealed not just to our awareness of the unknown future
ahead but to our sense of the past, our perspective on great men, great units of men come and
gone. We are a history-making group, he said, make no mistake about that. And, as such,
we want to be all together at the same time and at the same place.
Later, at the airport there was a press conference, and Steenhoven with perfect balance
was saying, Our chances of winning our matches are not very good, but our chances of
having a good time are excellent.
68
On hearing
that, many of the
newspapermen
followed us on out
to the boarding
steps of the plane,
where we posed for
photographers. Or
most of us didwe
couldnt get all of
our Team together
to stand out there
shivering in the
wind. (This is
terrible, said Errol.
I wouldnt want to
be a movie star.)
But Jean
Kennedy, Guss
wife, came out of
the cabin where she
and some of the
others had been
sitting: she didnt
want to be left out
of the picturenot
as long as there was
still hope. And
though, as things
developed, she and
AP photo from New York Times, Apr. 11, 1971
her family (Well,
Part of U.S. contingent boarding the plane for Tokyo
Left row down: Tim, George Buben, Dick, Graham.
were going to
Middle
row down: Jean Kennedy, Jairie, John, Connie.
Hong Kongthats
Right row down: Errol, Glenn, Olga
for sure) were not,
finally, allowed to enter China, she at least made the front page of the Sunday New York Times,
waving her hand there with us, as already far away, we had gone over the bridge into the future.
Some of the newsmen followed us right up into the plane and took their ticketed seats.
As they listened, I heard from someone that the flight captain had said there were an unusual
number of Red Chinese aboard.
Mr. Wang was sitting there, talking to George Buben. George had to have been aware
of the irony, for Wangit must have been a week or two beforehad told him, I hope you
can come visit us.
As they went on talking, Wang made the point that the Chinese had invited the
Americans so that we could learn from each other.
George, rather self-consciously, thinking of our Team, replied, Im afraid you wont
learn anything from us.
69
But Wang, smiling, said, Everybody can learn something from everyone.
I rested some, moved some more around the plane, looked, listened.
Steenhoven was in good spirits. Hed just noted in the Herald Tribune that Chrysler
had set a record high. A Stamping Plant supervisor there, Graham had been with them (as his
father before him) for over 40 yearsso his loyalty was high too.
There was talk in the papers that the USTTA would extend an invitation to the Chinese
Team to visit the U.S. But on this Steenhoven was non-commital. If circumstances permit,
he said.
Let me, however, just in passing, comment on these circumstances. After the Chinese
in turn visited the U.S. the following spring, Graham no longer had to worry about them
thinking he himself wanted to capitalize on his connections with them. So he could speak
freelyand what he said could sometimes find its way into print. In the Cloak and Dagger
section of a story on Graham in the Adventurer (the Dodge Adventurer), a copy of which
Graham very cooperatively gave me, he said hed received a cable in Hong Kong from the
National Committee on U.-S.-China Relations that stated they would underwrite the entire
cost of a touring Chinese Team in the U.S.
Whats more, the Dodge article went on to say, Graham had folded his secret and put it
into his breast pocket. That is, he certainly wanted to keep it from anyone who would jump
him for the chance to report it. But here, let the Adventurer speak:
[Regarding his secret pact, Steenhoven says,] On the second day of our visit, I
told the heads of their team that there was not much point in our coming to China
unless Chinas players paid a visit to the United States. They thanked me for the
invitation and answered, Well let you know. Obviously, they went all the way to the
top. Within two days, they told me the invitation had been accepted.
At that point, I said, Listen, lets not tell anybody. Lets just leave it at that. I
wont even announce it to the American team. Neither of us will announce it to
anybody while we are hereso if we embarrass you in any way in the next few days
while we are here, you will be free to withdraw your acceptance. Only you and I will
know.
So while Graham was publicly saying one thing to the press, he was on this occasion
confiding something else privately to me. (Actually Id thought it was on the flight from Tokyo
to Hong Kong that he was telling me about the commitment of that U.S.-China Relations
Committee. But if you dont always take careful note after note and carefully note the date,
you know how the Imagination, never caring about Reality, always wanting to make a truth of
its own, can change even your memory. Graham, then, must have confided this information to
me next day on the plane from Canton to Peking.)
Graham was saying privately to me (how could it have been on that flight to Hong
Kong, it must have been on the one to Peking) that hed already had discussions with people
who mattered and that from now on it would all have to be a Steenhoven production
because he was sitting on a time bomb. I was to understand that it would all take precision
and timing. And then, by way of explanation, hed said, If youre going to get married by the
Pope, you dont announce it at the engagement party.
This mysterious analogy intrigued me. Who was the Pope? Mao? Chou En-lai?
President Nixon? Whoever he was, our Teams were coming together, for better or worse, with
70
his blessing.
Throughout the trip, Graham was under strict ordersthose hed given himselfto
hold to a public posture. We all were, more or lesswith Tannehill, Steenhovens opposite,
naturally holding on to it less and Graham naturally holding on to it more.
I serve the people, Graham had said to us. And Im the sum product of my
experience. The last remark, I thought, went without sayingbut I was struck by the fact
that it reminded me of what Tennysons Ulysses had said:
Much have I seen and knowncities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met
Were all the sum product of our experience, obviouslybut then we dont all serve
the people, is that it? As Steenhoven was doinglike a worthy king, or president?
Graham, I couldnt help but notice, wore a fish in his lapelwhich meant that he was
not a Catholic but a Presbyterian. A peculiar King of Kings, this USTTA presbyter. Especially
when, in considering things he might have done in Japan, he rejected what you might call a
religious alternative. Hell, he said, what do I want to see a shrine for? And, instead, hed
visited an automobile plant.
But thats an American for you. We all have our different places of worship.
Coming back to my seat, I saw that Tannehill was trying to read Norman Mailer. I
watched him, eyes at the top of the page, eyes down, eyes back up, down, not turning the
pageeyes staring straight ahead.
He was really uptight. He put down the book. I wished I could have stayed in
Tokyo, he said.
Why?
He paused. So I could see myself on TV, he said.
How do you know youll be on?
A guy told me, he said.
Then he went into a monologue about how improved technologythe deadening antitopspin bat, the oscillating Stiga robotwas ruining the Sport. Today, he said, anybody could
pick up the newest sponge racket and, without any strokes, without any touch, without any
anguish from trial and error, could soon be pretty successfulat least for the moment, until
new and improved weapons came competitors way. In the end, playing this Game made you
senseless, made you lose all self-expression, made you into a machine.
Poor John. All this talk was much too heavy. Privately, we thought, hed better shape
up.
Cowan and Howard were soon having another conversation about equipment rights
Jack said hed like to get in on that, too. Hed just signed one contractwith Newsweek. He
wasnt going to bring it with him, though.
Across from them, Tannehill was sitting, seatback straight up, mouth open, eyes
closed. I saw a few wispy hairs growing on his chin. Why hadnt I noticed them before?
Glenn said John was in a state of suspended animation.
71
Some time before we got into Hong Kong, Clarence Cross, the Bureau Manager of CBS
took a seat beside me. We chatted some. He complained that Steenhoven (A prince of a man, he
kept saying ironically. A prince of a man) had casually told Sung Chung that Jeff Williams, this
CBS man Cross was trying to get into The Peoples Republic, had just recently been in Taiwan.
He offered me $50 for every cassette Id bring back (hed have the tape recorder for
me in the morning). But I didnt know, I told him, if I wasnt committed to the Times to write
an article or two before I could give him anything. O.k., no problem. Then talk drifted to my
professorial life, what I taught, how I enjoyed teaching Romantic and Victorian poetry, what
poems I liked, and I began to recite lines from the 19th-century Jesuit poet, Father Hopkins:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Suddenly he broke in:
Ah! As the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Unbelievablehere, with a stranger, to have this poem loved, shared! And on that
plane, coming into faraway Hong Kong on the rolling level underneath me steady air, I, too,
rebuffed the big wind, and for a moment my heart, too, in hiding stirred.
From Japan Times, Apr. 6, 1971, B1
Victoria City and Hong Kong Harbor.

What adventures await?
72
Chapter Nine
I was met at the Hong Kong airport, as Oka assured me I would be, by Ian Stewart,
the New York Times man there. As we talked, I told him I was worried about going into China
as something other than a USTTA official. Were the Chinese to know I was writing articles for
the Times? I mean, was I just to go about with note pad in hand? And how did I cable out of
Peking?
Stewart said there was a Toronto Mail and Globe man there, Norman Webster, who
would give me some pointers. If I wanted to send a cable (N Y K Times, N.Y.), I was to go to
a Mr. Akioka, a correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. Akioka, Stewart
said, was sympathetic to the Peking regimeas if (it was a warning?) I ought to know that.
The Times office, he added, was in the Asahi Building. If I wasnt able to file, I was to ask
Akioka to send the message, Boggan unable to accept offer.
Stewart said the Times would like daily coverage if possible, or a minimum of four
storieseach, say, 750 words. If this was not possible, theyd like two stories, each, say, 1500
wordsthe first the very minute I got out of China about the reception of the group, my
unique experiences, whatever personal observations I could make; the second, something on
ping-pong, the youth situation perhaps, how the Chinese handle sports in schools.
I could see myself doing a lot of note taking, if nothing else. This material I give the
Times, I said. I can use it for an article or a book, cant I?
Oh, I was such a ninny.
After I left Stewart (I told him to watch for a story on Tannehill), I made sure my bags
were with the others, then, conscious, confident, that I had claim to a special, protective place
midst the confusion all around me, I strode proudly to the periphery of another press
conference.
The reporters had been hounding 15-year-old Judy Bochenski for more natural
pictures, so when she spilled a coke, they couldnt have been more delighted. Soon she was
saying, The Chinese will show us the good side of things there. Ill try to show them the good
side of the United States. (How had she learned to talk that way already?)
A reporter named Arnold Abrams introduced himself to me. Said he wrote for Newsday
back on Long Island. I volunteered the information that we were an amazing groupa real
cross-section of America. Like in the movies, I said, we had almost every type. Black, white,
Spanish-Egyptian, Jewish, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, English, Irish.From 16 to 60.From
New York, Orlando, Seattle, Detroit, Los Angeles.Metal pattern worker, college student,
bank clerk, chemist, housewife, hippie, United Nations worker, professor, systems engineer,
schoolgirl, executive.I had it all so ready. Was I really proud of this conglomerate?
Do you have anybody who knows about China? Abrams asked. When I was slow to
respond, he added, Or any political activist type?
With regard to that last question I pulled out two pictures from the cabinet of my
mindTannehills and Abbie Hoffmanslooked at them privately. No, I said. But thats
all right. It adds a certain purity to the situation.
We talked some more, and this helped him to make a story.
Errol and Jairie Resek, meanwhile, had met their UPI man (a fearful pleasurethats
what going to China was, Jairie told him), and hed taken them to dinner at a very swank
hotel. Our hotel, he said, was Communist-owned. The next day he provided the Reseks with
20 rolls of film and a heavy 16-millimeter movie camera that in half an hour he taught them
73
how to use.
That evening after we were all settled in the Golden Gate Hotel some Americans went
to sleep. It wasnt every day that one would be going into Chinait was already the 11th
hourand tomorrow couldnt come soon enough. We were to meet downstairs for breakfast
at 6:30.
Tannehill, however, immediately disappeared alone into the streetsonly to return 20
minutes or so later with the news that a guy had approached him and taken him to a prostitute.
Boy, Ill never do that again, he was saying. My first prostituteand I didnt feel a thing.
I didnt know whether to believe him or not. I thought John might have felt that, one
way or another, he was always in competition with Cowan and that going out into the sinful
streets of Hong Kong at ones own peril was what he was supposed to dobut, oh, he
wanted to get it over with.
Boy, he was saying, munching on a piece of fruit, Ill never do that again.
I was skeptical because he so reminded me of a highly imaginative writing student I
had who kept calling me at home to tell me about, or rather test me with, some new story that
had happened to him.
I, Im afraid, had no adventurous plans whatever. Marriage had only something to do
with it. Im much more the cocoon typewith something of the slow-crawling caterpillar
treed-up in me but very, very little of the flitting butterfly.
I heard voices coming from outsideseveral of the doors in the hallway were open. I
walked down to Cowans room. The place was a mess.
He was about to be on TV. The cameramen had come in and were getting ready for
him. I watched Glenn in the mirror. After hed carefully brushed his hair, then eased on his
purple shirt, he went over and sat down on his bed. In a moment, still waiting for the
interviewer to begin, he fell over onto his pillow, hugged it, laughed, rolled with it.
China, he said to the interviewer, was a very puritanical country. At least thats what
hed heard. But in Japan the girls had loved himand he thought the Chinese would too.
After a while I went back to my room to call my agent in New York. I wanted to tell
him Id decided to write for the Times, and that I hoped he would follow up on the
contractural arrangements. But no one answered. It was a silly call anyway. What else would
he do?
I was very hung up over the responsibilities I was taking on. It wasnt that I could just
write anything for the Times. Besides, I wasnt a journalist. My ignorance, I knew, would
show. My mind coiled and hissed at the involutions in my style. I remembered Brathwaites
remark in a cab the other day, about how lots of people didnt like my disconnected articles in
Topics (meaning, I guess, especially him). Id wanted to tell him the connections were there, if
only he could see them, but then Id held my tongue. He was right, thoughI needed to
express myself more clearly; perhaps in years to come, I would.
Cross from CBS wanted me to take a tape recorder into China and use it at every
opportunity. But I didnt know how to work a tape recorder. I took it, but I didnt want to
carry it around. I just wanted to use my pen. And everyone had brought or been given a
camera or two. But I didnt know how to use one to best advantage. I didnt want to fool with
it. That morning Harrison had been good enough to loan me an expensive camera and was
trying to tell me about light readings. But I was no good at light readings.
My friend Miles (whose story on the World Championships, the early draft of which
Id read and talked to him about, would be coming out in Sports Illustrated any day now)
74
wanted to go across to the ABC News Bureau. I thought it was someplace I ought to go, too,
and so we took the ferry over, and while Dick made a call to New York (he was clearly going
to be doing some camera work for ABC in China) I said a few words to Ted Koppel, the Hong
Kong correspondent, and looked sleepily at the stories that were coming over the teletype.
(When I was to get back to New York, Koppel was to interview me on the Sunday
afternoon program Issues and Answers, and to tell me privately that he thought my stuff that
first week was the best reporting to come out of Chinawhich of course at the time I wanted
to believe. Pleased though I was then, it later seemed to me that I wrote almost nothing.)
Since, by the time wed left the ABC building, the ferry service had stopped, we hired a
motorboat to take us back to the other side. It was about 2:30 in the morning when we
returned to the Golden Gate. Team Captain Howard was just hurrying out the door.
Have you seen Glenn? he asked us.
No, you mean he went out and isnt back yet?
Jack, not knowing which way to turn, went off down the empty street.
I half-guiltily stood and watched him, then tired, took the elevator on up to my room. I
was thinking, Could Glenn have been mugged someplace and be lying even nowthe Ugly
Americanin some gutter? No, he was too identifiable. East is West here. We would have
heard. Unless
Could he have been picked up and held for ransom? Or kidnapped for some strange
political purpose? But then that was ridiculousGlenn wasnt that important, was he? Still, he
was the one American everyone knewthe tabloid leader of our group, always surrounded by
reporters wanting any story, the real or the made-up one.
The next morning, as I went down the hall to go to breakfast, I was relieved to hear
Jack and Glenn (they were rooming together) talking loudly
behind closed doors. Had they been up all night?
But dont you understand, Glenn, Jack was intently saying,
Ive got a responsibility. A responsibility not just to you but to
the Team. We dont want to blow this. Be honest, what does it
look like when I have to walk
Connie Sweeris and the Bubens passed by and, rather than be
seen standing out there eavesdropping, I walked on downstairs
with them. I thought they might be mildly outraged to hear what
Id heard, but they were faintly smilingas if, though they didnt
really know what Glenn had been up to last night, and didnt want
to know, it was only innocently to be expected.
Glenn had a rough night last night, did he? said George.
Later, Glenn told me what had happened.
He and Jack had had dinner with Bernie Krisher from Newsweek.
And on leaving him theyd hopped into a cab and were hustled
around Hong Kongwith their driver, an old man who understood
only a few words in English, getting out periodically and going up to
what often looked like apartment houses to make inquiries.
What was the difficulty? A girl to lie with at midnightwas that
such an unusual request? Could you make an international
incident out of that? Yes, they were Americans. But from the
looks of them, athletes. They could handle themselves.
Captain Jack Howard
75
After about an hour of starts and stops, the driver was able to connect with another old
man in the shadows of one of these houses, and the two Team celebrities were ready to receive
the attention due them. Only upstairs, for $25, Jack didnt like the look of things and backed
out, taking the driver with him.
But whereas Jack returned to his room at the hotel, Glenn was prepared to spend an
hour in this one. Except that in five minutes or so, the old man came out of the upstairs
shadowsas if appearing this way was his calling, and said, Very sahrry, very sahrry, and
Glenn, minus his $25, landed out on the street.
To do what? To go where, at that hour, amid those unblinking neon signs? To the
unknown first bar the length of a table tennis court away. Where else?
On sitting down (there were only a few people there), he told them with a smile who
he was and where early in the morning hed be going. In return, they gave him a drink and said
theyd heard of him.
As these Chinese began to talk more and more of China and ping-pong, Glenn
gradually drifted away to play a jukebox. The bar was almost empty nowexcept for a girl
sitting alone at one of the tables. He knew she worked there because the middle-aged man and
woman who ran the place had often spoken to her. Oh, thought Glenn, she was twice as good
as the one hed just momentarily been with. Then, as if reading his thoughts, this beautiful,
longhaired girl asked him to dance with her. And of course he did. Then they went over to a
private table where Glenn talked to her in a low voice. I only have $12 left, he said.
Yes, she understood English and they talked some more and Glenn told her, I think
youre beautiful.
She had a business cardwith just her name on it. Its o.k., she said, only well
have to leave separately. You can meet me round the corner.
Glenn did as he was told. Soon he saw the Chinese owner come out and take a peek up
and down the street. Then the girl came out and met him and they walked back to her place.
Ive never brought anyone to my room before, she said. There, as she washed him, Glenn
looked round at the little pictures of her family.
We have to be quiet, she said.
Do you have an alarm? Glenn asked. She nodded. Be sure and wake me at five,
o.k.? he said.
Only when, Glenn, would that be? In just three hours? And what if this girl forgot to
set the clock, or mis-set it? I wish I could have been thereId have talked some sense into
him.
But the alarm did ring. And Glenn awoke, as if in a dream, to find the beautiful,
longhaired girl on top of him, lovingly giving him, as he said, the business. Oh, who could
deny itshe was a wonder.
At 5:30 a.m., Glenn returned to his and Howards room. Jack, he said, was white as a
sheet.
Where in hell were you? yelled his Captain. I thought you were lying someplace in
an alley!
As Glenn told him what had happened, Jack just kept shaking his head, kept shaking
his headuntil Glenn, seeing how upset he was, began to apologize.
Man, Jack was freaking out, he said to me later. He really couldnt give me a very
good lecture.
No, said Glenn, I never really thought of Jack as being a Captain watching over his
76
broodI guess because he wanted to get laid too.No, I had no feeling of being a
representative of the Team. We werent going to China to play table tennis.
After trying again over breakfast at the hotel next morning, Gus Kennedy finally had to
give it upcould only leave, as it were, his calling card with the American flag on it. Sorry
the word was given more forcibly this timeonly the official party of 15. So the Kennedys
could not accompany us on our Odyssey, as Gus called it. Of course he tried to hide his
disappointment. This isnt the end of the world, he said, as the bus was ready to leave.
Therell be other trips.
The Hong Kong station in Kowloon was packed with newsmen who were going to
accompany us to the border town of Shumchun. Mr. Cowan, said one of them, arent you
afraid of being brainwashed?
Chinas 1971 Afro-Asian Champion Cheng Huai-ying
The Columbian Team, in neat red blazers and white slacks, was going to be traveling
on the same train with usbut they seemed to want to keep to themselves. (Earlier, in
Nagoya, Harrison had been in the elevator with a tall, dark-haired, buxomy girl on the
Columbian Team and had said, Pay-roo? to her. But that was a mistakeshe didnt even
turn her head. I guess, though, she didnt think he was going to goose her.
Judy wondered why, in addition to England and Canada, the Chinese had invited
Columbia (whose Womens Team at the Worlds finished only a few places from last) and
77
Nigeria (who didnt even have a Womens Team). But the Chinese were courting the Asian,
African, and Latin American countries. In Nov, 1971, theyd host the (Double A) Afro-Asian
Games; then the following year theyd hold, again in Peking, the (Triple A) Asian, African,
Latin American Championships. To memorialize the Double A tournament, commemorative
New China stamps were issuedone, for example, in which worker, peasant, student,
player, bouquets in hand, welcome friends from Asian and African countries.
Reporters and photographers were running and snapping at everyone. Caught in the
flashbulbs, the press of that train, what could one yell but Wow!
Now I know how the President or John Wayne feels! said Olga.
And Yes Judy
had said to one
restricted newsman
whod come ahead
anyway and clambered
aboard right behind
hershe was going to
wear miniskirts in
China. And then she
looked at him like
shed never thought
about it before, but
what else did he think
she was going to do?
Then he asked her if
she was scared.
At the station
Judy had been offered
some rice cakes by a
strange Chinese
womanbut had
Scared? Who, me?
refused them. Said she
thought they might be poisoned. Jairie Resek took them,
though, ate a good many, distributed the others freely about,
Of course shes going to wear a and made a joke out of the whole thing. Hey, she said to
miniskirt in China
Judy, I ate one six hours ago.Hey, Judy, I ate one over 15
hours ago, and laughed.
The CBS man, Cross, got to me with the promised tape recorder and mike and a huge
bag of cassettes (the shoulder strap of which broke almost the moment I was to get into
China). He wanted me to do a daily diary. Give him a chronological description of the
journeypersonal experiences, observations, reactions.
Over and over again in the last few days Id been urged to feel that what I as an
individual would see in China was very, very important. I had the average, untrained, unbiased,
inexperienced eye everybody was looking for.
Of course I was pleasedI mean, that I could write about my own personal reactions
to what Id heard or seen. It made it a lot easier for me. I was no China student, no Chinese
scholarI was no scholar at all.
78
Marco Polo, I wasnt either, and never could bethat was more for Cowans head, it
might be, lit up tonight to dream. But (who knows?), like that gray-bearded prisoner centuries
ago who took down all those marvelous China notes from the famous man sharing his cell,
maybe I, too, could add some little imaginative truths of my own.
It is not important or necessary, read Crosss written instructions, to keep up a
continuous monologue. Just let the recorder run and make comments as they occur to you.
Interviews can be with one or several persons and can run any lengthbut please identify
yourself and who you are talking to.
I looked at the thing and was paralyzed by it. I felt no kinship with this recorder at all.
Cross showed me how to work it, and I nodded, but it was hopeless. I couldnt begin to
understand it. I would have to ask somebody about it later.
Hung up, weighted down with camera and recorder, holding on with one hand to an
already accumulated sack full of notes and with the other to several half-palmed little slips of
note paper, pen clipped over my heart or in my fingers at the ready, I went in search of scraps
of meaning.
And I was not alonebecause, loaded down, as many of us
were, not just with the luggage wed brought originally for a months
trip to Japan but with so much else unfamiliar cameras (Brathwaite,
as if willing to shoot at anything, had four different kindsIm going
to open a camera store, he quipped), lined and unlined notebooks,
knapsacks full of tape cassettes, in one case a typewriterwe all felt
the burden hanging round our necks.
I feel like Im going into a blank, said our petite Grand Rapids
housewife. Earlier, shed worried about sickness shots she would never
have to takeupset, perhaps, because, though she was supposed to
have had her appendix out before the World Championships, she didnt,
afraid that shed be too run down to play, to make the trip, and now
unconsciously she was fearful that it could burst on her at any time.
All these reporters, she said, shaking her head, they know
where were going before we do.
Inevitably, the talk between Connie and the Bubens, whom she
considered almost her second parents, turned to the Chinese and whether,
because everything was so colored by politics, we might all be held as
George at the
hostages. I certainly wouldnt trust them, Connie was saying. They
camera-ready
dont bend.
But then when Madeline looked painedactually she was starting to have a nasty case
of the shingles, was getting a rash on her side because of what was happening with her nerve
endingsConnie added, Dont worry. You be friendly with the Chinese people and theyll be
friendly with you. Thats what I was told by a Japanese player.
And then this reassuring thought, or something, prompted Connie, who this Holy
Saturday or any other was active in the Wesleyan church, to ask, What religion are they? Do
you know? Are they atheists?
But neither George or Madeline knew exactly, and so the conversation fell off until
Madeline raised the possibility that we all might go down in Historythough both women
were quick to decide our place would be just a little one. I doubt if wed have our individual
names listed, said Connie.
79
Then Connie confessed how much she wished her husband was here. (Though at least
hed be home for Shelleys birthday.) Dell would really capitalize on the writing
opportunities, she said. I didnt want to agree to write anythingI wasnt convinced of my
abilitybut $500 when you come out for just one interview.
Judy, who was dutifully making entries in her diary, was troubled, too. I was afraid to
tell anyone Id write for them. You know, she said, it can be just like it is some nights before
composition classwhen the writing just wont come.
I got up, moved casually around the crowded train, looked, listened, then came back to
my seat.
Tannehill, dressed in his Farmer Brown bib, and with a newly opened box of a Swissmade cereal mixed with almonds and fruit beside him, had been playing cards with someone
Howard, maybe, who looked awfully tireduntil, in between deals, John had been shuffling
the cards so long, mixing and remixing them, that whoever hed been playing with had just
somehow disappearedand it was as if John hadnt even noticed.
Now hed taken out a red chess set from his bag, and, all alone, was playing an
imaginary game with himself.
All in all, it was a strange scene on this train slowly taking us into the unknown.
A stop or two before we reached the border, a group of schoolgirls got on. George
Buben, who was sporting not one but two USTTA/American-flag pins (wed all been urged to
wear them), asked one of the girls standing in the aisleshe must have been about 12if she
spoke English.
She hesitated a second, then saidin perfect EnglishI dont know.
You dont know! said George astonished.
Then she smiled, quickly covered her mouth, and turned away.
At the border we got off the train and waved bravely to the newsmen left behind.
Cowan, who was strung out in floppy hat, purple passion shirt and tie-dye, leper-like trousers,
had been given explicit
directions by a photographer
whod had on his thinking cap, a
beret, to lag behind the others,
and then, right before he was to
go in, turn to face the cameras
and give them all a smile and a
great big wave. Which of course
Glenn, ever the hippie
opportunist, was happy to do.
To homes and hearts the world
over come the night-rolled-away
Easter morn, his picture would
appear, hand outstretched, a
celebrant without stigma if ever
there was one.
From New York Sunday News, Apr. 11, 1971
Glenn waving goodbye before going into China.
Would the outside world ever see him again?
80
Chapter Ten
John Tannehill, at Sumchun Customs House,

looking at Help Yourself pamphlets and books
It was a beautiful sunlit,

slightly breezy Saturday morning as
we crossed the bridge that was sure
to lead to change, large or small, in
our lives. Only, strange, I myself have
absolutely no recollection of any
bridge or water. I must have been
looking straight ahead, like a man
dazed. For as I was walking I kept on
hearing that Lost Horizon music from
my movie-minded boyhooduntil
Mr. Wang, I remember, was offering
us the simplest, warmest welcome,
and though, yes, there was a soldier
with a gun there, I felt oddly that we
really might be entering the quiet,
peaceful country of some hidden
Shangri-la.
Photo courtesy of Judy Bochenski
American players taking tea at the Sumchun Customs House
81
Long Live The Great Unity Of The People Of The World!this was the large red sign
that greeted us at the edge of China.
Passports were checkedbut nothing else. It was not customary to allow people through
customs so easily, said the soft-capped, baggy-suited guarda woman. But in this case
arrangements had been made. Arrangements which included the recorded music The East Is
Reda hymn to Chairman Maothe sounds of which continued to drift with us (with me almost
religiously) down the roofed passageway that led to the serenely shaded Customs House. There we
were to take first a little refreshment, then have lunch, before boarding the train to Canton.
Outlined against the blue sky on the roof of the building opposite were construction
workers in Good Earth, broad-brimmed hats. All of us were perfectly free to take whatever pictures
we wanted of these men building, or anything. Indeed, it was going to be our experience
throughout the trip that everything seemed open to each of our individually different cameras. The
eye had only to push a button to capture part of a world.
Cowan, though, for a moment, was a bit frantic. Hed come across a big, plaster-white
statue of Mao and wanted somebody to quick get a shot of the two of them together. Get the
picture! he yelled. Get the picture!
Outside the Customs House, the birds sang. Inside, in immaculately clean reception room
after reception roomand this we found to be true all over the China we saw, in Canton, Peking,
and Shanghai, on the racks and reading tables of airports, hotels, stores, and public buildingswere
pictures of Mao and quotations of his translated in little red book or pamphlet form, in literally
dozens of languages, always with a sign saying, Help Yourself.
Tannehill had picked out a pamphlet (On The Correct Handling Of Contradictions
Among The People) and had begun to read it. Howard had started in on Maos little red
book. The rest of us were having tea (Chinese cigarettes were available, too, but I couldnt get
a match to light from the box on the table).
Looking about, we saw old blade fans, a hat tree, chairs and couches lazily covered in
strong-gauze or plain-doily white. Old white, Olga called it. And those white walls, she
said of the reception rooms shed seen. You get in there, and its just them and us. From that
very moment she was depressed and wanted to come back.
Official-looking, post-office pictures of Chairman Mao were on the wallas if, long
ago, he were preoccupied only with staring ahead and never for a moment thought about
watching the likes of us. There was also a framed picture of his handwriting on the wall, which
interested me, as handwriting always does.
This is one of the best books Ive ever read, Tannehill was saying as our Chinese table
tennis hosts, Chuang Tze-tsun and Kuo Chien-sua, pleasantly greeted us and asked (as Chinese
officials were so often to ask), Were we about ready to have a little something to eat?
Once seated, Mr. Steenhoven said to Mr. Kuo, We have many Chinese restaurants in
our country, and, while George Buben was taking off both his USTTA pins and replacing
them with a big Mao button, Mr. Kuo said, It is easier for Chinese people to play table tennis
penholder style because they are used to chopsticks. Everybody smiled and some made
guttural noises in their throats, and nobody knew whether to believe him or not.
After a lunch of hot and cold chicken, mushrooms and greens, 100-year-old eggs, and
fish soup (In China, when the soup comes, Mr. Wang told us, the dinner is over), we were
ready to board our air-conditioned train to Canton. This time there were no newsmen or
photographers to see us off.
We passed a small, straggling group of Europeans who were just coming out of China.
When one of them smiled good-naturedly, said hello, and wanted like the others to know who
we were, we told them.
82
Was it fun? one of us asked.

At first we didnt get an answereverybody suddenly looked thoughtful. Fun? said
one. Interesting, yes. But fun? Thats hardly the right word.
A little sobered, we boarded the train and walked through a rather crowded car into
another. I saw green tunics and red Mao books. And faces that looked but showed no
expression. But of course what did I expect them to show? Who was I to them?
Connie was puzzled by the white tin cans beside the rest roomsthere was
nothing in them. Also, for some reason shed pictured a Siberia of barren country
(sugar cane, bananas all year round, pineapplesNo, no apples, an interpreters
voice behind me was saying), so she was quite surprised at the rich greenness outside her
window.
In fact, most of the Americans following the power lines along the rails through the
lush green paddy fields, watching the workers up to their knees in the wet earth with their
water buffalo, then looking out past the hills of pine trees to the horizon, must have felt they
were already seeing deep into the heart of China.
Often when you looked out the window, you could see, as if in the passing pages of
some history book you were browsing through, workers atop small, tightrope mounds of
earth, balancing themselves and their baskets of produce: persons disappearing down the track
of time.
Not knowing exactly where I was going, I got up to stretch and find another cup of
tea. I passed a man (European? Canadian? American?) sitting in an aisle seat reading a Helen
McInnes book called Above Suspicion. It just about blew my mindI so expected to see irony
and deception everywhere.
Once or twice, the train stopped at a little town, but the people seldom, if ever, looked
up at it. Clearly there was no news of our coming. In the outside world of the Times, I began
dimly to feel, it would not be like that. Though I wondered, What really could outsiders know
of us? What did they think we were doing now?
Cowan was sitting next to me with his zippered-up boots propped onto the seat-back
ahead of him, half slouched down as if hed like nothing better than to go to sleep (Howard
had already dozed off). With his hippie, shoulder-length hair, his apparently easy, outgoing,
rolling stone of a manner, his red, white, and blue peace-emblem flag of a shirt, he had been a
must for any newspaperman up to the borderor any amateur correspondent thereafter.
I really believe life is simple, he said as he looked out at the peasants working in the
fields. Its all the other people that make it complicated. And then he added, Too many
double entendres, huh? Im going wild with them. Then he thought again and said, Double
entendres? Is that the right word? Is that what I mean?
I told him I thought soand then very soon he went to sleep.
At the Canton station we heard more recorded musicPraise to Mao Tse-tung, On
the Road to Socialism as we walked (again, I thought, almost religiously) along the parallel
tracks and out past the ubiquitous red-and-white-painted slogan on the wall:
People of the world unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running
dogs! People of the world be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance
wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all
kinds must be destroyed.
We were monsters? Dragons? I wasnt culturally oriented to the metaphor. I couldnt
believe it.
83
Unanticipated
Canton scenes
84
On out to the (60 by 30-foot) Big Brother picture of Mao on the building opposite and
to the ritual applause of the gathered mob ringed round our bus (glaring at us, Connie
thought). Their presence was disconcerting, for smiles always accompanied applausebut not
with them. They would continually stare at us, and if we would smile or nod or wave, they
would vaguely, uncertainly nod or wave backas if we came from another, incomprehensible
world. Which maybe we did.
Good thing we were just common peoplethat was all right. Our government
leadersthey were the monsters, with sharp-fanged dogs by their side, unleashed.
The ride through Canton was quick. (Later I was to find out it was now known as
Kwangchow, but everybody but Harrison always called it Canton.) I knew first impressions
were important, so I tried (it was only one of the few times I did) to get something on that
tape recorder. What surprise must have been in my voice, for I just wasnt prepared for the
oldness of the city. Buildings were drab, unpaintedgrays everywhere. I was stunned that
there werent any cars, that so many people were on bicycles, sometimes carrying behind them
attached carts. Be it in Canton, or Peking, or Shanghai I could never get used to the bus
drivers forever scattering the white-gloved swerving cyclists out of the way. Surely, I thought,
China had the noisiest cities in the world.
Peking, I was to find out, also had these piles of bricks and shaped stones, this hard
brown dirt, where little boys (whose forehand strokes, Howard sadly noted, were better than
any of ours) squatted behind table tennis nets and tables made out of rocks and mounds of
earth.
Time and again I had the experience of seeing outside these chalky, peeling buildings
an abandoned lot, something that looked bombed-out, that was not abandoned. And in the
often blockless, store-lined streets, there was a thriving commerce. So many people and yet no
litter about, no refuse to be picked up. And no excrementfor not a dog or cat in my weeks
stay did I see. Always this cleanliness, this swept dirt everywhere, so that, though I was free to
go out on my own, was not wrapped in cellophane, I found in all of China only one fly.
We were driven to the Guest House, a walled and gardened oasis in the baked-out city,
and welcomed by Chang Hsu-chen, an official of the All China Sports Federation, who asked
us to come inside for the usual ritual refreshment.
Americans are made up of many people from many countries, Mr. Steenhoven was
saying over tea to Mr. Chang, Mr. Wang, and a man from the Chinese Peoples Association for
Photo: Rufford Harrison
Guest House grounds
85
Friendly Relationships
with Other Countries,
Mr. Whang Tsen. (Did
I get that right? I was
finding it difficult to tell
first names from last
names. And everyone
didnt have a hyphen in
his name?)
We all sat
around a large circle,
silent, while Mr.
Steenhoven said what
none of us were
thinking.
On the wall
above us was a poem,
translated into English,
in Chairman Maos
handwriting, Reply to
Comrade Kuo Mo-Jo.
I copied it into
my handwriting:
From China Publication #4, 1971
Mao Tse-tung as major poet
Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-Jo

On this tiny globe
A few flies bash themselves against the wall,
Humming without cease,
Sometimes shrilling,
Sometimes moaning,
Ants on the locust tree assume a great nations swagger
And may flies lightly plot to topple the giant tree.
The west wind scatters leaves over Changan,
And the arrows are flying, twanging.
So many deeds cry out to be done,
The world rolls on,
Time passes.
Ten thousand years are too long.
Seize the day, seize the hour!
The four seas are rising, clouds and waters raging,
The five continents are rocking,
Wind and thunder roaring.
Away with all pests,
Our force is irresistible.
Jan. 9, 1963
From the poems of Mao Tse-tung, translated by

Willis Barnstone (in collaboration with Ko Ching-po),
Bantam Books, 1972
86
I wasnt going to take down the whole thing, but then I got into it and it seemed
important to go on. When I was finished I was afraid, hurrying so, I hadnt copied it quite
right. Of course reading the poem was just another reminder for me, with my pen, to seize the
day. That is, although later I couldnt resist checking out To Kuo Mo-Jo in a modern
translation of The Poems of Mao Tse-tung, it wouldnt do now for me to keep my head buried
in those force-favoring lines.
When I looked up, our host was still talking, with Wang interpreting, to Steenhoven.
In Canton Province, we have a saying, The four seasons are gree
Cowan suddenly startled everyone by getting up and walking out of the room. (Earlier,
hed said to me, You gotta watch me. Please watch me.) I looked at some of the players and
they looked at me.
Then Mr. Chang suavely indicated that perhaps it would be a good idea to follow the
young mans example. So we all went out, thankfully, for a mid-afternoon walk through the
palm-and-bamboo-treed grounds.
Thats a hero tree, said Mr.
Wang in response to a question by
Steenhoven. I circled round our little
group to get a better look at it.
Rising in the background behind it
was a tall pagoda. Soldiers not
Buddhists were living there. The
hero tree was about 50 feet high and
had a 5-petaled, red shuttlecock of a
fruit that was supposedly helpful in
curing rheumatism. The fruit of the
hero tree drops but once, said Mr.
Wang who, at the moment, was not
smiling.
Ive forgotten how we got
into a discussion of itmaybe it was
because Wang spoke such good
Englishbut Harrison, who speaks
and writes German, and has a
scatter-shot knowledge of some
other languages, was making a point. In every grade school in the U.S. theres an opportunity
for children to learn another language. Can the same be said for China?
And Wang, nodding, had said, Yes.
Whereupon Rufford thrust the question (I couldnt believe his boorishness), And what
other language does this gentleman speak? He meant our host, Mr. Chuang.
I knew it wasnt English.
It is a pity, replied Chang and Wang, that when I was younger I did not study other
languages. And then (sometimes so great was the imaginative power available to the
interpreter, I had this ventriloquist-dummy figure in my head), he or they proceeded to tell us
how all that was changing now and that English was a most important means of
communication and that it was fast becoming the most important foreign language to be
studied in China.
87
A typical First-Course snack - thats Steenhoven being served a beer
About four oclock we returned to the Customs House, and dinner was served. There
was beer (We have many different kinds of beer in China) and orange soda to drink (Dick,
Olga had asked earlier, do they have cokes in China?). The meal consisted of goose, soy
bean noodles, 100-year-old eggs, a kind of spinach cabbage, and then sharks stomach soup.
Feeling stuffed and recalling Wangs words about soup coming at the end of the meal,
we patted our stomachs in bloated satisfactiononly to discover that, astonishingly, that was
it! The simple but-for-centuries-hidden magic signal. And now with a kitchen suddenly gone
wild in age-old-ritual-destroying madness, we were being presented with a shrimp course and
then a different kind of rice dish, and after that a, oh, it was only the countering incantatory
word that we would be going on immediately to Peking that saved us.
I remember Ruffords last remark, Why is everybody around here so thin when you
eat like this?
At the Canton airport, where there were no pressmen to signal our departure, more
Americans accepted Mao buttons and as a sign of goodwill wore them. While we were in the
lounge waiting for our plane to be readied, we were treated to some airport entertainment
were presented with a few short skits from the revolutionary dance-drama, The Red
Detachment of Women.
Girls, militia-like in soft cap, tucked-in scarf, and baggy clothes, often in high, whining
sing-song voice, half-danced, half-marched in unison, some holding rifles, others brandishing
swords or bannerswhile an orchestra played in concert and Chairman Mao applauded above.
88
Fun scene at the airport, from the dance drama, The Red Detachment of Women,
is looked over approvingly by Chairman Mao and Deputy Chairman Lin Piao
Who are these people? asked Rufford.

Oh, said Mr. Wang, just the airport staff amusing themselves. They do this before
every flight.
As we were going out of the airport to get on the prop plane, we were asked, please,
not to take any pictures. It was about the only time we were ever restricted from filming
anything in China. So of course it made me wonder. What could some people have seen? Or
what could some people interpret from what others had seen but didnt understand?
Theres been an amazing transformation here, said a Canadian unknown to me.
Only a few years ago everything was locked up around here, hotel rooms were bugged, and
guards carried submachine guns.
On this reassuring note, we began to board the plane. Jairie Resek, though, was so
overcome, apparently by the unexpected friendliness of the people toward her, that she began
to cry.
Dont worry, Jairie, I know how you feel, said Tannehill who was right behind her.
Its beginning to get to me, too. God, what a heavy scene.
89
Chapter Eleven
We arrived in Peking around 10 oclock, along with the Colombian team, sleepy and
sated after still another meal on the plane. Three times, Glenn was to say, I asked for cold
milkand after the third hot milk, they brought me a towel and an apple.
Down the ladder we came, Steenhoven leading the way, into the glare of lights,
shaking a row of outstretched hands (Welcome, welcomeHelloHiThank you)
to the accompaniment of more recorded music and the ever present poster of Chairman Mao.
For Miles, while we were sipping tea, there were some familiar facesthough hed not
seen them since the 1959 World Championships and theyd changed a little.
Our Hsin Chiao (New Bridge) Hotel. Rufford said the cars are made in Shanghai.
Then we were ready to be taken to the Hsin Chiao Hotel. Most of the Group was
separated into a fleet of small gray sedans, but, because I was an official, I (along with
Harrison and Buben) was asked to get into a big black limousine with blinds covering the back
window. Soon I was out there on a very dark, deserted road (did they drive with just their
parking lights on?), 1300 miles from neon-lit, predictable Hong Kong going in some direction
my dark-gloved man, Suspicion, flashlight frantically in hand, couldnt findthat wasnt on
the map of my Imagination.
Where would you like to visit? asked a strange voice from the front.
But (being unsure if the Ming Tombs were in this part of China) all I could stupidly
think of was, The Great Wall.
After a while, we got into the city and rode down this large tree-lined boulevard, past
at least a few ponderous buildings. (Was it the Radio and Television Center that I had the
90
impression was red-starred against the night?) So by the time we arrived at the hotel I began
to feel much better. Why had I been even slightly uneasy?
We were put up comfortably two to a room (I was with Miles), and asked to come
down for refreshments. A few people had wanted beerbut along with the beer there was a
whole long table to set it on, full of snacks: eggs, nuts, cold cuts, salad greens. And then, lo
and behold, like the loaves and the fishes, came course after course in wild abundancea
miraculous supper. Which, just as miraculously, as if we needed the nourishment, we continued
to eat.
Afterwards, as I walked down the long, silent corridor to my room, carrying a
pamphlet Id picked up by the elevator called On Practice, I reflected that never in my life
had I tried to take so much into my digestive system in so short a time.
Across the way, as Easter morning broke through the International Dateline, Connie,
Olga, and Judy (ordinarily only two to a room, but who else was there to share a room with?
who wanted to stay by herself?) were telling funny stories about how they might never be
getting out of the hotel. Then, just as they said goodnight to each otherthe hall light went
out.
The next morning after the sun again had no trouble finding its way over the New
Bridge (Hsin Chiao) Hotel, the Americans rose to an understanding that wed all just wander
about, for it wasEaster Sundaya day of rest. My two boys back home were looking for
Easter Eggsand IWhat was I looking for? I thought with a burdensome twinge.
I went over to the
window, drew back the
curtains, and looked out.
Everywhere there on the
wide street people with
bicycles were weaving in
and out. A long caravan of
draft animals pulling carts,
or with baskets strapped to
their backs, was turning a
corner and going
somewhere away from the
window of my perspective.
Up close I could see shrublike trees inside the gated
hotel. There was a spring
sun and a nice breeze over
the hard, dry earth.
Around the corner,
I could half hear, half see, a number of kids doing some Scout-like drills, and chanting. Later,
after hearing more of them (and adults too) another early morning, I would be curious enough
to ask somebody what they were shouting. Answer: Be resolute! Be resolute! Dare to
struggle! Dare to win!
I also found out that these children, and maybe a million or more like them (no Briar
Rabbit or soft Easter Bunny fantasies for them), would be marching off, two by two.
Comrades they were, with identical packs on their backs, following a red flag and a picture of
91
Photos by Rufford Harrison
92
Mao, wherever he might lead themto learn about military maneuvers, or methods of
increasing farm production, like how to make a living on a hillside.
Miles was still asleep, but it didnt matter, he knew I had to do what I had to do. I sat
down at the desk (the long unused stationary was all dusty, the envelopes sealed shut), and
turned on the light. Then, looking at the wall, I began to see what I could write. It would be
my first article for the Timeson what I thought yesterday was like. As for getting it out of
China, well, Id cross that bridge later.
The writing didnt come easy and so it was late when I entered the upstairs Western
Dining Room. Miles had gotten up early himself to go purposefully about his private
businesshe always had some, was never just casual. I think he was trying to insure the
services of the good-natured Mr. Yu, the interpreter for the press, who was a very friendly
sensitive man. It was always much easier for Dick if he could go where he wanted to, and ask
the questions he wanted to, in private.
Dick wasnt upstairs but the girls were. Yes, theyd slept o.k.their old iron double
beds were comfortable. (Hadnt there been a picture hanging over one? Connie felt vaguely
one had just been taken down.) They were a bit upset that there was no shower curtain, and
that, worse, some homemade, tube-like thing made of paper that was supposed to let the
water shower down on them, so they could wash their hair, wasnt working, and they had a
little flood. They really needed to wash their hair. The soapit had an unpleasant odor. The
water was rusty and yellow. And the uneven, brown woolen window curtains had been made
out of blankets.
(Four days later, on the morning of our departure from Peking, the Chinese, in a strange
show of timing, would bring them white, starched curtains and a bouquet of flowers. Would these
nicetiesthe thought quickly crawled over the wall of my mind and disappeared into a crack
really be for those arriving after us? But, no, who could be more important than us?)
It was breakfast timebut Connie and Olga had so hated the Chinese food. I havent
acquired a taste for it yet, Connie had been politely saying, while Olga (who privately had
called one steaming dish a vat of vomit) had more or less just kept picking it apart.
But this morning!
Great! said Olga. Strawberry jam!
And warm toast! said Connie.
And ham and eggs! said Judy.
And hotcakes with syrup! said Olga again.
Well, its not a true pancake, Jairie objectedthough she was eating as much as
everyone else at that table. Its served with honey. You use your jam on it, you dont use
butter.
The girls were in an upstairs world of their own. They seemed perfectly oblivious to
another copy of that U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs quote hanging like grace
before meals over their heads. Just as well they were oblivious: that was the last thing they
neededfree time to digest those lines.
As for me, I couldnt take my eyes off a large picture that was on the wall close to my
table. Mao Tse-tung, I was beginning to recognize, was the Chinese peoples Saviour, their
Christ. This highly romanticized picture I was studying showed him as a young man, in
Mandarin priests collar and flowing robe, framed in Sermon-on-the-Mount ascension against
the sky, diminished peaks in the background, the industry of the Anyan coal mines he helped to
organize seen in the factory wisps of smoke below.
93
Chinas Saviour?
Shin Chiao Hotel lobby tribute to

Chairman Mao
94
His instructional book of quotations was a kind of Jesuit catechism to be committed to

heart, the sole discipline of the Chinese peoples livesthe word of God. In the famous hymn,
The East Is Red, the word Red suggested, at least to me, the east-rising sun, and that
word sun suggested in turn the Son of God who would die on the bloody cross of Good
Friday, then rise to the dawn of new life on Easter morning.
Meanwhile, down below in the lobby, Howard was standing before this huge, deadwhite statue, snapping a Polaroid photo of the Man become God.
The photo, however, did not come out to Jacks liking. Perhaps it was because of the
way hed ripped it from the camera and held it up, but just as he was going to crumple it away
he was aware of several Chinese officials staring at him in, as he said later, horrific disbelief.
Fortunately, his ping-pong reflexes stayed his hand and, in one swift, deceptive motion, he
served up the photo to an interpreterwho reacted the way a devout Christian might if
suddenly presented with the Holy Grail.
About this time who should come dashing in, breathless, but Cowan. Hed just been
outside with Tannehill. The two of them had gone out, apparently under no surveillence, and,
wow, Glenn said theyd seen so many kids in the street, it looked like theyd fallen out of the
sky. (What, I wondered, were they all doing out there? Where did they come froma street
mob, like that?)
The kids had followed Glenn and John at a discreet distance (Once they saw I wasnt
going to harm them they followed me, said John), and when the two Americans would stop,
they would stop too. John asked Glenn, Do you think everybody has an individual bicycle
around here? Or do you think, because its a Communist society, everybody just takes them
where he finds them and puts them down again anywhere?
Then, as they came to some bicycles parked on the street, Glenn said (he was only
teasing?), Lets take a couple and go for a ride. But though John didnt want to, Glenn
went over to them and started to take, or pretended to take, one, and the little kids, curious,
all congregated around.
At which point a Chinese soldier (he wore green trousers) or a policeman (he wore
blue trousers) came out of a traffic control box in the middle of the street and stared sternly at
them, and Glenn (who certainly wasnt looking at the color of the mans trousers) dropped the
bikeand with a host of kids following him, came, in a dancing, breathless run, into the hotel
like Peter Pan, the Pied Piper, and the Great God Pan all rolled into one. Theres a crowd of
5,000, 10,000 following me! he screamed to Jack. Quick! Get your cameras, quick!
By this time, Glenn and Jack had worked out an arrangement (It would only be
temporary though, said Glenn, because Jack would change later). Howard was to take the
pictures that Cowan could sell to Life, or, it might be, to any number of other magazines; then
of course hed be entitled to a percentage of the proceeds.
Howard came running with the cameras and they went out, Jack racing ahead so he
could catch Glenn surrounded by the kids. But the minute he held up the camera and pointed
it, the kids scattered as if hed had a gun and was going to shoot them. (Later, I was told that
sometimes the Chinese people were very shy of cameras and that, to avoid any possible
incident, it was wise to ask permission to take someones picture.)
Undeterred, Glenn said, Weve got to devise a way to get these pictures. So they
started flailing their empty-of-a-camera armslike either they were playing a pretty
unbalanced game of ping-pong (Ping-Pong! Ping-Pong) or they were unwinding like silent
screen comedians doing a frantic pantomime of disappointed cameramen gone mad.
95
The crowd, Jack would later tell us, was getting bigger and bigger. The two of them
had never seen anything like it. Buses in transit were backed up; traffic in every direction was
being held up. But just as the kids were being pushed in closer, the meanest-looking guy in
China came along. At which point Jack got worried and so they stopped. Then they began to
walk a path through the mob back to the hotel.
This is getting dangerous, said Jack as he hurried along.
Then, just as Glenn was saying, Dont be silly, a rock came flying right between them
and landed in front of Jack.
Howard said later he had a film before his eyes of being stoned to death on the streets
of Peking, but that Glenn in his happy hippie obliviousness just turned in the direction the
rock had come from, and, as if he were lecturing some children, smiled, shook his finger, and
said, Naughty, naughty or some such equivalent. Clearly someone in this mob of kids had
been out of line, for they were honored guests, diplomats, and their government and ours
wouldnt approve of such treatment.
Having chastised the mob so, Glenn turned around and together the two of them
walked back to the hotel without further incident.
Of course some people have said there never was a rock thrownnor even, as I heard
the story the first time, a pebble. But both Jack and Glenn swear by the rock, so what can I
do? If they dont know, who does? Besides, even if someone had been there, and had his
projector going, would the film have shown what made Glenn turn around?
Others, too, had gone out for a walk. George Brathwaite was very surprised that there
didnt seem to be any restrictions imposed on the general public. They seemed to have 100%
freedom of movement. He, too, drew a crowd of kids.
George draws a curious crowd

96
Positions taken at Tien An Men Square
Coming up to Tien An Men Square, Rufford said hed seen a crocodile. Three or four
children wide, he said, and perhaps 60 children longmarching and marching well.
As for the other children, red-badged, who were already at the Square? There was a
group of about 50, Rufford said, neatly together, sitting on the pavement listening to their
teachers. (Positions of each of the hundred
thousand city workers-peasants-soldiers who mass
there on state occasions are individually marked.)
The obelisk to the south of the Square, I
was toldthat finger of Mao that would be
pointing to the heavens even after he himself had
gone into the earth foreverwas a monument to
the peoples heroes, and every child worth his
self-respect, every young idealist, looked at it,
laid a wreath, and lifted an imaginary gun.
Connie, out for a stroll with the Bubens
they werent going in any particular direction
saw children everywhere too. What surprised her,
though, was that she was being followed not only
by children but by a mother with two children,
who was pushing a wooden baby carriage the size
Photo courtesy of Connie Sweeris
of a supermarket cart.
Very troubling to be stalked.
97
Every time Connie stopped to look at something, the lady behind her stopped too
and smiled. Every time Connie stopped to adjust her camera, to take a pebble from her shoe,
whatever, the lady stopped tooand gave her that disconcerting look of heavenly peace. And
so on they went, neither one ever trying to speak with the other, until it was time for Connie to
go back to the hotel (and eventually to Grand Rapids, the woman still in her mind, still in the
background, pushing that baby carriage).
A number of kids were following Jairie in her red dress. But they didnt get close to
her, she said. She and Errol and their interpreter saw a vendor in the Square selling Eskimo
pies and popsicles. Jairie was amazed. The more so because there wasnt one wrapper, one flysweet stick lying anywhere aboutand there were no receptacles. What, then, did they do
with their trashstuff it into their pockets?
Maybe they did. Maybe they were like my
kids whom I got to talk to from Pekingthey
played with the popsicle sticks. And my wife, you
wouldnt believe the small scraps of paper shed
cart, along with some old issues of Topics
moldering in the garage, to a recycling station.
But no square I ever saw on Long Island was as
clean as this one.
Jairie and Errol, seeing a mother and
child, had stopped to engage them. Norman
Webster, the Peking-based correspondent, had
been there with them, and would write for his
Toronto paper how Jairie had bent over the little
girl admiringly and said to the mother, You have
a beautiful child. When Webster had translated
that, the mother did what any mother would do
she beamed.
Now Jairie, always warm with people,
was in the midst of many, and as Time magazine
would later have it, she was autographing their
little red books. Of course. Who could doubt it?
These Chinese were autograph houautograph
seekers. But time proved them wrong. It was her
From Newsday, Apr. 19, 1971
Tims wife Sally lifts phone to 7-year-old Eric
own red Ballade book she was writing in. Her
as 9-year-old Scott listens in
diarythats what her heart was intowith those
leadoff interlocking lines she favored:
Wont is a word of retreat
Will is a word of each hour
Cant is a word of defeat
Can is a word of power
But abruptly a big, mean-looking guy (the same one that had confronted Jack and
Glenn?)Oh, yes, Errol was telling us with a little shrug later, though Jairie was giving him
a kick, he was mean-lookingcame over and snarled away the children.
98
Which prompted Errol to say,

Lets get out of here. I dont want any
trouble.
When Jairie didnt seem to see
the need, he pushed her and said,
Cmon, Jairie, you never know whats
going to happen. Suppose you get killed
out here?
It was Mother China and her
children then rather than the men who
were more generally responsive to us.
When Rufford, for instance, sat down on
an unoccupied bench outside the hotel to
change a film, two soldiers rose from the
bench opposite and left. But then maybe
they thought he was going to shoot
them?
Photo by Norman Webster, Toronto Globe & Mail.

From Time, Apr. 26, 1971, 28
Jairie writing in her red Ballade book
99
Chapter Twelve
Late that Easter
morning, I had
accompanied Miles and,
sure enough, Interpreter
Yu to the Information
Office of the Foreign
Ministry (Olga had just
been talking to Yu, had
said to him, Whats
your name again? You
all look alike to me).
Dick and I had gone to
this Ministry to apply
for, and eventually get,
our accreditation cards
as correspondents. This
Tims accreditation card
little brown passportlike card, photograph
and all, symbolized for me the possibilities of a new world. And though its usefulness expired
the day I left China, and those broken connection calls to Tokyo and Moscow fade in my
memory, I will never throw it away.
I was nervous on being introduced to Mr. Ma Yu-chen, Deputy Chief of the
Correspondents Division and his associate Mr. Chi, especially when I saw, in contrast to the
Chinese whod hosted us along the way, how no-nonsense, all business-like, and how coldly urbane
and ultra-intuitive they were. I felt in that first moment that they already must have had very
complete dossiers on every one of us and that, in Miless case, in my case, they didnt always like
what theyd seen. How absurd of that AP man to think I could sneak anything out of China.
I had to tell these Ministry men what I wanted to dosend dispatches to the New
York Times. I had to tell them this honestly. (Was anyone else sending out stories? Harrison,
perhaps, to his Philadelphia paper? Had he gotten accreditation?) I wanted to be honestnot
only because abstractly I thought it right to be truthful, but also because I immediately saw
that it would be foolhardy to try in any way to deceive them.
I was hoping that all this phoning, this filing, this cabling would be easyand I needed
their help. Yes, their forms I had to fill out, their regulations I had to abide by. But fortunately
they were the most intelligent bureaucrats Id ever met. And since I could tell that in a second
or two, they must have been so much more. Mr. Ma, I dont remember ever seeing again. Mr.
Chi, however, was to be the one Chinese who moved me most.
They explained that Dick and I could send a prepaid cable at the ordinary rate13
cents a word. Or, if we had a press card, we could send a cable at one-fourth that rate. So
naturally now I would be waiting for my press card? Of coursetheyd keep in touch. (Send a
cable? Would I ever do that?)
They suggested it would be well for Miles and me to understand that this friendly
gesture on the part of the U.S. people [our Team coming to China] would not go unnoticed,
and that not every Chinese thinks of the American as bad.
100
Driving back from the Ministry, we stopped at a large, crowded area in the middle of
the city. Grade-school boys with close-cut hair and wearing baggy clothes were playing soccer
and basketball in a vast earth-brown playground. (You never saw children in China jostling one
another. You never saw kids arguing.) And what was this? Table tennis tables made of all
concrete, with half a dozen bricks to serve as a net.
Dick sat down his camera and tape recorder and casually took up a racket, faded
rubber on one side, plain wood on the other, and played some with one of the hundreds of
boys, stupefied, who surrounded him. Winner stays onthats how they were dividing the
wealth of the playing time. But who was this strange man in a business suit and tie suddenly
come to the table? Surely thats what the boy, any boy, must have thought. But neither Dick
nor Mr. Yu tried to explain it.
The boy is too good for me, Dick had said after hitting a few balls but avoiding
graciously the awkwardness of any game. Surprise, though Im almost sure he didnt dream it
at the time, his comment was soon to be the one line Quotation of the Day in the New York
Times.
On our return to the hotel, I was told that someone from Moscow had tried to get me.
I had no clear idea where Moscow was. I kept thinking of it as being over there, very far
westand I thought, Wasnt there a closer place for the Times to call me from?
Of course I was glad they could reach me by phone. Or, if necessary (though one night
the operator told me the switchboard had closed at 10), I could call them. I didnt want to get
out Miless typewriter, search for someone to drive me to the cable office, wire for money,
cable out, keep coming and going, keep typing.
After my days itinerary of looking and listening and using people, after seizing the day
and shaking it for whatever dropped out, I needed to escape, retreat to the wall of my room,
and at my desk order somethinga beer, yes, but more, the accomplishment of getting
something coherent written down.
Oh, the labored articles, the tiny handwritten scraps of sentences encrypted from
my gradually filling cellophane-sack of notesthese dispatchest would have to be sent,
unsatisfied as I was with them. And when sentthough I didnt know it at the time (and so
agonized naively, unnecessarily, over many a line)would often not appear in the Times as I
wrote them but would be heard only in the crackling, cut-off passages of space between me
and whoever I thought I had, genie-like, at my ear.
I needed to writefor peace of mind, stability. And while I knew I would have some
detached piece to hurriedly hand inoh, the worth of it, the worth of it, the clumsy writing of
it, could never make the experience fun. Like the
others, I had my own personal dragons to fight, and in
my innocence had magnified them.
Them.
Miles was the first to see them comethe
others.
In Tokyo, an ABC man had asked Dick, Ever
done any filming before? When Dick had answered,
Well, not really, the man had given him this small but
very expensive Japanese camera. All you have to do is
point it and press the button, hed said. The rest is
automatic.
Miles clings to what the camera might bring
101
Of course Miles was pleased, for he could see that he was the only representative of
any TV network amongst usand that, even with the little eye of his camera, he had a worldwide monopoly.
Only then, as he stood there, alone, outside the hotel, the truck pulled up and when the
doors opened, behold, there was the technology of his competition$40,000 worth of NBC
equipment.
The professionals had come. Which meant, they said, that Peking was starting to
discard its policy of self-containment.
The very experienced newsmen were: John Roderick of the APit had been over 20
years since hed lived in Peking; Tokyo-based John Rich and Jack Reynolds of NBC; bearded
Britisher John Saar, whose Life article would begin, As the train purred elegantly from the
Hong Kong border toward Canton (suggesting to a non-initiate like me the romantic idea of
pre-Mao China in a cat-being stroked-on-his-lap, rich old warlords car); and Frank Fischbeck,
a West German cameraman, who would be shooting for dear Life, some said, 4,000 pictures.
Photo courtesy of
Judy Bochenski
Photographer
Frank Fischbeck
From Post-Herald, Apr. 18, 1971
Glenn Cowan and Lifes John Saar
Cowan, whod unsuccessfully asked an interpreter if he knew how to go about getting

an interview with the head of a Chinese ping-pong ball factory, found Life writer Saar and
photographer Fischbeck even before they could find him.
Glenn was so happy when they came because he thought they were going to do all the
work and he was going to get all the (he didnt say money, he said) glory. He told them the
agreement he and his manager had worked out, and Saar was very cooperative. (Hed done a
piece on Mick Jagger, had recently been stationed in Vietnam and Thailand, doing, among
other things, some articles on service clubs, bars, something like that, Glenn wasnt too sure.)
Saar was so cooperative, in fact, that Glenn immediately asked him for $50 spending money,
and Saar, very friendly-like, gave it to him.
102
But, soon after, this team of Saar and Fischbeck confided to Cowan, From now on,
well tell you when we need you.
(Which meant that, at the end of our stay, after wed gone on to Shanghai, Glenn
would say, I thought that instead of doing Inside China you could have done a piece on
Americans in China and had a big picture of me on the cover.
And Saar, in that same friendly tone, would reply, But, Glenn, thats silly.)
From China Reconstructs, Feb. 1972, 16
Pekings Capital Stadium
In the afternoon, our Team was taken to Pekings mammoth Capital Stadium where
courts had been set up for a two-hour practice session. Flags lit by spotlights hung above the
arena and written on them in English, Spanish, and Chinese were the words, Long Live The
Great Unity Of The People Of The World. Only, one word in Spanish was misspelled, and
since the Chinese were always asking for criticisms, Errol took a chance and told someone.
Oh, boy, said Errol, did he hop to change it.
Id no sooner gotten there when a call came through for me, and, since Id been
carrying around my first Times article everywhere, I was prepared. Under the watchful eye of a
cap pulled down, Cyclops-starred guard (I wasnt worried, what could I say wrong?) I
dictated my article over the phone. (Right: casually took up a racketfaded rubber on
one side andpenholder nothing on the other. Penholder nothing? Whats that? said the
poor, patient guy on the other end.) An hour and 15 minutes later, I hung up.
When I came back in, Miles was just coming off the table. Best practice I had in 15
years, he was saying. That Chinese boy knew just where to put the ball right from the
beginning.
Errol and Glenn were shadow-boxing. This was some kind of hand-speed, footwork
drill they were expending energy on?
Its too late for you, Glenn, said Dick. Youre too old.
Im 19, baby, said Glenn.
Yeah, said Dick, but theres only one trouble with being 19. The world may be over
before you get to be my age.
103
Earlier Errol had spent half an hour or so

practicing serve returns. His young and sociable warmup partner, Chiu Yen-liang, whom he was to have a
renewed friendship with when the Chinese team came
to the U.S., had deceptively kept the head of the racket
moving before, during, and after the ball toss. No one
in the States had done this to Errol before. It was a
secret shared.
There were two ways to receive a short serve:
you could jump in for it with both feet, or reach in, get
Errol and his friend, Chiu Yen-liang
under the ball, and quick flip your wrist over itand
while Errol thought about what hed never thought
about before, Chiu demonstrated.
Errol had in his hand a Chinese Double Happiness racket that hed gotten here in
Peking. You know, he was saying, it might be illegal to play with this in the World
Championships. The shiny sponge rubber allowed the ball to stick more to the surface of the
racket. The wood made the racket more solid than what he was used to. See, he said, it
doesnt shake.
Chinese share their exercise routine with U.S. players
Judy, who just a little while ago had been saying to Olga, Wouldnt it be nice if we
could talk to them? was about to receive lots of helpful coaching from Dee Chan-hua whod
been on previous Chinese Womens Teams at the Worlds. But before Judy, Olga, and Connie
could receive instruction, they had to go through a regular exercise routine. The American
girlsto the surprise of the Chinesewere a bit embarrassed, but they awkwardly went along
with it all.
Coach Dee, as if beginning a series of 25 Lessons in Strategy (shed get $25 an hour
in the U.S.?), started Judy off with some stroke practice, then, as Dee would hit one ball to the
right, then one to the left, Judy was supposed to stay on the move and hit everything with her
forehand. In trying to do so, the American girl soon discovered she had to improve her
footwork. The Chinese, she said, were much more mobile than we were.
104
I saw Tannehill and asked him, Hows it going?

Im taking ping-pong more seriously now, he said.
Later, John was stressing the importance of learning how to apply conceptual thought to
the strategies necessary in the Game. Likened this planning to Maos theories on guerilla warfare.
If youre losing, you try to think of a bright future, he said.
You try to be calm and relaxed. You concentrate on your opponents weakness
whether it be short serves or short sidespin return of service, or angled-off blocks, or anything.
If youre fortunate enough to be winning, you continue to try just as hard but you also think
about not becoming arrogant.
I played a couple of games with a Chinese youth. He made a point of repeatedly
stopping play and explaining through an interpreter that he was learning a great deal from my
aggressive game. Friendship first, Competition secondthat was the Chinese Teams motto.
I wanted to be an obliging guest, and, besides, the kid was working so absurdly hard
carrying me that, when I came off the table (he beat me 21-18, 21-7), I emphasized to him,
and, as I began to do so, to the on-the-run local newsmen rapidly gathering round, as well as
to the photographer about to take my picture, my unusual way of hitting a deceptive no look
forehand. I likened it to a golfer keeping his head down, watching the ball as racket made
impact, but not showing by any immediate eyes-up follow through whether he was hitting the
ball straight or with a draw or a fade. Although not much golf is played in China, and the
papers no doubt would have trouble using the analogy, it was clearly the most theoretically
captivating thing theyd heard from an American player yet today. What I said in Friendship
was just what the Chinese were looking for. It proved, didnt it, that as Mr. Wang had said
earlier, Everybody can learn something from everyone.
Now, however, play was at an end. And since maybe the Chinese didnt know what
else to do with us, they gave us another banquet.
The host might have been an official of the All China Sorts Federation, like Fang Yen,
or of the Chinese Peoples Association for Friendly Relationships. But no matter whether he
could speak Englishinvariably he didnt. We shared, instead, the language of smoked duck
diplomacy.
That is, ask an interpreter if hed like to live in America, he would answer by reaching
for a drinkbeer, or red wine, or mao-tai, a rice wine shot down like tequila, or, most likely,
orange soda, called, deceptively to us, orange juice. Persist discretely, over something that
looked like spinach but was really cabbage, in trying to find out his personal tastewhich city
did he prefer, Peking or Shanghai? And he would answer, Both.
Both? you would ask.
And he would say, I like all cities in China.
To which you did not turn to another heavy eater round you, who had perhaps signaled
with a belch that it was time for a different course, and pointedly remark, Is this a goose?
No, you found things out slowly.
You understood the meal was meant to appeal to your idea of the sensibleto your
taste, your sense of smell, your appreciation of the beautiful. For instance, you may have been
presented with a white-winged turnip bird, parsley clasped in its turned around beak. (I tried to
take this small work of art home with me, but in the bathroom sink of my Shanghai Ho Ping
Hotel, soaking, its head fell apart.) Or you might have been given little pieces of pastry stuffed
with chicken, each shaped like a fish, painstakingly designed with varicolored stripes and
cleverly inserted appendages.
105
All was carefully balanced. There was the hot and cold chicken, the mushrooms and
the greens, the sour and the sweet. The bread you may have thought unusual, a little sweet
perhaps. Chinese people like sweet things, said the interpreter smiling.
There was a ritual to be preserved. To begin an elaborate meal, the host would first
pick up his own ivory chopsticks, and perhaps say, Chinese players use penholder grip
because from very early age used to chopsticks. Is that a standard joke, or a statement of
fact? We were to hear lots of things repeated in China. On this occasion Mr. Fang would
carefully take one small piece from the large lazy Susan that circled 25 different cold delicacies
before him. He would lift that one small piece onto the plate of his most distinguished
visitorin this case, our own USTTA President, Mr. Graham Steenhoven who, though he
smiled and smiled, was no fool.
Graham expressed to our host his desire to have a nameplate made of his Chinese place
card so that he could put it on the door or desk of his office. A man whod worked at Chrysler
for 43 years, whose tie clasp design, as I looked over, consisted of a starthough not a red
starand the words Management Club underneath, President Steenhoven was to keep our
diversified, individual-America group as much together during our stay in China as was
humanly possible. He, like our host whom he fancied resembled Mao Tse-tung (our host, not
knowing any better, returned the compliment), was a little Chairman.
All then, at such official tables, was balanced, neutralized into harmony. The consomm
of quail egg, the squid, the sea cucumber, the shredded beef, the prawns, the liver, the duck,
and, finally, oh, was not the shark stomach soup the traditional end of it all? But, no, again
there was to be a new beginning. We took up our chopsticks and with our new friends shared
shrimp and rice and
It was enough to make you thirsty. So I had some beer, and some red wine, and at least
seven I can remember of those mao-tais that, in a demonstration at another table, burned like
gasoline.
Given so much food and drink, my tongue
loosened. President Steenhoven had been calling our
host Mr. Fang. Graham, I said, the mans name is
pronounced Fongnot Fang! Under cover of the
language, while the joke was being translated, I took
another little sip of mao-tai. When the Fang
connotation was understood all around, we all laughed.
That night everything went black. Though
Steenhoven and Harrison had suggested a kind of open
door policy, that we should leave our bedroom doors
unlocked as a sign of trust, I instinctively at night
locked mine. In the daytime, though, when I wasnt
there, the key dangled in the lock, and said, in effect,
Steenhoven and his Chinese host, Mr. Fang
Welcome, welcome, anyonecome into my writing
room.
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Chapter Thirteen
In our short, guided tour of Canton,
Peking, and Shanghai, the Chinese, as you
might expect, strove for a balance. We visited
Tsinghua Technical University in Peking, and
afterwards the storied Great Wall of China,
went to the famed Peking Opera, and to the
ballet the China Dance/Drama Group put on in
Canton, were bussed out to the Emperors
Summer Palace (now called a Peoples Park),
and escorted to the opulent Great Hall of the
People to meet Premier Chou En-lai, were
taken to the modern Industrial Exhibition in
the center of Shanghai, and from there out to
the age-old communal farmland of Chinas
forefathers.
In short, it was hoped that if you
werent interested in one place you would be
in another.
From China Revista Ilustrada, 1971/3
At the polytechnic Tshinghua
Karl Marx
University, rows of Chinese stood on the steps
outside and applauded our arrival. We were taken into a large meeting room and seated under
a picture of Chairman Mao that was flanked on two sides by sharp-pointed spears of red flags.
To the rear of the room were postersized photographs of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, and Stalin.
On behalf of the Revolutionary
Committee of the School, Miss Tang
Wen-sheng, the interpreter, was saying,
I would like to extend a warm
welcomeand then she began to
speak of the Great Proletarian
Revolution and of how the main
problem of educational revision was
the teacher who needed to integrate
his life with that of the workers,
peasants, and soldiers. Teachers, she
said, needed to go to the factories and
farms to remold and raise themselves.
This seemed to be a lead-in to a
few words from Professor Chien Weichang of the Engineering Department,
a man of about Mr. Steenhovens age,
whod been schooled during World
War II in the U.S., in what later
Chuang Tse-tung. Hes doing a bit of remolding?
107
became the Jet Propulsion Lab at Cal. Tech. Remolded now (earlier hed thought to himself,
What is the need for a person like me to be remolded?I found I needed re-education
badly), this professor worked in Mechanicsdynamics, statics. Seated and smiling behind
his glasses, nervously nodding, nodding (his round face ticking with the regularity of an alarm
clock), he gave our Group an illustration of how hed come to learn about his deficiencies.
I used to teach a class on different kinds of steel, he said. But one day I discovered
how the weak points of my classroom technique were exposed by a trip to the factory. I was
looking, looking everywhere for a certain kind of steel ingot but could not find it. Just then a
veteran worker came by, and when I asked him for help, he said, There it is, just beside your
foot! I lost face. I was embarrassed. From then on I rejoiced in knowing my shortcomings.
And I became more modest.
Other speakers were introduced or pointed out. (I remember, for example, the
professor of the Automatic Control Faculty.) After a time I could see that some of the
Americans were getting restlessGlenn, with his Let It Be shirt, or Jairie, whod been
writing in her Ballade notebook, or Olga, who was unconsciously playing with her tea pot,
taking it off and putting it on. (Id borrowed a pen from her the other day. This morning she
came up to me and said, Do you have my pen? I didnt know what she was talking about. I
thought she meant a USTTA pin. Harrison, I knew, had boxes of pens. What did she need one
for?)
The problem was, Miss Tang went on interpreting, Marxism-Leninism theory was
being divorced from reality. The Workers Propaganda Team wanted workers, farmers, soldiers
to be teachers. Education needed to be combined with production and labor. Students needed
to go to small factories or farms and learn while working there.
But I could see, if there were no competitive tests or entrance exams, the only way
students could be recommended to the University was if they proved themselves for, say, three
years to fellow laborers in actual, non-theoretical practice. It therefore mattered a great deal
what people (most of whom were likely not your intellectual peers) thought of you and, in
their mirrors, expected you to be like. If you were too smart, too talented, you might not be
very popular.
The reactions of the Americans to this lecture varied. Tannehill, our sociology major
who was dissatisfied with his freshman year at the University of Cincinnati, kept staring at the
magazine China Reconstructs that was lying on top of Chairman Maos Four Essays on
Philosophy. George Buben sat with opened notebook, the pages of which were empty. Judy
Bochenski very quietly was whispering, The first part was o.k., but they keep saying the same
thing over and over again.
After the hours orientation class was up, President Steenhoven urged all of us to
applaud the peasants, the workers, the students who were in the room. He added that, as
Americans, we appreciate meeting the students and acknowledging the attendance of so many
officials.
I was the last observer to leave the room. In the center of it, a long wisp of smoke
floated up from one of the ashtrays below. Why that should strike me, I dont know, but in the
interest of truth, I record it here.
As the actual tour of the University began, Professor Chien, the rocket expert, went along
with us. He was the focus of the corps of experienced pressmen and photographers newly arrived in
Peking. They too were struck by this smiling, nodding professor. They very forcibly took over his
attentionso much so that his nodding stopped. Was it really a nervous defect?
108
I was awed by the way Roderick, the AP man, came on. With him it was all sorry-tointerrupt-your-dinner business, but, well, you understand, he had (like a mustachioed Scotland
Yard Inspector) the credentials, and the world waited.
I walked alongside, in the background. After listening to the professionals move in on
Professor Chien, Howard turned to me and said, Seeing them work, I feel as if Ive never
read a book, or written a letter, or even talked to someone.
Cowan, walking in everyones midst, did not share Jacks or my timidity. He was not at
all impressed with their initial question and answer game.
Reporter: Professor, when were you in California?
Professor: 1940-46.
Cowan interrupting: Thats a long time ago. Were changing now. The students are
different now. Theyre asking more questions now.
Reporter: Do you have any relatives in the States?
Professor: No, I have no relatives in the States.
Cowan interrupting: These are really strange questions, man.
Reporter: Do you think you could ask better ones?
Cowan: Yeah, I sure do.
Reporter (with a stiff little wave of his hand): Then go aheadby all means.
Cowan: Professor, why did you come back?
Professor (looking up at Glenn in surprise): Why, because I am Chinese!
That seemed to stump Glenn for a momenthe himself had never taken any such
loyalty oath. But, as he walked on, he blurted out, Are you curious about anything?
Judge for yourself, said the Professor.
And so they went on walking around like that, the Professor listening to everyones
questions (Are you working on rockets?), then answering (What do you think?)like
Socrates and his students among the arches.
A class at Tsinghua Technical University
I, personally, could not get at all excited about the Technical University. It was like
touring a factory. There, for example, right next to the assembly line, with a woman teacher
and a blackboard full of diagrams and, underneath, pieces of different colored chalk, was a
class of half a dozen or so young men and women, looking from my professorial eye,
109
particularly blank. In
front of them, as on the
desk in a classroom, was
the engine of a 727
truck (so-called because,
as one interpreter said,
On July 27, 1968 the
Propaganda Team
arrived here to help the
Workers and the
Army).
Mr. Steenhoven
later got into one of
these 120-horsepower
trucks (the students can
produce 50 a year) and
drove around the plant
Canadian Helen Sabaliauskas Simerl inspects a truck designed and built by with a Chinese official at
his sideand though
teachers and students at Tsinghua Technical University
Graham always had a
smile on his face he probably
felt he had to be as careful as if
he were taking a drivers exam.
I, meanwhile, was
intrigued by a woman in a white
smock who wore a surgeons
mask over her face. Had she a
cold? I wondered, and, as is
the custom in Japan, politely
keeping it to herself?
Oh, no, said an
interpreter, shes a doctor. Just
in case anything should go
wrong. We have to take care of
your health, he said smiling,
so you can play table tennis.
All the women in China
work, I was toldChina needed
workers, it wasnt a machine
country. When a mother was to
have a child (the average age for
marriage was 25 for women, somewhat older for men; often there were 3 children in a family),
she was given 56 days off and then on her return to school or factory she could place the child
with the grandmother or keep it in a nursery, whichever she preferred. A point not to be missed
was that, because there werent enough doctors to go around, Chinas daughters had to take
care of themselves. Each woman had an obligation to herself and her country.
110
Jairie, who felt a housewifes placeor at least her placewas in the home, was
impressed by the womens real desire to work and their will to learn. Pretty Chu Pao-chih, for
instance, was studying boiler making. And why not? Anything a man can do,: she said, so
can a woman.
Some Americans found the industrial classrooms depressing. Theres no color, said
Olga, just the gray wallsand no bulletin boards. And everyones dressed the same.
Yeah, said Judy, and they keep showing you all these machines like theyre really
great.
And, said Olga, you
see all the red signs like Down
with U.S. Imperialism and yet
you see everyone smile and
applaud usit seems unreal.
Other Americans found
the practice of the Universityfactory making all its own
equipment interesting. It
doesnt seem like machines have
slowed their spirit, their minds, said Tannehill. He felt each worker, man or
woman, tended to be employed on one machine only and that this was
beautiful because the unisex worker, being identified with the whole rather
than with the fragmented part, could feel a sense of completeness. (It looked to
Signs
me, though, like there wasnt any one person working on even any one part of
unreal
a machine, but I mentioned Johns theory in passing, as one reporter to
another, to John Roderick, and he ahhunphed and nodded and said, Yes, isnt that
interesting? and ummed and ummed and looked away and strode off.
Buben, our metal pattern worker, was impressed (and so were some of the others) by
an automatic tape machine, programmed not to cut coke bottle ribs, but to process Mao-Tsetung slogans into brass. George, whod been keeping a low profile, and whom, since
presumably he worked with documents at the U.N., Id thought wouldnt be much interested
in factory life, said obligingly that he was surprised at such a technological advance.
They have these automatically controlled lathes, Harrison explained to mebut I
didnt understand a wordso you insert a brass cylinder, six inches by two inches, press a
button, and the cunning device immediately starts milling Chinese characters intoLong Live
Chairman Mao.
Cowan felt that the pig-tailed, rosy-cheeked, soft-skinned women were raised up out
of bondage and elevated to comradeship in working with the men (in this case making some
sort of gear), and that, dirty hands or no, it was beautiful. Strange at first to see girls in the
factories, he said. But they didnt mindthey didnt look like they were breakin their asses.
You only minded if you thought you did. These girls, Glenn said, had firm, strong-looking
bodies, and, though they wore no make-up, or perhaps because they didnt, they had a
sparkle.
After an unexpected ten minutes of outdoor basketball, in which most of the American
men spontaneously shed coats and cameras and recorders, to the continuing applause of
several hundred workers (They liked me as much as the Harlem Globetrotters, said Glenn),
we were taken at the repeated request of Howard, our IBM systems engineer, to see a
111
computer machine. The computer, on being asked, without hesitation played The East Is
Red.
Earlier Jack had been politely refused his request. But, finally, an official asked why he
wished to see the computer, and Jack answered that, since he worked for IBM, he had a
natural interest in computers. Oh, said the Chinese, youre an expert! Thats different. Of
course well show you our computer.
So along with most of the other Team members and all of the newsmen (who had, as
Jack said, a lean and hungry look), we were ushered down a dimly lit corridor into a room
where it lay sleeping. It looked, said Jack, like something out of a BC cartoonthat is to
say, prehistoric.
And now, if I may for a moment forget the signals
from my own Memory Bank, let me allow Jack himself to
continue the story:
A very nervous-looking instructor was then
presented with the problem of answering my technical
questions. The newsmen seemed to smell blood and thrust
their microphones and cameras toward us, as if to say,
Get im! But not wishing to create an international
incident, I asked, What is the read-write cycle time?
Which is roughly equivalent to asking an English scholar
with a Ph.D. to name, in sequence, the first three letters of
the alphabet. The company man smiled, very relieved, and
his eyes seemed to say, This yo-yo doesnt know
anything, Im safe. So he answered this question and
several others of equal difficulty, and then the tour
proceeded on to other classrooms, leaving behind another
smiling instructor.
Smiling computer expert,
Next morning, the New York Times would be
and smiling instructor
quoting Jack as saying, It is a very remarkable
achievement. Very few students can build a computer. Immediately after which the article
would go on to say, The Americans were impressed with what they saw and the friendliness
of the Chinese. Which news of course was perfectly fit to print.
Howard, particularly, enjoyed his visit to a crowded classroom on electronic
mathematics. He stood up in front of the blackboard here in Peking as hed done so many
times before for IBM, sharing an understanding of diagrams that determined the current of
resistance. In circuit theory, the symbol for resistance is the samein fact, all the symbols are
the samefor people everywhere, he said.
I, meanwhile, had noticed on the desk of one of the adult students (who all looked
blankly alike to me) a childs long, thin pencil case. It was very American-looking but very old.
Kids my boys age, my own age once, in 1930s undershirt and (track?) shorts, were running
toward a grove of trees, where stood a couple of older men who might have been playing golf.
I was dumbfounded. What was that incongruous faraway afternoon of color doing
there this April 11, 1971 morning in such a colorless industry of a place as Tsinghua? Where
did it come from? Who saved it? There was nothing else remotely like it on any desk in the
112
roommaybe in all of China.

Why was it I didnt seek an interpreter and make a point of trying to find out about it
for certain?
Was it that I didnt believe any answer would be true? That I didnt believe any answer
was possible? Was it that I didnt want any answer to be possible?
After a five-minute visit to the library (Did you notice? said Jairie. Everything was
non-fiction), it was time for lunch. For some reason the waiters didnt bring any beer or wine
or orange soda to wash down the spicy food with. Was itthe bug went flitting across that
wall againbecause, unlike the food, it wasnt really in such abundance as we spoiled
ambassadors might think? I felt if they had it, theyd bring it. Later, deep into the meal, when
someone finally requested a cold drink and everyone followed suit, they brought us a single
glass each.
Or, again, it was strange at a University where there
were 2800 students and 200 faculty members that Connie and
Olga and Judy, on asking for a restroom, were directed to, as
Olga out it, one of those dungeons in Ben Hur where
people had leprosy. There were no toilets you could sit down
on, no toilet paper, and (so unexplainable in such a clean,
puritan country) the stink made you sick. (In fact, Olga felt
that all the rooms in the University had bad odors.) When the
girls returned to their table (I never figured it would be this
bad, said Connie. Im really afraid to give my impressions to
the newspapers.), all they could see when they looked down
was one big fish covered with icky sauce staring at them. Olga
practically threw up, and Connie, too, refused to touch
anythingbecause, she said, she had a stomachache. With
Olga, though, it was much worse, her pain was far more real.
She was homesick, had a heartacheand soon she would
break down crying because, in all of China, she couldnt get a
hamburger.
Olga: her expression tells it all
113
THE GREAT WALL
Chapter Fourteen
After the applause at our departure from Tsinghua, we were off on the 90-minute bus
ride to the Great Wall that in the past had kept out how many invaders.
One story I heard said that the 4,000 miles of it was built in 1500 separate parts by the labor
of different emperors working towards a common end. So that the workers would not become
discouraged, they were always told just one or two miles more, and so out it stretched, as if forever.
But perhaps the story was apocryphaljust as Id heard, for instance that the little
fragments of stones in the Wall had been cemented with rice soupfor I had no way of checking
it. I had no Guide to China. I knew not a word of Chineseor, worse, anything of these peoples
lives. I was a barbarian. Embarrassingly for my diplomatic mission, I had but a slight interest in
politics. As strange as the story about the Wall, then, that I should be in China writing away each day.
Youre like that little old lady in Dickens who kept knitting all the time, said Connie.
And, strange to say, I liked the analogy. All these notes I was compulsively taking, what did I
want to do with them? Was I trying to build my own Wall? Trying to shut outpeople? Were
the notes my Mongol horde? Was I trying to keep something in? What? In or out of the world,
what was I hoping to reconstruct?
A bus rides a bus ride, I guess, said Judy. Only thing is, theres nothing to see.
Perhaps the one reality in her head at this moment was the Great Wall? Shed heard it
was the only man-made structure you could see from the moon. How high must it be?
Cowan was talking aboutwhat hed touched on before at Tsinghuahow very
gradually a new transformation was coming on in the U.S., an intellectual revolution. Its not
114
coming across as that, he admitted. Its coming across as a lot of hippies doing their own
thingand protesting the government.
How are you an intellectual? interrupted Tannehill. It was as if hed said, What table
do we play our match on?
I dont know, said Glenn. How are you an intellectual?
I dont know, said John. I read.
Oh, said Glenn, stallinghe needed time to collect himself, it was a close gameis
that how youre an intellectual?
It helps, said John.
I think, said Glenn. Thats how Im an intellectual.
Miles, with ABC tape recorder in hand, laughed.
Cowan, having won that game, began again. So I think its a gradual transformation
of ideas thats starting to happenwhereby the people stop taking orders from the higher-ups,
the government, and stop obeying automatically, and start using their own minds about each
order theyre given and start figuring out whether its right or wrong for them.
This was going to be a very important gameCowan might not win the match.
Now, he went on, gradually more and more people are thinking this way and also at the
same time trying not to hurt other peopleor trying not even to offend other people. Well,
maybe offend, but I dont knowbutkind of make them happyif thats the right phrase.
I dont think thats the right phrase.
Though the tape recorder, and the sound of the bus in it, continued on, Glenns
thought process came momentarily to a stop.
115
Not easy to get this fellow out of the way
Out of the city, past a man with a hay broom sweeping the walk in front of his small
store, another poking amid piles of charred debris (looking for what?). Horn honking, honking
(I never could get used to it): Cyclists with your wicker baskets, out of the way! Manurecarrying carts, out of the way!
Tannehill was talking into Miless ABC recorder againabout learning in our society.
Now theres no creative schooling. The teachers dont want to take responsibility, he said.
Like I was calling all my teachers little men because they would talk to me about bullshit.
They wouldnt talk to me about like viewing ourselves as friends. Like every teacher I went up
to, I said, Could I please learn under you? For after class for an hour or two, or whatever
time you set aside, and we can be friends. But they all said no. Like you either learn under me
in class or not at all. I dont want to be responsible for youthats what they were saying.
My speech teacher said, We have to stick to the schedule. She drew a circle on the
board where she put an X inside the circle and an X outside the circle. She said, We will be in
this circle. We will not go outside this circle. I jumped on her for that. I really went berserk.
She started crying.
Jairie began to get into a discussion with Mr. Yu about insurance. She was explaining
how in America some people burn down their house for money. Mr. Yu could not understand
this. You could tell he was trying to, but he couldnt see, no matter how much money you got,
how that could take the place of a home. In China, he said, you couldnt do this. In China, if
something terrible happened and a house was destroyed, the people would all get together and
build it up again. Oh, said Jairie, like in pioneer days.
There on the roadside was a man with his over-laden cart tipped over. Poor man,
said Connie.
116
Cowan was talking about The Beatles and how theyd started this hippie intellectual
revolution with their songs. Every song says itis beautiful, not only melodically but
lyrically. They started the whole rock movement. This started the psychedelic color movement.
Look at the NBC peacockits psychedelic now. This revolutions opened up the minds of
television. Youll see it in commercials, where they zoom in maybe on the sun.
Howard had moved over to join us. Arent they doing that, said Jack, because its
commercially profitable rather they because they think its marvelous? Would they do it if they
lost money doing it?
O.k., said Cowan in that eager way of his, his voice rising, o.k., if its commercially
profitable then doesnt that mean the largest part of the American society is digging it?
That doesnt mean its artistic, said Howard.
If you dont see it as artistic, I dont know what youre looking at.
I do, said Jack. But I dont think the media bosses care.
Isnt it a fact, said Glenn, that the whole country wants to jump on the hippie
bandwagon? That theyre transforming themselves to the hippie way of thought? And the
media guys are pushing it. Why are they doing it?
Its profitable, and people can sit back and enjoy it. It has nothing to do with the
concept of any hippie revolution.
There was a long pause from Cowan. I dont know, he finally said.
But then he started up again. Why do people like itthe NBC thing, the color?
Because, said Jack, it means theyre living in a dream, they want to stay young
forever. Its a Shangri-la thing. They wont grow old if they enjoy the color and the youthful
ads. The basic appeal is to the guy whos 35, 40, 50.
I disagree, said Glenn. I dont think thats the basic appeal.
When are you going to be 20? asked Miles.
August.
When are you going to be 30? asked Howard.
Hey, man, said Glenn, its really simple. I mean, life is simple. People who make it
complicated only screw it up.
The bus went on past the green wheat fields, past children digging ditches among the
rocks and hard brown earth in front of peasant huts with red signs on brick and stone, Long
Live Chairman Mao!
On out to the Great Wall. (If a man failed to reach the Great Wall, it was said, he could
not be a hero.)
What are those holes that look like small caves in the hillside? I asked an interpreter.
(Perhaps the peasants used this dirt in building their shelters? I didnt want to suggest that,
thoughI thought it might be embarrassing to the interpreter, to me, to us, to imply that these
people living out here were primitive cave or hut dwellers. Still, Id asked the question.)
The interpreter looked out the window as through a long tunnel. He didnt know what
I was talking about. He didnt see any holes.
And signs in the hills too. Down with Liu Shao-chihe was Maos political rival
during the Cultural Revolution. (I doubt if back there in the mountains, said Connie, they
have any electricity or light. They must work all day and go right to bed at night. I just cant
believe people live like that and are satisfied.) And on a mountain side a gigantic stone-pieced
portrait of Mao himself. (Gee, people really risked their neck to get up there and do that,
said Connie
117
Miles was still on his ABC mike. One of the Chinese asked Cowan to say about them
whatever he liked. Glenn hesitated, then said, After this, can we still be friends? Dick laughed so
hardit really struck his funny bone. The words Friends and Friendship had been so loosely
used among the Americans and the Chinese that, ironically, in Glenns comment, the reality of the
two groups being strangers critical of one another was accentuated.
Dick wanted to know the name of the Chinese whod urged Glenn to say what he
really thought.
Mr. U, said an interpreter.
Spell it for mehis name.
UOu.
Mr. Yu, said Dick. Yes, I know a Mr. Yu, but this isnt the same one. Whats his last
name? It doesnt matter. No one would care anyway. Nobody would remember it anyway.
On we wentpast sheep and stone cutters, steep railway, stone-strengthened
embankments and pink peach tree blossoms, past sections of walls in key passes, unused for
centuries, that still stood strong in Romance against the horizon.
What if we broke down? Cowan was saying. What if the bus stopped just 80 miles
from nowhere? We might get lost. To him, that would have been exotic. He wanted to get off
the bus, fantasize by himself. Find a Shangri-la over the next hill. Forget about going back to
the United States.
Later, they would let him go only so far up the Wall. He wanted to rise to the very top
past that restricted area. He wanted to go all the way up, as far as he could. Then go further.
While all the while, the idle talk continued.
Whats on the other side of the Wall?
If we travel far enough we might get out of China.
Tannehill had been going strong. I came over here as a human being. Im a person
before Im a table tennis player. Responsibility to Graham means control, dominationI hate
the way Graham uses the word Responsibility. Ive decided to be political and suffer the
consequences. Not being political, its like not having any mind. China knows it can beat us at
table tennis. They brought us over here for political consequences.
John wanted a new leader. Someone who wouldnt always be opening the door of
opportunity to Chrysler Motors.
Mao Tse-tung, said John, is the greatest moral
and intellectual leader in the world today. It was like a
recording. But then you could hear Johns voice too. He
reaches the most people and influences the most people. His
philosophy is beautiful.
I dont know what had started him offbut, if you
looked back, you could see it coming. Earlier, there on the bus,
Id told Norman Webster, the Toronto Globe and Mail man, to
move in for the killthat is, Id said there might be a good
story for him in Tannehill. John, I told him, had been asking
one of the interpreters if he could stay in China maybe for
another week, maybe forever. He thought he could get
another week off from school, though this really wasnt any
concern to himthe world would be his teacher. Meanwhile,
Johns greatest moral and
he said, he could improve his table tennis if he stayed.
intellectual leader in the world
118
Why had I alerted Webster (as before in Hong Kong Id tried to alert Ian Stewart)?
Especially as I thought, holding the journalistic position in Peking he did, Webster would have to be
committed to Communist propaganda rather than the truth, and would use Tannehill as he saw fit.
When Id asked Webster about what kind of controls the government placed on him,
my frankness, my cub-like innocenceat 40probably aroused all kinds of suspicions in him.
What kind of weird would-be ping-pong player turned reporter was I to try to pry into his
private life? A bungler like me might do him harm. As a result, he always seemed distant to me,
guarded, as if he were holding something back. Why, then, was I confiding in him?
Because, in the little in-group world of Table Tennis, I was Websters and every other
prowling newsmans fraternal brother, a correspondent both comic and sinister who wanted
recognition. PimpsTannehill, floating face-up, staring, adrift in the sea of his own despair
would call us, for we got our identity from others. But for me it was a matter of survival
better to use my pen in almost any way than not.
Besides, what did Tannehill care what he, or I, said anyway? Hed change his mind
tomorrow. Nixon would regard Maos book as trash, John was sayingbut this quote was
not fit to print in the Times.
Theres more individuality here than in the United States, he added, addressing
anyone whod listen.
Of course we all thought him, with this sort of generalization, ridiculous. I didnt want
to hold my patience in check. I let go. But John, I said, thats absurd.
Granted he meant that short-skirted, long-haired teenagers going several times a week to
MacDonalds or Burger King, offering the tried and true ritual payment of their (Coke, burger and
fries) lives, were afflicted with a debilitating sameness. (Mao and MacDonaldeach had their
millions.) But the Chinese childrenall with baggy pants and hair cut short bringing en masse
wreaths of flowers to Tien An Men Squarewould never see the new red car soon to be coming
into Olgas life and the gown-up responsibilities it would, or would not, bring.
John seemed too transfixed to express himself further. He said only that in the U.S.
there was a lack of questioning.
It was as if, without knowing it, John had a dream. Hed gotten himself trapped in an
empty building, in one dark, closed corridor of thought after another, and, after running up and
down the stairs, in and out of level after level, he now sat, high up, alone in the dark, in a
corner of the one empty room by chance he found openwhen suddenly, behold, someone
came in, threw a light switch, and John, awoke, overjoyed to find himself in a lively, crowded
classroom. Then, quickly, all went dark, and he was alone again.
This unfulfilled quest for knowledgeit really hurt him
At home, he said (I was struck by his use of the word home), you cant buy the
Red book in ordinary bookstores.
Cmon, said Cowan, you can get it in any bookstore that sells to intellectuals.
And now, finally, one more quote before I change seats on the bus to go listen to
somebody else. It would be ideal, wouldnt it, if I could give all 15make that 16of our
Group equal time, equal attention, equal note-scrap space? But, as you can imagine, that
wasnt the way it was on and off the bumpy road of real life north of Peking (some people
werent apt to confide, would more likely keep their thoughts to themselves than speak out).
I stay busy by listening to and talking with someone at the same time Im copying
down part of a more interesting conversation going on behind me. Plus a part of me is also
trying to plan where Im going to move to catch somebody else unawares and therefore
119
naturalexcept now it wasnt easy to find everyone perfectly natural, for some were
becoming more conscious of their reportorial duties and not so prone to share their private
experiences. However, in the interests of truth, I was becoming more persistent, more callous,
you might say.
Know what? Now, as Im writing this little section for my Oddity, Im taking a quote
not from my own sack full of notes but from what that pimp Webster had overheard and had
quickly sent down to Washington (see the Post, Apr. 13, 1971). I tell you, it really is trying,
this business of being a reporter and wanting to recreate the world at a remove. You have to
use everybody so, and you just have to harden yourself to do it.
Heres that last quote, for the moment, from Johnor rather from Webster:
Tannehill: I like the discipline of Chinese society. Theres no flamboyance.
That appeals to me.
Team Captain Howard: But youre flamboyant right now. Dont you think
youre flamboyant?
(Silence from Tannehill[whos] in blue dungarees with bib front, large red
badge and with a blond goatee sprouting faintly on his chin.)
As all conversation leaves John, I, too, go elsewhere.
Has the teaching of Confucius any spiritual influence on the people? The answer:
No. Society is developing. That is ancient Chinese thinking.
Ever hear of Chinese bandits? The answer: No. Now already is crushed.
What about opium? The answer: Opium in Old China was used for escape from
problems. Now China has no problems.
Until, finally, there is the Great Wall.
120
From Time, Apr. 26, 1971, cover
U.S. Team at Great Wall. (Errols taking the picture?)
Chapter Fifteen
Its not one Wall but twowith a road in between, said Jairie, pointing to the
archway of the Ba-da-ling Gate through which our bus did not go.
Yeah, said Judy, I thought itd be a wall you would walk up to and look up at the
topbut, see, you can walk on it.
The Chinese, said Tannehill, had this Great Wall to keep out the Mongols. The U.S.
has its paranoia in its ghetto suburbs, its missile defense systems.
But I was off, looking without any sense of direction, up the rows and rows of steps
toward the spaced chess castle bastions that bridged my Imagination, up, up into some vague
twisting rise and slide world of Marco Polo and childhood Genghis Khan. And turning round
and round, I continued to climb, literally now, up toward the keyhole lock of an arched
entranceway against the darkening skybeyond which none of us were permitted to go.
121
Glenn said it was like the edge of the world up here. Like the world went in only one
directionand ahead was still unexplored territory, and maybe that Shangri-la.
Youd think theyd have a ski resort up here, said Jairie, as everyone clambered up
and down to have his/her picture taken. And then she added, as if shed suddenly found the
connection, If they had this Wall in the U.S., thered be all kinds of graffiti and paper and
garbage up here.
Olga, too, liked climbing the Wall. She felt cramped, she needed the cold air. And of
course it was so different. There arent any mountains in Florida, she said.
But poor Howard! Hed run his 3,000 uneven feet all
the way to the top in order to be first and take pictures of the
others as they approached. But in the 20 degree temperature
hed suddenly gotten chills, had become sick to his stomach
and half-fell, half-sunk back to the bottom.
So while Steenhoven and everyone else was posing in
happy togetherness at the top, being immortalized in Time,
Jack was retching in miserable solitude, in the dungeon of some
foul-smelling toilet far down below.
Grahams obligatory public statement? Ive seen
Hadrians Wall between Scotland and England, but its just a
pebble by comparison.
Tannehill told one reporter, or, better, was overheard by
one to say, that the Great Wall is just not needed any more.
Its a museum piece. Though of course the Chinese need it as a
reminder of their ancient culture.
Then, like Howard, he ran all the way to the top, looked,
and ran all the way down again. He thought it would be good
Jack was hurtin
training for him.
In the bus on the way back to the hotel, Saar, the Life
man, came over, and, in that well-trained, deep-throated purr of his (had he studied acting?),
asked, Well, Jairie, how are you enjoying China? (Jairie was the kind of person you could
quickly call Jairie.)
Oh, she said, its like Then she hesitated. You promise you wont quote me?
Saar said, Yesand waited.
Well, she said, its like going to see a movie and having respect and admiration for
the dramatic struggle of the playersbut it isnt like coming out of the movie enjoying it.
Jairie didnt want the bearded Saar to quote herto show what was going on in her
mindbecause she didnt think she ought to be critical of China. And, really, she didnt have
anything to be critical of. What do I have to be critical of? she said. (Was she asking Saar? If
so, how would he know?)
Later she was going to be mad at Roderick because hed quoted her incorrectly. She
distinctly remembered she hadnt used the word garbage. The way he wrote it made it seem
she was being critical of the United States. Timmy, she said, I love our country. I was born
and raised there. Do you think Id come to China and criticize it? Do you think Id criticize
our country for anyone or anything?
Then she said, There are lots of things to criticize our country for, but I wouldnt do it
over here. The Chinese wouldnt understand.
122
Afterwards, when she got to know Miss

Tang better, Jairie made the same point to her.
Miss Tang was the American-born interpreter
whod come to China, she said, when she was
nine, but who had such a grasp of our idiom, it
was as if she were a student in one of my
English Lit classesor, more accurately, a
professor in my Department.
Jairie would be saying, I hope you
understand our press, Miss Tang. A lot of
things wont be quoted right.
And Miss Tang, with that look of
abrupt recognition, that quick nod of her head,
that nervous, little wave of her hand which
meant that she understood all, would say,
Dont worry. I know you. I wont judge by
what I read in the press.
On the bus ride back to the hotel, Errol
had gotten into a discussion with Interpreter
Kuo Chien-hua about the Vietnam War. We
want peace but are not afraid to fight, said Mr.
Kuo. That made sense to Errol. China helps
countries who ask for help. Theyre not the
aggressor, theyre the protector, said Mr. Kuo.
And Errol, shifting in his seat, had no reason
not to agree. He told me later he knew he
didnt have to watch himself, what he said. Was Jairie: A lot of things wont be quoted right.
he going to do anything wrong? He was 29
years oldhe knew hed never say anything wrong.
Soon, though, he had to say something he wished he didnt have to, and that was,
Stop the bus, please! He couldnt wait any longer. He had to seek relief. He might just as
well go in a field as a toilet.
I believe in the little red book, Tannehill was saying to Miles and mike. Definitely. I
try to livethe belief doesnt mean anything by itself, I guess. I need practice to get a certain
knowledge, to gain more access to truth. Thats what Mao Tse-tung says, I guess. Search for
Truth. Be a philosopher. View certain things in terms of History instead of in terms of just the
present thing. Look behind what is there.
Miles just let him talkit was interesting. But if Connie, say, had had the ABC
recorder, shed have pressed a button.
The hedonistic way of viewing things, John continued, is like pleasing to the eye.
The philosophic way is to look at the concept of the thing. To look at the idea behind the
thing. Like the Great Wall, for instance. Whats the history of the Great Wall? Instead of just a
bunch of stones put together, you know?
What are you, John? I asked. Whats your history? How are you put together?
I dont think I can give you a definition of what I am. Like that wont do any good.
And it wont do me any good. I dont know what I am.
123
One of the
Chinese
interpreters
wanted to know
from John if the
Soviet Union was
like America.
Perhaps this would
be a good question
for ABC? Miles
was right there
eyewitness to the
response.
Yes, said
Tannehill. In both
countries, the
workers are
exploited. Theyre
Cartoon courtesy of Fred Danner
working for a
Was the Soviet Union like America? Was China?
capitalistic
motivefor more and more money. The Soviets are heading more and more in our direction.
More of the youths there are taking drugs to try and escape everyones greed and selfishness
and to gain a sense of adventure that isnt provided by the society.
Was it possible, I wondered, that some interpreters, like the one who was listening to
John now, were delegated to ask questions, others not? Or was it just left up to the individual?
Perhaps it was because I always had pen and paper in hand that nobody asked me a question?
Perhaps I looked as blank to some of those Chinese as they looked to me?
Here theres plenty of adventure, John explained. Like Mao is the adventure in
society here. Hes the religion, the moral and ethical leader. Hes everything. People look up to
him. Hes their drug here. Youth established him as their drug.
In other words, said Dick, youre saying youre more or less a mystical Maoist? I
mean, you dont know who or what you are, but would that be a fair way of describing you?
Why do you have to describe me? said John.
Why do you have to label him? said Glenn.
People want to knowwho you are, what youre talking about, said Dick.
I like to think of myself as an intellectual, replied Johnwith all the connotations
that carries with it. With the political connotations. I think an intellectual has to be political. He
has to face up to responsibility. For everyone. Everything I eat, everything I think, everything I
do has to be political.
Thats your definition of an intellectual? said Dick. He must be politically oriented?
Tannehill knew a network of reason might be thrown at him, but he didnt just stand
there, undefended, as if the net might be suspended in mid-air. Like Ill give you an answer
Marcuse gave. He said, If you havent found out from what Ive said to you, or from what
Ive done with you, what I amwhat, in this case, an intellectual isthen youre never
going to find out.
With that, John signed off.
124
On coming back to the hotel, Olga,

after her experience at lunch, just could not
face anything that looked like a fish. Though
tired from her climb up the Wall, she went
purposefully, again as high up she could go, to
the Western Dining Room where only
breakfast was served. She pleaded with the
Chinese, tears in her eyes, that, please, please,
she had to have a hamburger.
And Judy, too, would like oneand
maybe some French fries?
The chef did his best. But the
hamburger had a Chinese sauce on it. Still, as
Judy was later to say, The fries tasted just
like at home, so those of us who didnt like
Chinese food lived largely on them.
In the middle of the night, only 12
hours or so before he was to play in Pekings
Capital Stadium before 18,000 people, John
Tannehill awoke to the nearly invisible silk
screen picture of Mao hed scotch-taped to
This signs in China?
the wall above his head, stared upward, then,
realizing where he was, staggered out of bed into the bathroom, and threw up everything he
had in him.
Minutes in the dark later, George Brathwaite, his roommate, woke to see by the faint
hall light (all the corridors in the hotel were dimly lit) that John was not in his bed. Where then
was he? In the bathroom, of course. Whereupon
George did what anybody would dohe went back
to sleep.
Or at least he thought he didbut then, in some
half-waking, half-dreaming state, he looked over to
Johns bed again, and still John was not there. Where
could he be? George thought to himself. Where
could he go this time of nightin China? And then
he got scared.
But, sure enough, there in the john he was. Hed
collapsed down off the toilet bowl and, wedged into a
back corner, was sitting in his own excrement.
George tried but couldnt get him up. He would
have to go for help. When he woke Team Captain
Howard, Jack didnt seem to realize how serious the
situation was. Believe me, George, he said, Im
willing to help, but I need help myself.
They both went back down the hall together and
Jack picked John up and cleaned him off and got him
Where was John? ... And there he found him. back into bed. And then, because Jack himself felt too
125
sick to go for a doctor, he roused Steenhoven.

George, meanwhile, knocked on Errol and
Jairies door and asked Errol for one of those
dysentery pills hed earlier been given so that
the same thing that was going to happen to
Tannehill wouldnt happen to him.
When the Chinese in charge arrived, the
stench in the room was already terrible. It
would have to be cleaned up immediately or
they couldnt stay in there, said Steenhoven. So
John and George were moved to another room,
the picture of Mao taken down.
That morning, Cowan, on going
downstairs, found John, dizzy and very pale,
stumbling around the lobby in a T-shirt. He
didnt know what he was doing, said Glenn.
He thought he ought to go to the rehearsal.
Our much-publicized match with the
Chinese was scheduled for two oclock that
afternoon, and naturally it was unthinkable to
have each American come out on stage and just
casually do his own thing, disregard his lines,
upset the meaning and balance of the play. The
performance would lose all its significance.
So there had to be a rehearsal. Question Silk screen picture of Mao would have to come down
is, Did John know what he was talking about
that there was soon to be a rehearsal? Or was he delirious? For now, as I write (at this 1973
remove), Errol and Jairie say, Wed already had the rehearsal. But then others say, No, No,
dont you remember, it was going to be that morningwed cancelled our visit to the textile
factory so wed have time for it.
Try to give everyone his/her space/time continuum in a truthful account like this and
where are you? Anyway, John was sure hed gotten a penicillin shot somewhere along the way,
and Howard was sure hed half carried John out to a waiting car and taken him to a hospital,
where he was given a bed in a private room for a couple of hours.
Jesus, dont leave me here! Dont leave me here! John had screamed, half in a dream,
half in wide-awake frenzy.
And Jack, understanding, had said, Not a chance. Dont worry, we wont go back
without you.
Later an interpreter came and paid the bill and brought John back to the hotel where he
spent the remainder of the day lying in an indeterminate state. John Roderick, the AP man,
came by to see how he was doing, and afterwards made his report (taking care to negate
Websters story that, as well see, was inflaming Steenhoven): From his sick bed, Mr.
Tannehill said, I wouldnt want to spend the rest of my life here [in China], but Id like to see
more of it.
Various people had various things to say about Tannehills sudden sickness. I suspect
that John is somewhat dehydrated, said Rufford. Errol thought that maybe that fast run up
126
and down the steep Wall had weakened him, made him more susceptible to some bug. But
Glenns opinion was that John had run wild because, like himself, he had no Team function
had no function at all really. (Glenn saw himself as just an outside, pick-up player,
participating in matches that didnt mean anything?)
John, said Glenn, with more than a little direction from me, wanted to take a students
critical eye toward China and Americabut he couldnt establish a point of view. He didnt
know enough. He was like a camera on wheels rolling about, here and there, without any kind
of controlling intelligence, any personal I. (What was he seeing as he moved, willy-nilly, along?
What was he saying?) It was a psychic sickness that bugged John. I had a function, Miles had
a functionwe were writers, we had cultural attachments that gave us a well-defined
perspective. But John was footloose.
Connie, Glenn and I thought, was differentshe always knew she was Connie
Sweeris, and not a recorder or camera. She was relatively stable because she at least had some
strong views that she knew she would hold on to, come what may (like the photographs she
was taking). She pointed her sentimental camera when she felt like itit was a comfort. Likely
the pictures she chose to take were patterned on ones shed taken at home or on vacations.
She was bothered (though not as much as Olga) about sitting up at night without any TV or
radio. She missed her familiar programs.
Sitting in the New Bridge Hotel, talking to me over breakfast, Glenn confided that
some people resented the attention he was getting. They were such squares. Except for Jairie.
But she wore those awful vulgar dresses up to her crotch. Judy wasnt uptight with him
thoughshed allowed him to take some liberties. In Hong Kong theyd been in a taxi
together and hed kissed her and shed given him an open-mouthed kiss in return. She had
more spunk than the others.
At the long table down from ours sat Miss Ping Neuberger, the American
whod entered China before us with the Canadian Team. Forever after, shed
be saying, I was the first
American in China. But
nobody would ever believe her.
And thats why she was always
saying it. I didnt help much
some reporter I was, I didnt
even record the fact in Topics.
Shed been met at the airport
by Miss Chiu Chung-hui and
Miss Sun Mei-ying, Chinese
players shed beaten in World
Championship matches in
Photo by Rufford Harrison Tokyo in 1956. Theyd taken
First American in
her on a shopping tour, and
China - and nobody
while Miss Ping confided there
believed her ... not
even when she passed were no bargains in the China
out Canadian proofs? shed seen, she was very
From Table Tennis Topics, July/Aug, 1972, 7
pleased that she could get her
Miss Ping flanked here at the 1956 Worlds
hair washed and set. It only cost me $.47, she said,
by Chinese stars Sun Mei Ying (L) and
with no tipping! She flashed her rings, laughed, and
Chiu Chung-hui
127
said, I wanted to give the beautician something, so I dug into my pocket. All I had was an
American nickel, so I gave it to her. She looked at it, turned it over, and around, and then over
again, and then refused to accept it. When I insisted, she put it on a shelf.
Now Miss Ping sat aloneas if it were her place to do so. But she loved table tennis
and had some soul and now she was saying of the Canadian-Chinese exhibition that had been
played last night, Of all the international matches Ive seen, this was the most glorious.
However, she had a suggestion for the Chinesewhich she told me about, though it
was the Chinese who were always urging their friends (I think quite honestly) to offer some
criticism. Miss Ping said, They ought to have a microphone under the table, near the net, so
people could hear the score.
It was a good idea she proudly wanted to share with me, but was she indirectly
suggesting that I put a bug in their ear? I thought that, if some of us put little microphones
under our tables back home, things the listeners would hear would really tell them the score.
But then that wouldnt be any good; you could only take so much of that kind of truth.
Steenhoven and Harrison had come in, and Graham, perhaps because he was
concerned about Tannehills well-being and nervous about the publicity that was sure to occur
once the media got wind of Johns sickness, was not in a mood to be pleasant.
He didnt like it that some in the group were playing amateur reporter, taking and
giving out interviews, and letting fall all kinds of information that would be caught up and
disseminated who knew where. He didnt like it, that those amateurs, however bracing it might
seem to them, were lifting up the face of some Team members very personal viewpoint to the
changing wind of the unseen implications whirling all about us. He didnt like it that some
were running around snapping pictures and, like Miles and Cowan, making sure they were
snapped at in return. He thought it made him look like a fool.
But what could he do about it? Way back when he was 23 years old, hed had ulcers.
At that time a doctor had said to him, Do something about the things you can do something
about, but dont concern yourself with the things you cant do anything about. Good advice,
so long as you could convince yourself what those things were you couldnt do anything
about.
This Team of ours had been picked up in the flow of circumstances. This Team that
wasnt a Team, that didnt feel much obligation to anybody. Theyd begged, borrowed, or
perhaps even stole to be, of all places, here, in China.
Graham wanted our group, his group, to stay all together. To have confidence in him,
follow him, obey him. This blind fidelity was what any leader, strong and proud, determined to
follow through to the misty end, would want. Like Tennysons Ulysses. Except that Ulyssess
mariners were old and faithful, not young and rebellious.
I expect every member of our Team to act as Americans act, Graham had said
hoping vaguely to instill in us some patriotic pride. But he knew deep down the implications of
that remark. For it meant that a number of us would be prone to do the individual thing he/she
wanted to do, even if it cracked the looking glass of our togetherness.
Our President was no reporter. He would never stoop to look through anyones
keyhole. Would take down no incriminating notes. Point to no one with the finger of his
camerathough picture after picture hed already developed, hanging in the private showing
of his mind, must have looked like Dorian Gray. Graham wanted to read only one thing in the
small paragraphs of posteritythat, tired though he may have been of sowing, hed planted
the seeds of a very special Friendship.
128
I suppose if you had some Great Anglers

Imagination you could see him as a fishbaited, trapped,
hooked out of water. A little fish. But sailing off into
some scarcely-lit sea of my own, I sometimes
unashamedly see him as just the opposite, our countrys
Helmsman, holding the line. And despite what I on
occasion sayor, mgod, he saysI like to think that the
Great Presbyter, the Great Fisherman in him, that which
he had to convince himself to be, prevailed.
For when all is said and done, and people have
finished with him, steer the strange ship of state he did
in the sole way he knew how. And the Red sea parted and
miraculously we went through. He talked to the Chinese
the way they wanted, or expected, him to talkin a way
Photo from New York Times
by
Frank Lodge, Apr. 20, 1971
I never could. And though irony is almost always useful
The Great Fisherman
to me, it is not now; I here take leave of it, and commend
Graham privately and publicly for what he did. He
managed, with or without us, the job of his life.
As for me though, I still have my assignment to do. Im straining even now to hear
what those newsmen in the Western Dining Room of the hotel are saying. I didnt catch the
last bit of conversation, but Steenhoven now is making it clear that theres a place for
reportersand it isnt at breakfast with us.
Miles felt he was indirectly being singled out. Said he just wanted to have his breakfast
and didnt want to sit there as a target for Grahams pointed remarks.
Steenhoven told him, fine, that from now on he could go sit with the correspondents.
Thats what you are, arent you? he said sardonically, sniping away at Dicks stance as
writer.
Then he turned on Howard for his insistence yesterday on seeing that computer. Said
he wasnt being very much of a guest, pushing himself forward like
Jack didnt let him finishlet out a few choice words to the effect that he wasnt going
to be bulldozed, and (I dont care what you say!) that if Graham didnt want to address him
as a gentleman, he could shove it.
All of which Miss Ping, still alone at the Canadian table behind us, found acutely
embarrassing to the very much eager to please Chinese observing the scene with some
nervousness. She raised her hand and wavedto change the subject, she thought. But Graham
only said, Youre not traveling with us, Leah. You stay out of this. So she did.
Always out of it, Leah. She was, as forever after she kept telling me, the first
American to shake Chou En-lais hand. And the first Jew.
Yet the story she would have to tell over and over again is how every time a certain
Chinese interpreter got on the bus with her he would smile and say, What is the temperature
in Canada?What is the #1 sport?What is the population of Canada?
Hadnt he ever listened to her explanation? Or did he not believe his ears? Perhaps he
didnt trust his own judgment? If she were on the Canadian bus, how could she be an
American? No matter what she said, no matter what he heard, he knew better. How crazy he
must have thought her. Over and over again, she couldnt give him what he wanted to hear
the answers to the simplest questions.
129
Chapter Sixteen
About this inopportune time there appeared on
the scene one, Julian Schuman, for the last ten years an
American translator in Peking, whod now been
pressed into UPI service. (Those small Great Wall
cigars he smoked, that familiar accentstrange, the
two coming out of the same mouth.) As I returned
from the Mens room, I passed him walking out of the
Dining Room. He was very upset. That son-of-abitch.That whats his nameSteenhoven! He just
chased me from the table. I got a story on Chou En-lai.
Does he think Im gonna print what you talk about at
breakfast?
Coming back to the table, I heard Rufford
talking to Graham, He plays awfully innocentand he
isnt, by any means. But the main reason I suggest an
apology is we dont want to get a bad story.
Somebody came in and told me I had a telegram at
the
desk
downstairs. I went and got it and read it. Please
Rufford doesnt want to get a bad story contact Jonathan Sharp of Reuters in Peking and tell him
that Reuters has agreed you can file through Sharp.
I didnt have any idea who the guy was. I took the elevator up to my floor, exited
(there were more English translations of the Maoist pamphlets in the rack than there had been
before), and went to my room.
The half empty quart bottle of beer from yesterday was still there, and I ordered
another, cold one. Then I sat down and lost myself in 3,000 words. I was writing on what we
did yesterdaybut not for the Times.
That morning all the media men, the NBC people, the Life people, said to Jairie and
Madeline and perhaps one or two others, Cmon, go for a bus ride with us. So they did, and
the bus went to Tian An Men Square. Turned out that the newsmen, at first, werent allowed
to photograph or record anything unless the Americans were with them. Thats why theyd
asked them to come along. But Jairie had already seen the Square. She wanted to go
shopping, wanted to just leisurely enjoy herself, maybe explore the downtownor more of the
downtown if thats where they were already. Jairie really didnt mind being used so long as she
wasnt bored. If I had their job, she said, I would have used someone too.
Later, Errol was approached by Miles. Dick wanted a roll or two of film and the use of
Errols heavy 16-millimeter camera. Dick offered him $100, Errol said. Then (teasingly?)
$500. But Errol was steady. I got 20 rolls, he said, and Im going to return 20 rolls.
Perhaps Howard had some film for Dick? In the beginning, he, very unselfishly, was
giving it out to everyone, as ifstrange new Teamit were one of his Captains duties. But
now, no. George Buben? But George didnt have enough for himself, had only half a dozen
rolls left. And so poor Miles seemed to be walking around sometimes in such a maze of
thought that (Where was he?) the door of this or that room came to look like his own.
As for Errol, though he held firm to his camera, he wasnt happy with it. Oh, he said,
the worst part of this trip is carrying that camera around. He had an 8-millimeter one too.
130
And when hed get back to Hong Kong, the UPI man
would take all that film as well. Which momentarily
caused a bit of a problem because Errol and Jairie had
an agreement to give up only Jairies Ballade book
that is, her diaryand Errols 16-millimeter film. Now
the UPI would also take Jairies snapshots and Errols
8-millimeter film. Regardless of what shots the Reseks
had taken, they ought to be worthsomething.
But UPI would do right by them. In the end, Jairie
would get a citation. Hers was the first voice out of
China, it would sayand that was true. Her contact man
would get to her before my contact man would get to me.
But now in Peking, Jairie was glad to see this
Schuman fellow take over. He was much more detailed
than she. Her UP man kept calling her, but shed never
call him back. If he caught her in, fine. But otherwise it
was just too much. She couldnt enjoy China with all
the pressure.
Soon a good part of the day went away and it
was
time
for the Friendship Matches.
The Chinese had the #1 Mens Team and the #2
Jairie couldnt enjoy China unless rid of
Womens
team in the world. We, if I had to say it, were
the pressure of being a reporter
th
ranked 28 in the Mens and 21st in the Womens.
Naturally it would have been easy for Chinaeven though her best Teams were in Japan on
tourto have humiliated us before 18,000 spectators in Peking, before 5,000 in Shanghai. But
they didnt. In fact, they were to make the scores absurdly close.
Psychologically, though, this wasnt helpful to our players. It really didnt matter in the
long run how well or how hard they triedany Team win, any individual win, would be
suspect, unsatisfying, a pyrrhic victory. Indeed, one sometimes didnt know how to play the
gamewhether to contribute to the exhibition or not. Nor did Jairies red book, ribbon in
place, give her husband any inspiration.
One big reason (and it ought to be obvious by now, even to the most innocent and
inexperienced) why the Chinese players were so much better than ours was that, like the
Japanese and the rapidly improving European teamsthe professionals, as opposed to the
amateurs, Alex Ehrlich had called them in Nagoyathey had a psychic strength, a sense of
purpose, that we representative Americans, a struggling bunch at best, did not have. (Recall
Cowan, for example, insisting he had no function.)
Our players had to pay their own way, or, on their own, find someone who, practically
out of the goodness of his heart, would want to sponsor them. But who, in the U.S., would
care about a ping-pong player? Every top U.S. players toughest opponent, the one who
would hit and drop him to death, was Anonymity. He was always in the Draw, always seeded
#1, and everybody caught him.
The insurmountable problem was that our players had to make a livingsince no living
was possible in Table Tennis. And if they didnt have jobs, they had better go to school, else
what future awaited them? A very good coach in Europe could make $30,000 a year. But as
for coaching in the States, forget itit was non-existent.
131
Players and officials involved in U.S.-China competition at Pekings Capital Stadium
Men and women share equal opportunity courts at Friendship Matches in Peking
132
Our players, beat before

they started, knew that they
couldnt hope to compete
against Asians and Europeans
who didnt have to get up at
4:30 in the morning if they
wanted to do their exercises or
run their 10 miles a day or get
their thousands of practice
strokes in before school or
office hours. They practiced not
as a Team but individually. Too
often even non-competitively,
whenever the opportunity
presented itself.
The Chinese, on the
other hand, were totally
dedicated. Table Tennis was
their Number One or Number
Two sport. Their players
worked at it, physically,
mentally, every day. To play
strategically was a full time
occupation.
President Steenhoven
and the other USTTA
dignitaries would be joining
Photo by Gene Trindl of Globe Photos.
Ting See-ling, Deputy
From Glenns The Book of Table Tennis, Grosset & Dunlap, 1972
President of the Friendship
Glenn takes aim, targets the Romance in the Chinese hearts
Association with Foreign
Countries, and other Chinese officials. (Maybe it was a difficulty in translation, but I always
had the feeling that such Associations were made up on the spur of the moment.) We would
be in a front box overlooking play. But I didnt want to go up there until I had to.
The American Team was dressed in their blue USA jumpsuits (in line under the stands,
Cowan was saying, Were like a professional basketball teamlike the Knicks coming into
Madison Square Garden) and the Chinese of course were outfitted in red. The two Teams
paraded out onto the arena floor, in single file, from opposite sides of the Stadium. When the
two lines met, Team Captain Howard held high the banner hed received from the Chinese
Captain; then the players entwined their hands in a symbolic gesture of Friendship, and
looked all around at the Great Helmsmans sea of greens and blues they seemed anchored in
(Man, did you ever see a crowd like this in the States!). They saluted those 18,000 strong
mostly conscripted soldiers (If thered been a 180,000 capacity stadium available, said
Howard, it would have been filled), then in unison marched off.
Immediately an announcement was made over the loudspeaker wherein the Chinese
expressed their concern for John Tannehill. We tender to him our sympathy and regards, the
voice said.
133
After this, while the spectators grew extraordinarily silent, about 50 men and women in
red jump suits started rhythmically jogging out onto the floor from various sides of the arena
in an intricate crisscross pattern, carrying the tables and green barrier boards to make the
courts.
Every one of us whod ever stumbled helping to lug a table was impressed by the grace
of these Chinese as, literally in a ballet, they danced in to accompanying music. Meanwhile, the
thousands in the stands picked up the contrapuntal claps of their red-suited fellows on the
sidelines.
Brathwaite remarked that it was more than a fine show, an imaginative entertainment
for the spectators. It was an inventive way for the workers to do that which, back in the U.S.,
had always been looked upon as drudgery of the worst sort.
Certainly this multi-level reasoning was typical of the Chinese. The balance, the
harmony, theyd exhibited in these few minutes before the matches started had all the
economy, the apparent effortlessness, the intensity of a haiku poemand as such it appealed
to me enormously. Unlike the matches, which were often unaesthetically fixed, this was
pure, precise.
And yet it was one thing to have the floor plan of the court laid out, to drill, to practice
until it all became mechanically perfect, and quite another to have to work with the variables
of players in actual matchesespecially our unpredictable players. Sometimes it wasnt so
easy to skillfully throw a necessarily close match even if you wanted to.
Now, as the end lights dimmed, play on the two centered courts began. Olga was up.
I hope the Mens match is so good they dont notice me, she said. But maybe shed do
better than she thought she would. I know she won a number of points because the umpire in
gray kept raising a clenched fist her way. The U.S. players were impressed. Theyd seen a
player do that, but never an umpire.
Cowan, on being called to play (Tomorrow Chou En-laiand what else? hed said
that was the mood he was in) dug deep into his bag and pulled out with his Yasaka racket a
red headband. This, said murmurs from the huge crowd, he took out to the table and put on.
The Chinese, watching him, were enthusiastic. They liked his colorthe way he spun
his racket between points, or blew on the ball before he served. They liked the way he clinched
his fists in a Cmon gesture. Or when he jumped over a barrier to retrieve a ball. Or even
when he casually put his foot up their decorum (theyve a sense of humor, they laugh) onto the
table to tie his shoe. (Harrison said, Why cant he do that before he gets to the table?) They
forgot whatever, if anything, they held against himbecause he was natural and had intensity.
The first game was a marvelous curtain raiserGlenn won it 28-26. Sometimes,
having set up a swirl of a forehand, he coiled round and swunglike, man, he was gonna
decapitate something out there. Once, on whiffing the ball, he stared (like Chuang?)
unbelievably at where he should have made contact but didnt.
Soldiers that looked like 20th-century robots saw a cavalierand for a moment they
were powerless, were captured; Glenn had caught the Romance in their hearts.
In the 2nd game, Cowan was ahead 16-12 when his opponent, who up until then had
been playing, as Glenn later said, legitimately, now deliberately fell back on defense allowing
the American to run the game out. Fuck you! said Glennand, no, there was no
microphone under the tableId have beat you anyway.
In his 2nd match, Cowan was playing a very good chopper. (Rufford, a few days before,
had said to that omnipresent, ever-smiling interpreter Mr. Wang, You people have done
134
something with these

choppers that no other
country has ever done
youve made them
aggressive choppers.)
Glenn had been on his
best behavior, even
going so far as to call the
racket rule against
himself, giving up the
point when the ball
going long had hit his
racket. Now in the
deciding 3rd game, he
was leading 20-19 match
point. He served, and
looped the return,
whereupon his expert
George peppered the Chinese with questions
Chinese opponent
chopped the ball under the table! (Which, against all that topspin must be quite a trick, huh?)
George (he was playing with an Armstrong one ply that hed picked up at Nagoya) was
also given warm applause when, in the course of winning a match, he made the sporting
gesture of indicating to his opponent that there were drops of sweat on his racket. George, I
think, appreciated the occasion, wanted to feel the hoped for weight of it, the intended
seriousness of this staged international match, more than any of the other players.
There was no fiercer competitor on our Team than George, no one fitter. He was not
just physically taut either, for though his tendency was to give a spontaneous smile or an
agreeable willingness to find humor in easing into conversation, he could exercise an iron
control over his thought. He was a serious fellow, desirous of being in command of self.
In the table tennis sphere in which he lived, he was the Henry Kissinger-like diplomat
of the day. He strove for Dignity, not Flamboyance. He was always impeccably, rather
modishly dressed, and, though generally reserved, was quite at home in social gatherings
where, if called for, he could and would voice strongly his independent opinions.
The Chinese professionals on the bench always played fair with himthey never
clapped solely for an exhibition point (though, diplomatically, George was willing to play that
gameeven enjoyed dramatically faking a vicious swing, then dropping the ball gently over
the net). The crowd applauded vigorously after he and his opponent had been top-spinning the
ball 60 or more timesand (it didnt make any difference who won the point) George took his
gentlemanly bow.
Earlier we thought that the men were going to win and the girls were going to lose
that our results would be the same as the Canadians. Now I think theyre switching on us,
somebody said. The men will lose and the women will win. Rufford walked over, wanted to
know exactly how close the Match was. Whos it depend on? he said. Olga?
Howard was our other mens player in action. Here, in contrast to Georges measured voice
sometimes politely refined out of existence, is Jacks own account of his match that, like the others,
was seen live on Peking television (800,000,000 people are watching us! said Glenn):
135
I got killed the first game, but, in the second,

the Chinese player suddenly seemed stricken with an
odd paralysis that would strike just as he hit the ball. I
resented this so much that I found I couldnt keep the
ball in play long enough to allow the Chinese player to
dump the game. Somehow with polite help from my
opponent, I struggled to a 20-19 lead, his serve.
He served ever so carefully, lest I should miss,
and I took, out of pique, a wild no-look smash at the
ball. I almost completely missed it, just nicking it with
the edge of my paddle. The ball floated up lazily, like a
butterfly, and landed, miraculously, on the table! My
opponent then proceeded to hit the ball 10 feet over my
head and 20 feet past me, so afraid was he not to lose
that game as per his orders. After exchanging a relieved
smile with his coach, he went on to crush me in the final
game.
Well, he won the close one
Even China-watcher Roderick, who thought at

first that the ball should bounce twice on the opponents
side of the table, knew a dump when he saw one. He would call Chinas winstheir Mens (53) over ours, their Womans (5-4) over oursan exquisite display of Chinese tact and
politeness to guests.
Exquisitethat praiseful word Vice-President Agnew objected to. And, ironically,
for a very different reason, so did I. Exquisite means, according to Webster (no, not the
Canadian reporterwho was the best writer, I thought, of the correspondentsbut the
dictionary): marked [sic] by flawless craftsmanship or by beautiful, ingenious, delicate or
elaborate execution. To those on the inside, the display wed just seen was not exquisite.
Towards the end of these celebrated Matches, play was getting a little dull, so every
once in a while somebody off-stage had to flash the lights on over certain sections in the
stands. This was an obvious signal for the soldiers to applaud, and they didsometimes with
gargoyle vigor even for the most routine points.
When the Matches were over (they ran about four hours on TV), the players
exchanged gifts in traditional fashion. The Americans (Tannehill, too, was not forgotten) were
given a Double Happiness racket and a box of balls. The Chinese received matching pen and
envelope-opener sets.
Connie, who, as Jairie remarked, was the only woman on our Team to walk straightback out to the courts (the teenagers slouched so), and who felt that one of the Chinese girls
she beat had really tried her best, was amazed at the orderly way the 18,000 people emptied
out. Had they, too, had a rehearsal?
Even President Steenhoven was tacitly to agree that the Matches werent exactly cutthroat. Said he to the press, We are sure they used this demonstration as a means of providing
their younger players with a chance to learn something from the American-type game.
I wonder if Graham, talking like this, could really look into his Chinese mirror and,
face-to-face, answer the question, What is an American-type game? Or, better yet, What
or who is an American?
136
At the evening banquet, the soldier (he was a

middle-aged guy I kept thinking of as a professional
football coachexcept that he didnt look that smart),
who Id had a comradely mao-tai bout or at least a
sparring session with on Sunday night, was there at my
table again. When I looked at him and raised the little
white wine glass to my beard and nodded, he raised his
too and drew back and drank, and then, instead of
aggressively thrusting his empty glass out at me as he had
previously, he set it down and looked at me like hed
never seen me before in his life.
Later I saw him glance at Miss Tang (she would
be the interpreter with Chou En-lai tomorrow, as she
would be when President Nixon visited China), and when
she nodded he took his turn at proposing a toastthat is,
he threw back his head and wolfed down some more
mao-tai.
Some time
The Asia Magazine, June 20, 1971
afterwards, Errol was
No friendly mao-tai bout this time
telling me that several of
these Chinese guys
seemed like professional drinkers, like they could drink
forever. Replying to this, Jairie said sarcastically, I hope your
Chinese friends see this. Its going down therein his notes.
Is that what you want? Do you want them to see that? But
Errol had only smiled and taken another sip of whatever it
was he was drinking.
Of course there were other Chinese who were not
drinkers. I remember one hooded-eye guy in priestly black,
an intellectual-type, I thought, who conveyed the impression
to me that the Americans were all bores. In looking like hed
just as soon leave this celebration and go back to his desk and
do some translating, he merely raised the requisite glass to his
lips, smiled, nodded, and soberly set it down again.
Errol smiled and sipped
Let us drink a toast to the Friendship of the
sportsmen and sportswomen of China and the U.S. a
Chinese official was saying. After which President Steenhoven tirelessly responded. This
warm welcome cannot go unanswered, especially when the table tennis players of China so
generously gave of their time and effort today. He also praised the interpreters who are as
equally skilled as the players. And thenthis surely must have been after Graham had been
plied with food and drinkhe had a good word for the press, the newsmen and photographers
accompanying us. I urge that they record for the world the spirit of goodwill between the
Chinese and American people.
After dinner I went up to my room and, tired, tried to polish the story Id begun
working on around 5 oclock that morning. In half an hour or so the phone rang. It was a
Times man from Tokyo. I started to explain Id put together a good long piece for himbut
137
he interrupted, said that yesterday had already been well taken care of by the wire services and
what did I have today?
I was stunned. I couldnt think. I couldnt remember a scrap of anything Id noted the
whole day. Nothing had seemed interesting. It was a bad day to ask about. Yesterday, the day
beforethese were good days to write about.
I didnt know what to tell him. It seemed unfair. Please, I said, I cant do anything
for you now. Im tired. Ive got to get organized. Call me back. In an hour. Give me an hour
or so. I kept thinking in terms of having to write a new piece. It never occurred to me he
might just want information, that I would dictate to him anything and let someone else write it.
The man way at the other end somewhere was very nice. He seemed to know exactly
what had happened, wasnt trying to pressure me at all. Still, he said, The only thing
important to me is what is current.
Miles was in the room and saw the look of despair I gave out. He knew how hung up I
was on the writing. Since we shared that same self-critical eye, he saw the trapdoor in my
psyche, opened it, caught a glimpse of the labyrinth underneath. Inside somewhere was the
dragon.
He saw how ill-equipped I felt I was for the journey I had to make.
You want me to do it for you? he said. Ill do it for you. It was absolutely
spontaneous, felt, meant. Unforgettable.
But I cursed a while and said, Noand then I settled down and an hour and fifteen
minutes later Id come out at the end of some dark passageway. Id been lost, had seen
nothing, had felt nothing. When the phone rang again I answered it and again it was the man
wanting anything fit to print. I started reading slowly and then suddenly I saw the dragon, the
Jabberwock. It was sitting opposite me. It was Miles, talking about the piece, offering a
suggestion or twobecause he knew, as I knew, the story was bad. I dont know what the
guy in Tokyo thought, but I screamed and brandished my vorpal pen, and, alright, alright,
Miles retreated back and out the door.
As I was into the last half of my article I heard Dick say to someone in the hall, I
dont know if hell see you. He just kicked me out. Twenty minutes later I opened the door to
findMr. Akioka, correspondent for the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun.
I told him I was sorry, to please come in. I was conscious hed overheard the end of
my dispatchthe walls were so thin they probably heard me all the way down the hall. But so
what. I felt much better for going ahead and having stumbled out of it all. My wife Sally was
later to tell me that, in the only picture flashed on TV of me in China, I was walking down the
railroad tracks with the others when all of a sudden I stumbled. Thats my husband, she said
ironically and laughed. But I thought it a perfectly representative picture. It didnt bother me. I
even enjoyed stumbling, so long as I could get back up. At this moment I seemed to have
stumbled into Mr. Akiokas arms.
Well, not quite. Mr. Akioka looked like anything but a prying reporter. Looked like he
already knew for certain what any prying reporter would find out about you and would use it
not to his but to your best advantage. He had come to see me, he said, only to make his
services available should I need them. That was very nice of him. How should I have reacted?
In return for his calling card, I thanked him.
Steenhoven, meanwhile, a few doors down, was venting, with eyes aflame, more than a
little anger of his own. Someone had shown him Websters story on Tannehillthe one
Norman had done yesterday as we were winding our way up to the Walland Graham felt,
138
and, as it turned out, Johns father felt, the boy was

being crucified. Here, in a UPI story, is what Mr.
Tannehill, back in Ohio, was quoted as saying:
He [John] is in the limelight and probably
doesnt realize it. He is good in Table Tennis, but he is
not aware at all of the overall effect of what he said
would have on himself and other people.I think the
American party over there should have more control
over what their people say.They [the news
organizations] look for something sensational and wild
to say. Then they will take an immature kid and quote
him.
Of course, as Webster would try to make clear to
Steenhoven, and as I afterwards confirmed, I was in
some way responsible. I guess I liked a good story at
anybodys expenseat least if I didnt think the price
was too high.
When Graham had called Webster at his office
From the Asia Magazine, June 20, 1971
and said he wanted to see him, Webster tried to excuse
John ... crucified?
himself, said he was pretty busy.
So then Graham, as if he might buy the Toronto Globe and Mail tomorrow , told him,
I dont care what time you get here, but Im not going to bed until you do.
All right then, Webster came. Walked past my room to Grahams. Paid, if not his
respects, his dues.
Youre proud of this story, are you? asked Graham sardonically.
Its a story, said Webster.
139
Chapter Seventeen
Another day, and, as usual, up early to be bussed about. All except Tannehill, and now
Brathwaite and Howard, who just wanted to stay in bed and take it easy this morning. Jack did
send a breakfast order though. He wanted orange juice and a roll of toilet paper.
As we drove down the cleanest Peking boulevard of whatever name, one of our girls
said she wondered what the Chinese did with their garbage. They dont have any trash or
litter, said Olga, because they dont have anything to throw away. They dont have gum, or
milk shakes, or anything like that.
Past the Museum of History.These government buildings, said Olga, they look
like they dont have any paint. After youre here for a while, it seems the only color in the
whole country comes from the Mao posters.
Past school children marching in their red kerchiefs to pay their respects to monuments
of pre-Mao martyrs at the Gates of Heavenly Peace.
Cowan was saying he just didnt want to complicate life. Not with politics, not with
anything. Im totally free of all politics, he saidI never get involved. And after this is
done, I never want to get involved. This is all bullshit anyway. Its all politics. All image.
Errol was talking privately to Jairie about Glenn. How could he represent the youth of
America? Hes a hippie.
I dont know what you classify him as, said Jairie. Hippies arent rude.
He doesnt represent the youth of America, said Errol. He doesnt represent
anybody. Just
himself. People
like him arent the
youth of America.
Hes a minority.
On out we
rode to the
Emperors
Summer Palace,
now a Peoples
Park. Three
fourths of the area
consisted of
Kwen-ming Lake,
where people
could go rowboating, and one
fourth The Hill of
Longevity (and its
environs) on which
rested the Pagoda
of the Fragrance
of Godthough
no incense burnt
Pekings Peoples Park (Summer Palace, 1960): Kwen-ming Lake,
there today.
the Marble Boat, the Pagoda of the Fragrance of God
140
The Yard of Harmonious Interest was there, and in we

went through a small doorway to an enclosed more weed-bed
lake than pool, lotus flowering in the summer. Around through
a zigzag, lake-circling pavilion of delicately garden-painted
archways we strolled and out through the ancient playing card
of a club design, past cypress and peach trees, berries and
peonies.
Up through the immaculately kept maze of winding
walks and trees, looking out, as we climbed, over to a story
book island and the 17-arch bridge that couldnt help but be
connected to it. On up to the top of The Hill of Longevity to
An unusual exit way
see in the west the solitary Jade Pagoda that stood
commemoratively over the once very clear spring, the original
source of Kwen-ming Lake.
Oh, this is Old China!
Olga said in delightas if, given
the choice, she would always live
in the past not the present. One of
the Chinese girls shed played
against yesterday, Chu Nai-chen
(they all seemed fascinated with
our girls long hair) was being
very friendly to her this morning.
It got Olga out of her depression.
You could tell a person really
enjoyed being with you, she said.
From Life, Apr. 30, 1971, 29
Olgas
long hair - admired?
You could tell it wasnt a fake
friendliness. Later Olga would
send the picture they shared in Life and a Hi letter, but then,
when the days went by and she didnt hear from her, they never
became pen pals.
And now (careful) winding down uneven stone steps
carved out of the steep hillside, through symmetricallycentered, tent-like pavilionsThe Hall of Benevolence, that
was onepast tusked gargoyles and four-clawed snarling lions,
hearing all the while excerpts from the Chinese opera, The Red
Lantern, the laugh of Lee Yu-ho, whom someone is deceptively
trying to take advantage of (Oh, no, my friend, you cant fool
me!), to come out finally from the labyrinth through King
Kong-studded doors.
Then, strolling the 700 meters of the Long Corridor, we
arrived at the Lake at the spot where rested the famous marble
boat of the last Empress Dowager of China. The peasants had
given her money to build a navy, the story went, but shed spent
the fortune on herself and built out of her scorn this fabulous
L-R: Lifes John Saar, Errol
boat that forever rocked the waves.
and his friend Chiu Yen-liang
141
Top: Peoples Park U.S.-China group picture at the Paiyuntien

(Cloud Dispelling Hall)
Left: From 1961 Peking Championships Souvenir Pictorial
Artwork of the Long Corridor
Right: Photo courtesy of Connie Sweeris
L-R: Judy, Connie, Rufford at the nefarious Marble Boat
142
You couldnt buy a trip

like this, said President Steenhoven
looking out from our luncheon boat
in the middle of the lake.
Its like Central Park, said
Connie who had taken how many
pictures to remember it all by.
Miles, drifting along with an
interpreter, said, Weve been here
for four days now, and youve
asked us for criticisms. Let me ask
you something. What do you think
of Americans?
The Chinese was nonPhoto courtesy of Judy Bochenski
committal.
About to have lunch on the lake
But Dick persisted, I
mean, in what ways do you find them peculiar? Have you ever seen an American before?
The Chinese looked Dick right in the eye. On the battlefield, he saidin the Korean
War.
After the lunch on charming Kwen-ming Lake we were bussed back to the hotel. Down
along tree-lined streets (so many trees planted everywhere) crowded with bicycles and pedicabs
(and there a street cleaner of a bicycle mop), in and out of
short-haul beast-of-burden transportation, horn honking at a
sleepy-looking old man who kept a fishing pole of a rein on
his slow-moving haycart.Everybodys always busy, said
Judy. Theyre never just sitting around.
Brathwaite hadnt shared this visit with us to the
Peoples Park, but, like Miles, hed had a conversation
with an interpreter.
I understand you work at the U.N.? said this
Chinese whod approached him.
Yes, said George.
Well, said the interpreter, I want to ask you a
question.
Yes? said George.
Would you think that China might be accepted at Yes? said George ... Yes? said George.
the next session of the General Assembly?
A little surprised perhaps, George was quick to point out that he himself had no official
capacity. However, he said, I would be optimistic about Chinas chances.
Then the interpreter said, If you were in an official capacity, would you vote for
Chinas admission?
George answered carefully. I would vote for all countries of the world to be
admitted.
He was never asked any political question again.
When wed had a chance to freshen up a bit and change our clothes for our
forthcoming meeting with Premier Chou, President Steenhoven called us all together into his
143
suite for a short briefing. Though most of us were not to take him too seriously on this (still, it
wasnt much of a joke to, say, Connie), he warned the men against reaching in their pockets,
or the women in their purses, when we were around the Premier because some security man
might think we were reaching for a gun.
The subject of Websters article on Tannehill was also brought upand dismissed by
Steenhoven. How can you answer any questions about it? he told us. You havent even
seen it, right? Which of course sounded logical.
Mr. Yu, the generally affable, happy to be alive and at peace with the world interpreter,
an innocent who wondered aloud to Miles if this frisbee Dick was talking about was as big
as a ping-pong table, had come to Peking from a commune, where working under the faraway
corners of the sky had got to do something more for a mans spirit than looking up from a
machine into the roof of a factory. This morning, however, hed come into our room
frightened and very indignant. Mr. Steenhoven was very unfair to me, hed said with
childlike innocence. I tell the truth. I am Chinese!
Mr. Yu had come into Miless and my room last night. He was being indispensably
helpful in arranging for our accreditation cards (soon he would be driving us to the
photographers studio). Graham heard us talking and didnt like it and apparently told Mr. Yu
so. Then he spoke to a Chinese official.
Graham was disturbed about our people making unreasonable demands on the Chinese
people, on the Chinese interpreters. From now on, said Graham, if any requests for services
were made by anyone in the U.S. party he wanted to hear about it.
Grahams primary concern was getting the Chinese to come to the U.S. And the
dragon he most feared, that which he felt he had constantly to be at the caves lookout for, that
might be seen coming out of the mouth of any one of us, was the monstrous figure of
Sensationalism that the Chinese didnt want near them. Graham was afraid that they would
decide Table Tennis wasnt the medium. In which case, he, rather than the Sport, would have
failed.
But Mr. Yus visit, Websters visit, would all be forgotten. Now Graham wanted to
make it clear that no matter what John said, he, John, was going home with the rest of uswe
were all going home together.
Later, Graham would say that if hed gotten a request from the Chinese government
asking John to stay, he probably would have agreed to it. Why not? Hadnt the Chinese
originally asked us all to stay longer? There was nothing wrong with anyone staying in China.
After the meeting I passed Roderick outside in the hall. He was sniffing around for
some news. Someone, maybe Schuman, maybe Miles, asked if hed seen my piece in the
Times, and he said, Yes. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. It was a good mood pieceand then, as if
hed gotten the scent, was off again.
I myself had just been shown a copy by Steenhovenand was dismayed by what
theyd done to it. For over an hour the guy in Moscow had painstakingly taken down my every
word, as if no matter how much it cost, or how long it took, my voice would be heard.
What a fool I was. Couldnt I see I just happened to be in the right place at the right
time? Couldnt I understand that they needed someone in the U.S. Group to gather up daily
details which anybody with half an education would have an I to give them? It was business.
Did they make an agreement with me that I should hide upstairs in my room and, trying to get
sentence after sentence right, fall asleep over my desk? What world did I think I was in? Wake
up. Writing wasnt what it was all about.
144
From out of that dream world of the past, the Summer Palace of the Manchu
emperors, we were to come this particular afternoon into the very presence of Chou En-lai. As
we walked slowly into the mammoth Great Hall of the People, Steenhoven, I remember (I was
right behind him), had carefully, conscientiously done a little shuffle to get in step with Mr.
Fang, the Chinese official by his side. Graham never looked backbut did he think the rest of
us would follow step? Or was he, at such a moment, conscious that anyone was behind him?
Tannehill, for instance.
John still wasnt feeling too well, but, yes, hed decided to join the Group to meet the
Premier. Its better than staying in bed and doing nothing, hed said. But I still cant get
anything to come out of my mind. Its just not working. Still, I can at least be up exercising.
Only thing was, he was going to the reception in a short-sleeved shirt, maybe even a Tshirthe didnt think about it. So after objections were raised (Harrison was aghast: How
could he even consider going dressed like that?), I loaned him my sport jacket and he looked
as presentable as Cowan.
If you want to know the truth, Glenn had told me earlier, my wardrobe is pretty
crummy. But thats all righthippies dont mind dirty clothes. Then he looked at me and
smiled, as if the irony were too private, too complicated to explain.
Connie had a momentary thought about what she was going to wearshed opted for
a dress, but it seemed appropriate. After all, it was the custom of her country, and she was not
Chinese, she was American and proud of itthough of course by not wearing slacks, or rather
trousers, she meant no offense.
This blocks-long Great Hall of the People was built in a near unbelievable 10 months
with both the design and the construction being carried on at the same time. The people
Pekings Great Hall of the People
145
worked on it, voluntarily, every hour of every day (I kept thinking like swarming ants), and
inside of 500,000 minutes the site was not what it used to be. The people of each province
decorated their room (a sculpture out of coal from Lion Province, out of cane from Kung),
so that, within, it represented them.
Said Jairieand I always had a great good feeling for her when she admitted to what
she feltYou cant put a value on the building because you cant buy a labor of love.
Up, up the long red-carpeted marble staircase we climbed, past elaborate light fixtures
on balustrades, under tasseled chandeliers, up, up into a slowly seen (at first only the sky, then
a snow-peak) gigantic, Himalyan-like painting of Maos poem Ode to Snow, the red sun
shown rising in the East. We came toward it and soon were in the ice and snow world of the
painting and beyond was the country of Shangri-laor so, for a moment, it seemed.
Then we were all led circuitously, via a tour of various Metropolitan Museum of Artlike rooms (Peking Room, Shanghai Room, Hall of Hunan) around to our meeting with the
Premier.
Howd you like to live in a place like this? said one of our players. Mao did? (Earlier,
Howard had asked an interpreter if Mao were dead or alive. The interpreter had turned
white, Jack said.)
Olgas comment was, This is how I picture the White House.
In the inner recesses, sometimes in glass cases, were all kinds of treasuresan ivory
tusk, an ivory fish, a bamboo carving, a picture made of bamboo thread, another threaded with
cotton and silk, a lacquer painting of two cranes (birds) that symbolized long life. There was
the Red Army crossing the Yangtze. And there, hanging in the forever-to-be-represented
province where the Saviour was born, a picture in which, no matter how you looked at it, from
whatever angle, in whatever part of the room, Chairman Mao was always coming toward you.
But Judy, on going by glorious rugs and tapestries and ornate carvings, said, Id
rather see the homes that the people live in. This palace isnt typical. Weve got gardens and
structures of all kinds in our country. Im not impressed with this.
There was the Grand Ballroomwith, set into the ceiling, its necklace of lights. Boy,
you could really hold a
tournament in here, said Jack.
When it came time, we
were ushered into the reception
salon to take our alphabetical turn
with the other table tennis players,
the Canadians, the Colombians,
the English, and the Nigerians,
each of us to shake the 73-yearold Premiers firm hand.
When later I looked at the
picture (twice we were given
commemorative sets of pictures)
the Chinese photographer had
taken of me so personally there
with Chouthis man of rare
From Ping-Pong Diplomacy Commemoration, 1997
sensibility, refined, intelligent,
Premier Chou En-lai shaking hands with
cultured, dressed in simple dignity
USTTA President Graham Steenhoven
146
Premier Chou welcomes visitors from Canada, Columbia, England, Nigeria, and U.S.
in the traditional gray, buttoned-to-the-top jacketI was immensely pleased that chance had
captured me with the Premier looking that directly into my eyes.
Still later, of course, I was disappointed to realize that he looked so attentively at
everyone like thatlong enough for more than one photographer to flash the truth of the
moment across the hometown newspapers and timely magazines of America.
After wed had our pictures taken, we were seated in our section of the circle along
with the other Teams. Tea, notebooks, pencils, wash cloths, cigarettes, matches, ash trays were
all provided on adjacent stands.
Premier Chou made some initial pleasantries, spoke with urbane, good-humored
understatement, made us feel relaxedyou know, as if he were enjoying himself. Except that
once when the microphone didnt work very well, he gave such a fast signal that it was
working again almost before he brought his hand down.
Olga felt the cold, hard strength in Chou. She felt he hated all Americans. All these
years hes been trying to destroy us. And when somebody asked her why he hated Americans,
she said, I dont care why.
Then, with the help of Interpreter Tang, the Premier began making the rounds. Canada.
Columbia. England.
Canadian Contingent, led by Marge Walden (second from right), is welcomed by Premier Chou
147
From the New York Times Magazine, Oct. 22, 1967
Premier Chou (R) playing Kwame Nikrumah, ex-president of Ghana, at Accra in 1964
Is there much snow in England? asked the Premier.

In the north, said Team Leader Charles Wyles, but not in the south where I live.
In 1921 I was in London.
Then you must come again. You would be most welcome.
Yes, said Mr. Chou. Fifty years have gone bya long time.
Nigeria.
Yes, everyone should go to Africa, said the Premier. Ive been to Africa, and people
should go there more often. We have an ancient Chinese saying, The four seas make for
home. And friendly people, he added, find a home everywhere.
Then he moved (Good thing they didnt invite Yugoslavia or Zanzibar, said Rufford),
climactically to US. Howard, for some reason, had been checking the time (10-12 minutes)
Chou was initially giving to each country, and, sure enough, it would be, as hed told the
Nigerians, We do not differentiate between countries big or small here.
The Premier asked our President if any of the Team had ever been in China before.
Graham said, No, none of us are familiar with China, but we have become familiar
with Chinese hospitality.
Mr. Chou said there was an old Chinese saying, What joy it is to bring friends from
afar.
Mr. Steenhoven replied, as if hed remembered a little proverb of his own, Good
friends can be found anywhere, and we would welcome the Chinese in the United States.
In the past, the Premier said, as several of us were scribbling madly away, many of
our American friends have been in China. Now you have made a start here in bringing more
friends.
The emphasis was on start, and Mr. Chou was making it quite clear that in the future
the people of the two countries would have constant contacts.
So now that hed paced himself with these low-key remarks, and thus assured us
indirectly that the New Bridge Hotel where we were staying couldnt have been more
appropriately named, he asked, Do any of the players or officials have any criticisms of their
hosts?
There was an embarrassing silence.
Then Graham said, I have a complaint.
And everyone was still more still.
148
Premier Chou addressing a question from the audience
Premier Chou with the U.S. Team in a formal portrait in which USTTA President Steenhoven
deliberately pays admiring homage to Chou as the picture is taken
149
Please? said the Premier.

You feed us too much, said Graham with a smile.
Well, replied the Premieras if he liked to talk in parablesyou should choose
from different foods.
We thought the hors doeuvres were the dinner. (Graham was talking about that
Sunday night when we first arrived.) Then 10 more courses followed. We had to eat them.
Your host should have shown you a menu in advance, answered Mr. Chou, so you
could have followed the courses.
There was a menu, said Graham, but we were so anxious to eat we didnt even read
it.
The Premier then went on to talk not about U.S. aggressors and all their running
dogs (Is it true, as Ive heard, that the vegetable-loving Chinese dont like the smell of those
all-devouring meat-eaters from the West?), went on to talk not about monsters of the U.S.
government, but about how the Chinese people wished to convey their regards to the U.S.
people.
Exchanges between our two countries have been cut off for a long time, Mr. Chou
went on to say (he himself had never been in North Americanor does he know if his
constitution will ever permit him to go there), but now with your acceptance of our
invitation, you have opened a new page in the relations of the Chinese and American people.
I am confident that this beginning again of our friendship will certainly meet with the approval
and support of the great majority of our two peoples.
(Next day Presidential Press Secretary Ziegler would make a mirrored response.
There is no question about the fact that the initiatives of President Nixonin relaxing the 20year-old trade restrictionshave turned a new page in our relations with China.)
Then, in speaking of the possibilities of visits by more American newsmen, who
would be let in in batches, Premier Chou said, Mr. Roderick, you have opened the door.
To which Roderick replied that the presence of U.S. correspondents could but lead to
a deeper understanding between the two countries.
No doubt.
Mr. Chou also singled out Jonathan Sharp, Anthony Greys successor. (Grey was the
Reuters man, that prisoner of the Communist Chinese my wife said did nothing but watch the
ants.) Sharp was the correspondent I was supposed to have contactedthough today a Times
man in Moscow would be waiting for my call immediately after the reception and banquet.
Sharp drew the following comment from the Premier:
I should say that sometimes the news that you print reflects correctly the news
from the mainland of our country. But some of your news does not come from the
mainland.
Still, though the Premier hadnt always liked what Sharp had said, he himself had
selected him for this assignment. What did that mean? That he believed in trial and error if the
reporter were sincere? I hoped so. I always like the idea of a fellow getting another chance.
Now, the Premier said, the floor was open. Any questions?
There was another embarrassing silence. Graham, I said, Id like to say something.
Steenhoven hesitated, looked at me like Id better know what I was doing. Hed seen
me say, do, some rather improper things. But, o.k., he handed me the mike.
150
I wanted to pay an honest compliment. I told the Premier that, climbing those steps
and slowly seeing that Snow picture set back on the wall opposite the top of the stairs, was
like coming into a heaven of poetry.
He seemed not to have anticipated such a reaction. (He couldnt be offended by art
taking the place of religion, could he?) He nodded vigorouslyI thought, if youll forgive me,
a little wild-eyedand said, with the proper modesty, You over-praise it.
Did I? I thought afterwards. I knew his reputation as an intellectual, and it occurred
to me that, for all his obligatory humility, he might, ironically, have indicated a far better taste
than mine.
Miles now was ready. Im Dick Miles from Sports Illustrated, he began, here as a
journalist and a player
Whats your question? said the Premier.
Dick had been turning it over in his mind for some time. Do you think Chou En-lai
would answer a question on Table Tennis? hed said to us. Hed been repeatedly asking
himself this so much it made me think the question had nothing to do with Table Tennis.
According to Roy Evans, the ITTF President, whom Dick had quoted in his Sports
Illustrated article on the World Championships, Premier Chou had suggested that Table Tennis
might not be the fastest game in the worldthat Badminton or even Volleyball might be faster.
Was this true?
Chou answered, I didnt compare them so simply.
But speaking of Table Tennis, said the Premier, though Im advanced in age, I can
still playbut thats the only sport I am able to. I play slowly, and to hold a bat is not so
strenuous. From Evanss point of view, its a strenuous gameyou have to have quick
reflexes, be able to run. But then of course Evans is the International Table Tennis Chairman.
Team Captain Howard had heard each of the delegation leaders from other countries
urge the reciprocal visit of a Chinese Team. Not having any information to the contrary, he felt
that President Steenhoven was missing the opportunity of a lifetime. He felt a sense of
responsibility. Mr. Chairman, he said to Premier Chou (the title is reserved for Chairman
Mao), could not the Chinese Team visit the U.S. so that we could return the graciousness
youve shown us here?
Chou answered, That decision lies with the head of your delegation. Dont you
agree?
Yes, said Mr. Steenhoven with a wink.
Now Cowan (still another aggressive American?) wanted to say something. He asked
what the Premier thought of the Hippie Movement prevalent in the United States.
Of course it must be about as hard to catch Mr. Chou off guard as it would be to catch
him in a lie. Mr. En-lai. The ideas absurd. No, it just wouldnt happen. Hes too worldly-wise.
You would have to reach the stronghold of his Imagination, find him vulnerable there.
Practically speaking, as Miss Tang translated and he sometimes corrected her, I was finding
out that he could handle the English language quite well. But it was better she did the
translationthat way he had more time to think.
The Premier said that he wasnt very clear about it but that he was willing to offer
some superficial opinions. Perhaps, he said, youth is dissatisfied with the present situation.
Youth wants to seek the truth, and so out of this search various forms of change are bound to
come forth. Thus, this is a kind of transitional period, and the Movement cannot be said to
have a final form.
151
Would that Glenn as spokesman for the young could take this message personally back
to President Nixon. Already hed heard enough. Hed take on the job.
Youth must go through different practices in different things, Mr. Chou was saying.
Must try different kinds of ideologies. When we were young, it was the same too.
And then, apparently, like anybody else, the Premier thought of Glenns hair. He had
met long-haired youths before, he said, one from England and one from Japan.
Glenn, never one to let appearances be, hurried to make the point that what was going
on in the Hippie world was the product of deep thought. It goes a lot deeper that what comes
across on the surface, he said.
We agree (it was like a King talking to a Childe) that young people ought to try
different things. But they should try to find something in common with the great majority
remember that.
Then without moving his head he turned from the Platonic Cowan, symbolic student of
the world, to the other, the one made of corrupt matter, the ping-pong player who, only at the
very last minute, had made a spot for himself on the 28th-ranked team in the world.
Howd it go? said the Premier. But of course he didnt say it like that, he was careful
of his words. He was sure that Glenn had not played badly.
And Glenn, to his credit, with a smile and a shake of his head, replied, I could have
done better.
To which the Premier said, I wish you progress.
Then Mr. Chou was talking like the poet Shelley. The Revolutionary Spirit must be
transformed into material force before the world can move forward. Except that Shelley, I
dont think, had such confidence in the unimaginative masses and so would never in the world
say what Mr. Chou was now coming back tothat the Guiding Spirit of Revolutionary
Theory came from the masses, was brought forward from practice, practice, practice, and
would progressively be returned to the masses.
All right, captive audience or no, the Premier knew it was time to bring the reception
to a close.Goodbye. His abstractions floated away, never to be picked up by the Times.
152
Chapter Eighteen
After wed had another ambassadorial banquet, I went back to the hotel and dictated
my Chou En-lai notes into a telephone of the Times. Then, as if a very heavy burden had been
lifted from me, I looked out the window and felt the breeze and dreamed for a moment in the
spring sunshine of being (perhaps it was not too late) a correspondent in some equally strange
out of the world capital.
Then I was back in Peking, ready for a night at the opera. Outside, the buses were
honking; inside, my only frame of reference was that imbecilic look on Harpos facethat and
the fact that he honked.
The name of the Peking Opera we saw was Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. There
was a simultaneous translation available to us, but I didnt like having the earphones on. I
could understand a good part of it without that noise in my head. The singing, the dancing, the
acting, the comic reliefall of it was highly stylized, precise, dramatic, ritualistic. There were
realistic stage effects (the wind curled a flag), an artful manipulation of the props (the casual,
deceptive move of a necessary stool), make-up and costumes appropriate for the actors (the
villain with his whip of a riding crop wore something resembling a U.S. army officers uniform
out of the 40s; the derring-do hero a mountain-white cape of camouflage).
Here in the inner make-believe of Peking was all that color Olga found lacking in the
drab outer reality of the city. At the end of the performance, all the actors came to the front of
the stage waving their little red books in time to the music.
Howard asked an interpreter if the Tiger in the title referred to Paper
Tiger? (And therefore the U.S. imperialists and all their running dogs
as if suggesting that the
U.S. might be taken
from within.) Oh no, he
was toldthere really
was a Tiger Mountain
and it had been the scene
of an historic siege. Yes,
Jack supposed so, but
probably a hundred other
mountains had similar
histories. Why pick this
one with the name
Tiger? The interpreter
didnt know. He said the
leaders had thought it
best. Note, said Jack, the
interpreter had said the
leaders not the
composers.
Never mind if it
was all blatantly MarxistU.S. Team entering Great Hall to see the modern revolutionary Peking
oriented art, it was how
Opera Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy.
they took Tiger
Inset: From Canadian Table Tennis News, July, 1971, 24
153
Mountain that was so captivating. Never in any action movie of my childhood when I was
most excited had I seen a wall-climbing, into-the-enemys-last-private-stronghold fight of a
finale like this! Never in my life have I been held by such an acrobatic, sword-wielding, multitumbling, feet-flying, arm-flailing serious circus act of discipline and timing!
For five final minutes it appeared that any one of 15 people could be maimed or killed
by that stage-center sword. Of course, coming so soon from that Great Wall as I have, I know
you think I might be romanticizing this performanceafter all, it was all illusion. Yet, what can
I say? I cant be any more convinced even now that that sword, with that companys sense of
professionalism, was reala sword to reckon with.
In the morning we were to depart for Shanghai, but it was apparently very difficult for
us all to just walk out of the hotel, board the bus, and go. Maybe were just sleepy, but nobody
seemed able even to get out of his room without leaving something behindand when that
happened, our Chinese chambermen would come running with the object in hand.
Cowan and Tannehill, in particular, were having a hard time getting themselves
together. Glenn had been trying half-heartedly to make some order out of the chaos within his
walls by building a sloppy bonfire-like pile in the center of his room. I wandered in to watch
this ritual and soon picked out of the heap what looked to me like a perfectly new pair of
playing shorts.
Hey, Glenn, I said, youre not throwing these away, are you?
Yeah, he said, I havent got any room for them in my suitcase.
Then he was ready to go. I quickly raked up the remaining debrispapers and broken
souvenirsstuff hed picked up or had given to him as far back as Nagoya, and put it all
together into the little pile that was being left on the rug for the waste-minded Chinese.
Actually, Glenn wasnt in any real hurry to leave. He liked this big hotel. Downstairs in
the kitchen, they made you ice-creamand you could go back for doubles, even triples. And
since there was nothing to do at nights, quite often he found himself just wanting to eatit
was a welcome diversion. At such times, part of him said, Just get through it. The other part,
maybe as he was eating the cone, said, Just try and enjoy it.
In the lobby, two chambermen came running up to John with dirty underwear,
Glenn wasnt the only one

who enjoyed a cone at this
hotel, right, Madeline?
What a VIP hotel room might look like after we left it

154
crumpled handkerchiefs, and a T-shirt, all of which he absent-mindedly took and began stuffing
into his pockets.
When we left the hotel, all who remained applauded.
On the way to the airport, Jairie said to Errol, Lets see a smile on your face.
You want to tickle me? he replied. But he wasnt smiling.
A smile on your face would do wonders.
And rest, too, said Errol.
In and out of those purposeful white-gloved cyclists we rode, past lines at bus stops
like columns of soldiers.
Said Miles to Cowan, Im going to ask you a question.
Said Cowan to Miles, I aint gonna answer it.
No, come on, said Dick, for the record. How
much money do you want to cut off your hair?
Glenn didnt know. Prodded by Dick, he thought
maybe $20,000 for a crew-cut for one year wouldnt be
enough.
Thats an exorbitant amount, said Dick, and
laughed.
But Glenn didnt think it was so funny. Youre
asking me to put my principles on the line, he said.
Cmon, said Dick. You come cheap.
Are you trying to show me you have values? Glenn
said, half sneeringly.
Well, said Dick, for that kind of money
Dicks a dick?
cash, tax freeId buy a hell of a nice wig, Ill tell you
that.
Somebody was looking out the window. Take a look at those kids, he said. This
high. Fantastic. They were playing guerilla games, like kids anywhere with toy guns, on what
looked to be an obstacle-cratered playground.
Soon Miles had gotten Tannehill and Cowan together. Or maybeGlenn never sat still,
was always up and moving abouttheyd done it themselves. Anyway, Dick and I were
listeningrecording.
John said that Glenns ego didnt allow him to feel any responsibility for other people.
To which Glenn replied, I have no ego and I realize Im not responsible.
Are you going to vote? asked Miles.
Of course, said Glenn.
Did you get out and work for peace candidates? asked Dick.
No, said Glenn. Causes are bullshitno, theyre not bullshit, but, well, thats a
whole new area. I work for peace candidates in my daily life by relating to everyone. Every
day Im working for peace candidates. Wearing this shirt Im working for peace candidates.
More than John ever does.
Miles, for one, was not so convinced.
Millions of Chinese have see it, said Glenn. Millions of Americans are going to see it.
Just wearing it, said Dickdo you think thats enough?
You can never understand, said Glenn. Just by talking with you, with John, Im
working for a peace candidate.
155
No, you arent, said John suddenly. Not unless you create something in the other
person.
Now John began getting into a criticism of the Hippie Movement. I like hippies, he
said. I like yippies. They just cant do anything for society. They dont have any critical or
independent thinking. The hippies all agree with each other. Theres no disagreement. Theres
no critical thinking. Every time I criticize Glenn, for instance, he wont allow it. His
personality stays intact.
The idea of Glenns personality not staying intact was something that didnt appeal to
him. Hed done pretty well with it so far. Had won two National Junior Championships
which was two more than John had ever won.
Its the same thing with the Jesus Movement in California, Tannehill went on. Its
just like a fraternity. Like theyre all going around saying this is Jesuss way. This is the ideal
way. Christs got the answer. Ive got the answer. Life is very simple.
To Tannehill life wasnt very simpleand because there were complications you had so
many people on drugs. Take Glenn, for example.
Drugs help me think, said Glenn. Every time John gets stuck, he attacks me for
drugs. You have a million crutches, John. Everybody has crutches.
Then Tannehill began talking about how drugs provided the dreams for youth. Glenn
needs dreams, he said. Because hes a product of a society where the dreams are taken away.
I do escape in drugs, said Glenn. I choose to because they give me a world that fits
my needs.
You escape into another reality, said Tannehill. But is it better than this one?
At the airport we had breakfast, and afterwards everybody sang Happy Birthday to
George Brathwaite. (Since this was Income Tax Day there were some feeble explanations to a
Chinese or two of just what that meant. In China, said an interpreter, no individuals were
taxed.)
As if one of our waiters were one of our Chinese opponents, or as if we were intent on
symbolically showing that one man was as good as another, we gave him one of our
ubiquitous Parker pens.
Our interpreter
looked as if he didnt
approve. Maybe he hadnt
yet gotten one himself?
Errol had gotten a
coaching tip or two from Xu
Shaofa, and Chiu Yen-liang,
Errol and Jairies friend, had
gone to the trouble of
personally making what he
called a Gold Cup racket for
Errol. It consisted of two
layers of sponge, the
underlayer of which (it
needed to be change every
eight months, said Chiu) was
different from ours, so much
Xu Shaofa giving Errol a racket-angle tip
156
more practical in that it didnt stick to

the racket, didnt need to be scraped
off. Errol and Jairie were moved by his
thoughtfulness. Jairie said, Sometimes
during this visit I wish I had the words
to tell the people how much I enjoyed it
here. Later, Errol would send Chiu a
racket in return, and they would each
sit down and write a letter to one
another before Chiu would come to the
U.S. the following spring.
A number of the Chinese players
showed up at the airport to wish us
offand our girls particularly were
pleased that the Chinese girls had come.
Maybe Jairie hasnt the words, but she sure has the smile In general, I couldnt bring myself to
think of the Chinese as friends, or to
call them friends. Aside from some very good feelings I had about an English-speaking
Chinese or two (I liked that Mr. Yuliked his I tell the truth. I am Chinese!), I had no fond
vibrations about the people I from time to time shared a banquet table or otherwise came in
contact with. I didnt see them as opponents either. I recognized those whod treated us so
courteously, so hospitably, as like men and women anywhere, some different from others. I
just knew it wasnt right for me to use their metaphor of friends.
President Steenhoven made a speech in which he thanked the Chinese for being so
openhearted in teaching and showing our players many valuable things about the game.
(Which were? I wondered.) Then we went out and got into our Russian-built plane, and I sat
down opposite Tannehill and we were off to where people had been shanghaied to.
Soon John had abstracted his head into an article from the Peking Review entitled the
Momentous Struggle on the Question of Identity of Thinking and Being. Then he was out of that
and saying to whoever happened to be listening that Graham was glad that Tannehill had gotten
sick because then John couldnt come out with any more statements.
In order to be good, John would tell me later, you had to be hated, and thats why
he was hung up, because the only people who would hate him
were the Americans, and thats why hed said those things about
China. (If he lived in China, he wouldnt have to face those
Americans who hated himbut he didnt want to be hated by
them, even if it meant he was good?)
True, Cowan didnt hate him, but John was disgusted
with Glenn. Glenn was going to lay his long-haired hippie thing
on the Chinese, was going to bring Hippiedom to Chinalike
he was a missionary, like he was Jesus Christ himself come
back. As for himself, he was a fool to think he could know
much about China after only a few days. Anyway, now he was
committed to returning home. The Chinese wouldnt like a
player to be left behind anyway. It wouldnt look goodworld
opinion would be against it.
157
Chapter Nineteen
Coming down into the Rainbow Bridge Airport at Shanghai (they didnt make up those
connecting names just for us, did they?), we were enlivened by a band, a four-piece pongodrum combo (Boom! Boom! Boom! went the red-tasseled cymbal). Reminds me of the
Salvation Army, said George Brathwaite.
Smiling, friendly-looking people were clapping out a rhythmic welcome. Was it just my
imagination or would there be, in the last two days of our trip, coming south as we did from that
dry, dirt-hard, sometimes wind-obscuring view of Peking, a springtime thaw among those greeting us?
On the short drive in from the airport, our psyches were restored, given new life, our
spirits lifted with the breeze. We felt, I felt anyway, newly baptized by the sea-spray of the
green waves all around us. Peking had been so barren.
At roadside men and women were working with water and fertilizer buckets, and the
familiar Mao-badged young marchers could be seen hiking to nearby sun-filled communes to
see what life in the field was all about. We went oppositeon into Shanghai proper (where
there used to be a sign in Whampoo Park saying, Chinese and Dogs, Keep Out!).
Unbelievably, I thought I
heard the tolling of a bell.
And though it may in some
mysterious, unknown way
have been tolling for me,
heard only in my head, it
wasnt a mournful knell, it
had the seaport ring of life
in some bustling, varied
old afternoon of a dream.
Top: Workers pouring water

into fertilizer buckets
Bottom: Mao-badged
children marching to see
what Shanghai commune
life is all about
158
The famous Shanghai Waterfront Bund with its Posterboards
L-R: Olga, Judy and Connie had been off limits at the Bund Posterboards?
They dont look the least bit worried about facing the firing line of this pro-North Vietnam poster
159
And I felt I was almost home. The mood I sensed here was as recognizable, as familiar to me
as that which Id felt coming into Conrads Archipelagowhere all seemed compellingly
romantic, and, because I wasnt really there, safe.
We were put up at the Ho Ping Hotel. Ho Ping meant Peace, and again I was teased by
the unexpected connections in the language. Hoping to connect, to bridge differencesthat was
our diplomatic mission. Given keys, some of us quickly bunched into the first assigned room that
looked out onto the Bundthe famed Shanghai waterfront.
Down below, in an alleyway, middle-aged workers were being lined up and led through
calisthenics by a drillmaster. George Buben (Get your hand out of the way, George! said his
wife) who, perhaps mindful of his assigned duties, had his camera out as eagerly as the others.
George thought that today was the 17thwhich was the day we were to leave China.
It is not the 17th, said Madeline. Shed gotten a shot or two of Vitamin B-12 for her
shingles (the Chinese doctor had tried to reassure her, had told her, Dont worry. Unless the
rash circles all around, you wont die)but of course she hadnt been comfortable the whole
trip. Dont you know what day it is? she said to George.
He answered, Can I help it if I made an error?
I sympathized with him because I, too, had often lost all track of time. I wasnt
wearing a watch, and naturally there were no newspapers or news programs or anything else
to remind me of the world I might have needed a watch in. The only commitment I had now
(one reason why I felt more alive?) was to give the Times one good-sized piece when I got out
of China. Whether I myself would write this, or, as was likely, just dictate it, Id continue to
note on scraps of paper whatever I instinctively thought was revelatory and stuff them into my
cellophane sack.
Though there was going to be a luncheon banquet (Hospitality, said Premier Chou,
should not be answered in words but with deeds), Miles and I decided we had time to take a
quick walk on the Bund. It was a nice stroll by the waterfront, looking out at those gray,
shark-fin sails, then walking slowly back alongside a block-long rectangular Board of notices
and posters. There were lines and lines of print on this Board, along with the poster-pictures
one, for instance, of some guys with a machine-gun, a rifle and bayonet, and a hand-grenade
(the kind of poster I used to see outside some cheap movie house when I was a kid).
Somebody had said reading the Board was like reading a daily newspaper.
There, as curious passersby stared at us, we were struck by, had self-consciously to stop
and inspect, a cartoon, a caricature, of a pygmy-size Nixon being knifed, pinned down by a giant
Chinese. When we got back to our hotel, we found that wed been off-limits, that no foreigner was
supposed to have been in that forbidden area, at least no foreigner with a camera.
Jairie was pleased that her Shanghai hotel room was much better than the one in
Peking. There was more hanging space, a bureau and a dressing table. In the bathroom, a
comb and brush, a shower curtain, thicker towels, and toilet tissue. She was very much
impressed by a full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom doorwhich she looked at
repeatedly.
Lunch was ready, so we took our seats. This time, though, we had to find our
nameplates. There were a great many Chinese joining us. Oddly, in front of my table place
rested the sole menu. (Or maybe not so oddly, come to think of it. I was the Vice-President. If
anything should happen to Steenhoven, if he couldnt carry on, I would have to be doing what
he was doing.) The outside cover of this menu showed a guy in a barbershop getting a haircut.
Strange graphic. But maybe appropriately placed after allI could use it as a prop for a start160
Boggan and the Bubens - and what a selection!
Connie: had rehearsed what to say,

and said it
up conversation. Since my
beard, my hair, was getting more than a little wild, I showed the menu to my host. Pointed to
the picture and then to myself, pulled my whiskers, and said, This guys me! My hair needs
cutting too!
To which he said (Gan-bei!), Ill drink to that.
Mother Sweerisor so she fancied herself after sharing that room in Peking with Olga
and Judy for several daysjust could not stand the thought of another banquet. She would do
anything, she said, for a hamburger. But then she began giving herself a little pep talk. Cmon.
Calm down. Youve got to pull yourself together. Cant back down now. Youve got to set an
example for the girls. Still, the food was too much to take. She carefully rehearsed what she
wanted to say. And when the time came she said it. Thank you, but Id rather not have it.
Heretofore shed done her best to nibble a little at all those things she didnt like. There
was something (it must have gotten lost in translation) called a monkeys headwhich
George Buben thought was slimy squid but which was really tree bark. Though it seemed like
that was what you might have had to eat lost in a jungle and not at a civilized banquet.
Occasionally Connie had been surprisedeveryone is sometime or other. Those 100year-old eggs, for instance (theyd been buried underground or covered with mud or clay until
theyd blackened)they looked horrible but didnt really taste too bad. But the doves eggs
that she thought were potatoesthey were deceiving in just the opposite sense.
Hes a bad egg, one of the girls had saidsometimes we say that.
One of the Chinese replied, We have a similar expression.
Hes a good eggsometimes we say that too.
We dont say that, said the Chinese.
With Connie it was all she could do, just to be nice, to take a sip from her small glass
of mao-tai. Here she tells us her reaction:
When I took a sip of the drink, a funny expression came over my face. The
alcohol burned all the way down my throat. The talk quickly spread around my table
161
that I did not drink alcohol. Everyone began to laugh and say, Ganbei, Ganbei, which
meant Bottoms up. I said, No! No! Then the Chinese took my glass and poured it
into an ash tray and lit it with a match. Of course, the flame rose up from the ash tray. I
asked what the drink was called and they laughingly responded, White lightning!
As for Olga, she would always drink as much as she could. Just so she wouldnt have
to taste the food. But you couldnt drink orange soda all the time, so she went to wine. And
then, obligingly, as soon as shed taken even a sip, they filled her glass back up. She thought
all the Chinese sincerely nice (People are people inside, she said), but she didnt like it that
the Americans were split up two to a table.
After the meal was over, the Americans were taken to a Friendship Store. Had not our
President announced on his arrival, I dont know what youve got planned for Steenhoven,
but hes going shopping.
Wed been to such an East is West establishment a few days before in Peking, and,
right to begin with, the question of our U.S. currency had come up.
It was Mr. and Mrs. Steenhovens custom that whenever theyd visit another country
they would bring back a souvenirsomething specifically theyd sought out, that wasnt
thrust upon them just by accident. What, thought Graham, would be more appropriate than a
Chinese dress for his wife, Dolores. However, none of us had any yuan, and American
currency was illegal. Nor were the Chinese willing to just then and there at the hotel make an
exception and cash even our Presidents American Express travelers checks.
Do you have any Japanese money? our host had asked him.
No, we didnt.
One way out of this dilemma was for the Chinese to offer us each $50 spending money.
But the Great Presbyter knew all about when to accept or not accept the favors of a
friendespecially in a case like this. He spoke with integrity, with conviction. He acted like an
American ought to act. He said, Well accept your hospitality, but we wont take your
money. And most in our Group agreed, though theyd heard that at least one delegation, the
Canadian Team, had each taken $12 worth of yuan from the Chineseconsiderably less of
course than the $50 worth offered us. (Which meant what? That the Chinese had heard how
willing we aggressors were to spend our dollars and didnt want to insult us? But that theyd
gotten us all wrong?)
Our Chinese host went away troubled; hed consult with others. (Howard was saying
that hed noticed how the Chinese couldnt think for themselves, make decisions for
themselves, but had always to go off and talk with others. It was for him a fault. As for me, I
wasnt so sure.)
The Chinese official returned. Would it be all right, he said, if we loan you $50
each? Then you will be able to repay it tomorrow when your money will be accepted.
This was o.k. Jairie Resek and I, however ($50 spending money wasnt enough for us),
had managed to get into the Bank of China, a branch of it, away from the hotel, near the
Friendship Store, that night. After hearing a statement of protest, to the effect that this U.S.
government money was unacceptable to The Peoples Republic of China, it was, in this case,
as an exceptional favor, acceptedbecause, as the girl behind the counter said, Our people
are friendly to your people.
What the hell do they have a bank for? said an Americanthough it wasnt Errol in
his Chemical Bank jacket. Are people encouraged to save up thousands of yen? (He meant
162
yuan. Yen, of course is a Cantonese word meaning craving, from which we get our
English word yen.)
Graham could not find the right kind of dress for his wife either in Peking or
Shanghaishe took a small size. Mr. Fang (pronounced Fong I believe now by Steenhoven,
though hed taken to calling him affectionately My Leader) was sympathetic.
So sympathetic in fact was heand here I must get a little ahead of myselfthat at
7:30 the next morning, on our second and last day in Shanghai, he unexpectedly appeared in
Grahams suite, along with another Chinese official, two interpreters, two tailors with bolts of
red and gold silk under their arm, and two girls approximating Dolores Steenhovens size.
What kind of color did Mr. Steenhoven want? What kind of sleeves, please?
Why, said Graham amazed, why, Mandarin, of course. And three-quarter sleeves.
Then, without touching the girls, the men in cloth took their measurements.
Two dresses would soon be forthcoming, they promisedas gifts. But Graham
wouldnt hear of that. He insisted on paying for them. He wanted a bill, he said, showing labor
and material. (This later to be framed someplace in his Detroit office for all good working-men
to admire.) And, he said, the tailors must accept gifts.
As it happened, though, the Chinese have an aversion to accepting giftsor so
Graham was told. Once hed tried to give his driver a pen.
Dont, said the interpreter. Youd offend him.
Offend him? said Graham surprised.
Because, said the interpreter, he cant write.
Now, though, Graham was resolutethe tailors took away their pens.
Later, at the airport, just before we were to leave for Canton, the dresses were
deliveredalong with two small gift boxes. Graham was learning, perhaps, why some people
had an aversion to receiving gifts. An old Chinese custom had it that a gift given promised
another in return. It only looked like you were getting something for nothingyou never did.
After Graham had returned to the U.S. and told his dress story (how many times would
he tell it? in always the same way?), people generally asked, How much did the dresses
cost?Were they really made of silk?And, perhaps most important of all, Did they fit?
Naturally my account wouldnt be perfectly accurate unless I satisfied everybody by answering
these questions.
The dresses cost about $15 each. No, they were not made of true silk but of rayon
satin. And they had to be a little bit taken in in the waist, and the shoulders needed padding.
But I was speaking before of shopping in a Friendship Store. Ive no intention here of
cataloguing what every person in our U.S. Group bought or said at such a store. Errol made
the first purchase in Shanghai (a pair of shoelaces); Olga may have made the first remark to a
salesgirl (The materials very colorful. Why arent there women wearing dresses made from
it? The girl had answered, Sometimes in the summer the women wear brighter clothes,)
Selection was obviously important here. Still, I thought you might like to see some samples of
the Teams off-the-shelf acquisitions.
Connie Sweeris didnt care if she bought anything or not. All that stuff in the Friendship
Store, she said. All those silk goods and stuffthat wasnt typical of China. That wasnt what
was in peoples homes. In Japan they use all those goods, they still follow their old traditionslike
in the geisha dances. But in China the old gods are dead, the old culture is gone. She wanted
something that would represent what China meant to me. So she bought only a handkerchief or
two with sewed-in little emblemsof a ping-pong table and two players.
163
Connie said that when we

went into a Friendship Store it
was like everybody going into a
big candy store. Maybe she was
right. Glenn, for instance, bought
a number of items: a longsleeved, blue woolen shirt with a
zipper up the middle (something
that looked like both a sweatshirt
and a lounge shirtappealing
perhaps to his idea of combining
business with pleasure?); a kit of
oils; a sweater; face cream; a
blanket; a big woolen quilt;
perfume; a wallet; dishes and
cups; a handkerchief; ping-pong
rackets; and a plain white blouse
for a big-busted womanin
short, $90 worth. And so had to
give up the fur coat he might have wanted more than any or all of the other things. Im here,
baby, he saidas if to the woman behind the counter with an abacus. Im never going to
have another chance to buy in China.
And Jairie bought(Was it she who noticed that, though Maos name was
everywhere, it wasnt on this Chinese money? And, if it was her, how could she tell it wasnt?
Did she know what his name looked like in Chinese? And so what if it wasnt, what did that
mean? Was it more significant that sheor whoever it washad noticed the Mao connection
missing (if it was)? Or more significant that Maos name (and what about his picture?) would
never be hand-rubbed away by the masses? Or wasnt her observation (not being to me
substantiated) significant at all? And therefore really ridiculous to bother with? Its this kind of
thing that can drive amateur note-takers to distractionunless of course one was to follow the
advice of that mad Red King in Wonderland and write everything down.)
Jairie bought (Sorry, have to pick up my thought): a stone horse (she likes miniatures
of real horses, collects them); kimonos; smoking jackets; handkerchiefs (like the ones Connie
bought, with the table tennis players); face cream; 21 silk screens; a hand-painted umbrella;
and no doubt a number of other things.
I know she wanted to get gifts for the girl interpreters, whether they were reluctant to
accept them or not. Back in the New Bridge Hotel, shed asked the girl behind the gift counter
what shed recommend, and it turned out to be a flashlightone of those small ones that fit in
the palm of your hand. For walking on roads at night, shed said.
Errol was looking for a special kind of shoe the Chinese players wore, but couldnt find
it. Next morning, he, like Steenhoven, would be receiving a surprisethe very pair of sneakers
hed wanted.
Did they fit?
Do I have to ask that question? Answer it?
No, they didnt, and he never wore them. But is that important?
Now let me be. Ill decide what to include here. Ive got the freedom to do it.
164
I must say, though, that I seem somehow to be a prisoner of that Shanghai Friendship
Store, cant get out of there. Here I am, taking out a huge roll of bills from my pocketmore
than any of the Chinese working in that store made in a year. I, too, bought gifts, if not for
friends, for those little-more-than-acquaintances who were nice enough to take over my
classes while I was gone. I bought: a dragoned dressing gown that didnt fit (who cares?);
piece after piece of cloisonne; two fine linen tablecloth and napkin sets, one for our home
(Sally never got the set, though, or anythingbecause I owed one more gift than I thought).
Miles assured me that all these were absolutely incredible buys (One sixth the New York
price, really)and a large, pig leather suitcase to put them in.
I bought some incidentals too. Two Double Happiness rackets for my boys (different
kinds, one pips out, one not); a Red flag (I dont know why, I certainly wasnt going to go
round waving it); a silk tapestry of that romantic picture of Mao as priest that looked at me
from the wall of the New Bridge Hotel; andsince I couldnt get then what I most wanted, a
translation of Maos poemsa small plaque with the following lines on it:
Militia Women
(Inscription on a Photograph)
How bright and brave they look, shouldering five-foot rifles
On the parade ground lit up by the first gleams of day.
Chinas daughters have high-aspiring minds,
They love their uniforms, not silks and satins.
I very self-consciously wanted to acknowledge to the Chinese (I had the feeling theyd
be watching our purchases with interest, would be reporting them to others) that they could
provide me with something from their Marxist art/culture that I valuedfor instance, the
Militia Womens lines above that I liked.
But there was nothing absolutely right for me here, so, loaded up with my purchases, I
half tumbled out of the Friendship Store, then waited for an interpreter to tell me how in the
world I might get myself and all this stuff back to where I so briefly belongedthe Ho Ping
Hotel.
165
Chapter Twenty
That evening
we played our second
and last Friendship
Match against the
Chinese in front of
5,000 people. Colorconscious spectators
would observe that the
Chinese used blue
rackets, the Americans
red. It was more
exciting to me than the
Match in Peking, not
only because I actually U.S.-Chinese Group photo at the Shanghai Chiang Wa gym before Friendship Matches
got to play in an Old
Mans event but because the Chiang Wa gym was much smaller than the Capital one in Peking,
and each of the courts was like a Theater-in-the-Square stage, with the audience close up to the
barriers. Almost perfect courts, said Miles (for whom nothing would ever be perfect, except
maybe Chuang Tse-tungs forehand). The lightings better than at the Worlds, Howard said.
Obviously the Match was not intended to give pleasure to the men, women, and
children of Shanghaibecause, again, under a large Warm Welcome To The American Table
Tennis Delegation banner, this Friendship Match was staged almost exclusively for
conscripted soldiers.
The ritual format of course was the same as Tuesdays in Peking. The players filed in
and were introduced, the Chinese were given their pens, and then, arm in arm with their
American brothers, they walked out.
With one small difference. George Brathwaite, the only black member of our Team, got
a rolling cheer, about three
times the applause any of the
other Americans received.
Since George had not as yet
distinguished himself to those
strangers in the audience any
more than any of the rest of
us, it was apparent that a sign,
if nothing else, could explain
it.
What Imperialism
fears most is the awakening of
the Asian, African, and Latin
American countries. George,
they must have known, was
from Guyanawhich borders
Poster for the 1972 Peking-hosted
on Brazil and Venezuela.
Asian-African-Latin American tournament
166
Of course others thought differently. Tannehill would argue that Mao had taught his
people that blacks were being oppressed in the U.S., and so, since George was black, the
green soldiers were letting him know that they knew what he knew.
Miles was quite seriously saying, I hope they dont think George is an oppressed
black man. Then he ironically began testing Schuman and Roderick, who had their pens
poised. George, after all, was not born a black American. His father in Guyana was a very
wealthy plantation owner and had 40,000 workers under him
Cowan, particularly, was irritated by Georges response to a newsmans question.
When asked if he felt thered been any extra cheers for him, George had said, No, no more
than usual. Glenn felt that George wasnt being honest, that his gentlemanly veneer was all a
posture. It wasnt only that George didnt want to make any statement that might be made too
much of by the newspapers, it was that George, always wearing that white sweater of his, was
really an Uncle Tom.
Later, when Glenn saw Georges opponent merely pushing or playing way back,
lobbing, taking it easy on George, letting him be the aggressor, and then when he saw George
to prolonged cheers walk off the court with an arm over his new friends shoulder, well, he
thought then when his turn came to play that fellow hed have a spectacular timeand maybe
be on that Life cover yet.
Only, when Glenn sprang to the table like some sort of red Indian, this same Chinese
player turned into a fast looper, changed the game around, and soon had Glenn, trying to
retrieve the ball, down on the seat of his shorts, spinning about like one of those performers
from Tiger Mountain whose stronghold was taken. Glenn was even more irritated when
George professed not to know that the guy was dumping to him because he was black. He
should be proud of that, man, said Glennbut he didnt want to say it.
It really seemed quite obvious to me that
the Chinese were much too good for us. Anybody,
it would seem, could understand both that
Tannehill wouldnt be playing too well after his
sicknesshis chills, his upset stomach, his
dizzinessand that, despite this, he would win two
straight.
Only dont think that bit of graciousness
if, in the opinion of the world, thats what it was
raised Johns spirits any. But at least the people all
surrounding him laughed when newsmen, oblivious
to the adjacent match still being played, intruded
out onto the court to interview him.
Judy won, too, and doubtless that was
somewhat satisfyingyou always had the secret
Did it matter that John wasnt at his best?
hope, the looked for illusion, that possibly you
were better than you thought you werebut, really, maybe she took as much if not more
pleasure in (was it a gift, or a purchase?) her fan and jewelry box.
Connie, for some reason, was wearing a red Chinese jumpsuit. (Why red? Had she
finally quit the Team, defected, gone over to the other side, in disgust something Cowan or
Tannehill had said? Hardlyshed starve to death. Anyway, this public display of Friendship
First, Competition Second was sure to earn Sweeris a win.
167
Resek played against a hitter who, when he wanted to,

could take Errol by strategy. He would serve by throwing the ball
way up, then hit one to the forehand, then one to the center, then
drop the ball. Or he could just let Errol (whod been told by
someone he was weak in the wrist) take the offense while he
went back and chopped with the wooden side of his racket. It
didnt matter. He could do all kinds of things to lose.
Earlier, Team Captain Howard was saying that he couldnt
imagine any Chinese player not sharing whatever new serve hed
learned. Whereas, in the U.S., everybody would say, Go learn
your own serve. Jack wanted to emphasize again and again that
so many of our points were lost on serve and serve return. It
wasnt a matter of skill and stamina, he said. It was a matter of
strategy. The Chinese players were always tricking us with their
deception.
He was also complaining that these non-competitive
matches werent really giving our Team members the kind of
practice they needed. What were we learning from them? Whats
more, the matches just looked awful. Exhibitions, he said, are
no fucking good.
What were we learning

from the Chinese?
Id be the first to
agree. I went out to play
my match in what one
might call the ChineseAmerican Jubilee Cup,
left my camera in the I
hoped capable hands of
George Buben, who was
to show me later how I
looked to myself, and
came out determined to
do anything but give an
exhibition.
I was very nervous
in that excited, eager way
I always am in a match
and, before I even hit the
first ball, I fumbled with
my racket and dropped it.
I must have looked
ridiculous.
But for the next
few warm-up minutes and
Boggan in Old Boys Friendship Match - with APs John Roderick (R, watching) for the beginning of the
168
match, I hit the ball as well as I ever have in my life. I hit the ball time and again, hard, hit at
that never changing, bored-looking expression of my opponentone-balled him, hit
crosscourt, down the line, or center-stripe-thud right at him. I remember, as the soldiers
murmured privately in surprise, then burst into open applause, wanting Roderick, particularly,
sitting at ringside (the little theater of the absurd had suddenly turned into a boxing ring), to be
impressed.
Then, slowing up just a little, I began to missthen miss a little more. And then my
opponent began throwing the ball ceiling-ward on his servesand it was like a juggler or
magicians trick: I followed the ball up, but wasnt looking at what my opponent was doing
with his racket hand when the ball came down. Finally, he saw there was just no point in
prolonging the game, and (21-7) ran the match out.
Any of these players could make the U.S. Team, said Jairie. Yeah, said Madeline,
and any one of them could be #1.
Buben was nextso we reversed roles. I took his camera and snapped several shots of
him for his album book. He wasnt out at the table any longer than I was (in fact, down 2-11 in
the 1st, with the crowd whispering, it was clear he hoped only to keep the ball in play until it
was time for him to sit down). But at least hed have the consolation of later reading what
Roderick had written about him. Buben, said Roderick (and he included Dick and me, too, in
his assessment), showed flashes of the form that had made him a top player in his day. But
George, though a very good organizer, was never, by any stretch of the most cooperative
Imagination, a top player. Ah well, if one is unsure, why not err on the side of saying
something nice?
The most interesting match of the evening, the one the green servicemen in the stands
seemed to enjoy most, was the exhibition put on by Miles.
Where do we change? Dick had said on coming into the gym.
And Cowan had answered, I think its too late for you to change.
Now, having gone just as proudly as ever into the locker room of another decade, Dick
had come out a different door, was back playing Yang Jin-hua, a man hed beaten in
Dortmund, Germany in 1959 when he, Dick, had gotten to the semifinals of the Worlds.
This evening, though, it was no contestDick had not been playing much and Yang
apparently had. And yet Dick, though nervous, didnt seem to be in the least embarrassed. His
pride saved him from that fall. It was, everybody knew, an exhibition. Of course, if hed have
gone into training, was prepared to play seriously, it would be a different story. But now all
would be all right, just as long as he showed flashes of his old formso that everybody
watching, Roderick too, could see what he once was, what, rather than give it up, he might at
least try to be again.
Dick lost the first game, and laughed. He turned to the stands and said hed bet $20
hed make a comeback. Nobody out there went for his wallet.
Dick won the second game.
In the third, it was very close. At 17-all, Dick crouched down dramatically, gave Yang
a treacherously simple sidespin serve. It was as if, in all his competitive years, Yang had never
seen the like of it. He practically turned and ran. Point to Miles.
Then Yang composed himself, served, and the ball stayed in play until, unexpectedly,
the Chinese got an edge. Whereupon Dick put down his racket, went over to his right where
the ball hit, and moved the table a little to his left. The crowd laughed. They understood it.
They liked it. He should have done that before.
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At 18-all, Yang tried a

tricky serve of his ownand
served into the net. Then Dick,
taking Yangs serve, returned it
into the net. Like mirror
images, these old opponents.
At 19-all, after a short
pushing exchange, Yang missed,
hit outbut Dick accidentally
caught the ball on his racket. In a
gesture of sportsmanship, he
awarded the point to Yang. Yang,
blank, blinked. He understood all
about gifts. He knew he had an
obligation. He served into the net
again. Score all even. Deuce.
Nowbad showDick
served into the net. And now
Yang just couldnt serve into the
net again. He had to risk putting
the ball into play. If he won this
point all would be lost.
But Dick, proud, really
didnt like the idea of a guy
Dick, showing flashes of his old form
hed beaten a dozen years
before beating him now. So he
kept the ball in play long enough for Yang to hit out the loser. 21-all.
How would it all end? The crowd didnt know who to root for.
Dick stopped play. Went over to the interpreter, smiled, and said, Look, this is silly.
Lets call it a draw.
Mr. Yu (though not the Mr. Yu whod had the run-in with Steenhoven) smiled in
return. He could see everybody was enjoying this match. Serious drama, lots of pressure, yet
comic relief toolike in an opera. He was puzzled, though, why Mr. Miles had stopped the
game. A draw? What did that word mean?
Finally he understood what Dick was proposing. And slowly his pleasant expression
changed to a frownof bewilderment. What did Mr. Miles mean?
He couldnt understand it. There was no such thing as a draw. And suddenly I felt his
anguishas if, not meaning to hurt him, not even seeing him, in fact, someone had
accidentally turned and stuck one of those Friendship pens we always had in hand right into his
eye.
But, o.k., I dont want to be any more melodramatic about this than Miles. He, too,
saw the wound and the nail. And so wasnt intent on driving the point of this mockery match
into Mr. Yus thinking. He accepted his win graciously.
Friday morning as I was coming out of my room to look around for a while before
breakfast, I spotted Glenn in the hall. He was just going downstairs to meet John Saar, the Life
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reporter, and his partner Frank Fischbeck, the photographer. They wanted to get some
exclusive shots of Glenn surrounded by crowds in the Shanghai streets, and I wanted to go
along.
How do you feel this morning, Glenn? said Saar. Want to see a shot of yourself with
Chou?
Glenn smiled, but he heard in that voice how innocent, how vulnerable, he couldnt
see, didnt want to see, he was.
So two by two we started to walk the downtown street (Peking to me never had what
youd call a downtown). As we walked, the people stared and backed away. We wouldnt try
this, Saar said a little nervously, if Glenn couldnt pull it off.
After wed walked several blocks, far enough to satisfy Fischbeck, we stopped and
Glenn asked, What now?
Kids were curious, but not curious enough to attempt any pantomime with us.
Glenn, I said, why dont we play a game of ping-pong? And so we did. And after
Id gotten in more phantom shots than he did, the crowd began to get the ideaand, it
seemed understood who we were. Then all traffic stopped, people by the hundreds moved in
on us, and Saar said, Lets get out of here!
I agreed. But Fischbeck was in another world. What
hed hoped for in his Imagination could now be
reproduced. He and his camera were making the most of
itthey were one. On the way back to the hotel he went
down that street in that city of 6,000,000 like nobody else
in the world ever has or will. But though his passage was
unique, how many will remember it as having any meaning
whatsoever?
When we drew near the hotel, a girl came out of the
lobby door and squinted at us. Then people began to bunch
together. By the time we got back, they were applauding.
Saar passed Judy and Olga and Connie, stopped and
went back. Good morning, ladies, he said. Got nothing
to say to the press this morning?
Apparently not.
Frank Fischbeck: in another world
Before everyone in our Group was supposed to meet in
the lobby at 8:00 a.m., the four of us whod been
adventuring out in the street went up for a quick bite to eat. Soon, however, Glenn, as usual,
couldnt sit still and left.
Whereupon Saar leaned over, confidentially looked me in the eye, and said, Who is
the real Glenn Cowan?
As if I, or anyone, knew. As if I didnt have enough trouble trying to figure out the one
who was coming out of my cellophane sack.
At five minutes after eight, the Group hadnt gotten itself together. Every morning,
said Olga, its just the three of us (Olga, Judy, Connie?) who are ready. It makes me sick
people arent on time.
Day after day in China it was like that. Whether you timed yourself by Olgas gold
watch or not, you couldnt start out with anything predictable. But, like it or not, you had to
keep moving right along.
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U.S. Group at National Exhibition in Shanghai, trying to understand what theyre seeing
Of the more than 7,000 products on display at the National Exhibition that morning, I
can remember about 10. No wonder I had to write things down. Often I was looking at things
I didnt understand.
There was a five-color rotary gravure press, making by the minute dozens of manwith-white-cape-and-gun prints of a scene in Taking Tiger Mountain. (Imagine the stamping
plants all over China turning out large or small Chairmen Maos.)
There was also an electric machine for cutting designs in steelin this case, of all
things, a ballet dancer cut on tip-toe, forever held in pirouette.
Also, a shaped two tons of jade depicting Chinese athletes climbing Cho Mo Ling Ma,
the Tibetan name for Everest, red flag of a cape flying from the more than one successful
climber at the top.
Also, artificial shrubs and flowers. (These are very popular now in the U.S., said
Graham.
And some serviceable Western clothes.
We walked along, accompanied by newsmen pushing themselves in and out of our way.
(They didnt have much time leftit was our last day.) Gee, said Judy, its tough to be a
guest with four or five people hanging on you.
The girls liked the toy department (if thats what you could call it), where there were
play cars, driven it seemed with tiny mens minds, that would automatically turn around when
stopped and go back to wherever theyd come from. And where one clucking hen went round
and round pushing a baby carriage with two little chickens in it, all the while dropping different
colored eggs.
There were birth control pills, but Interpreter Tang told Rufford that not many women
use them yet. Then she added, But the birth rate is still falling. Not, though, that the
172
Chinese wanted to cut down on their population, or had toeverybody we saw looked wellfed, the interiors of shops off the dirt sidewalks well-stocked with goods, with people.
Jairie wanted to know about sex-education. But shed have to learn about it elsewhere.
There wasnt any here in China.
The Jing-Luo Xue glass man was made of plastic. He had emaciated cheeks, and
eyes that looked like ping-pong balls. Imagine a New Yorker, pale as winter, looking at a gailycolored subway map (with its many lines and stops) under glass and then transplant that glass
containing that map into his chest and below. Then youll have some idea of the 14 principal
channels and 361 points suitable for acupuncture/moxibustions teaching and research
purposes in higher medical institutes.
Moxibustions, somebody said, had to do with branding and left a scar. But with
acupuncture the idea was to drive a silver needle into the patients nerve endings and thus
accelerate his system so as to ease whatever pain he had.
Julian Schuman told me that his wife had undergone acupuncture treatments and that it
had broken the pattern of her insomnia. Howard had said, Soon, by stimulating various parts
of the brain, theyll be able to produce emotions.
Next to the skeletal glass man was a microscope, and underneath a drop of blood.
Red blood, said Steenhoven jokingly.
And then, not just because Miles wanted to go shopping and Steenhoven wanted to
accommodate him but because time was growing short for all of us, we left this coordinated
display of industry, and went, as best we could, our separate ways, ready to gather up
whatever it was wed be taking out of China. (While others have been taking pictures, Ive
been working, Steenhoven said mysteriously.)
At an informal lunch back at the Peace Hotel, Miles and Steenhoven were about to go
at it.
Graham had conveniently taken charge of all our passports. (A good idea, Miles had
said earlierhed done it himself when, some years ago, hed been in charge of a group of
players.) Now, however, Dick wanted Graham to make arrangements for him to leave China
right away.
Hed asked Graham privately in Peking after wed seen Chou En-lai if he couldnt
leave. This obviously had been the high point of the trip, he said, and now there was no sense
in him staying around any longer. So, if it was all right with Graham, hed like to pick up his
notebooks and recorder and camerahe was a journalist after alland just leave.
It was not all right.
Which apparently puzzled Dick. Had not Graham himself realized Dicks obligations?
Surely Graham had not thought of Dick as a Team member. He had to get back, he said,
because he was scheduled to be on a national TV program.
Miles was talking about the voice over he was originally scheduled to do back in
New York on Saturday for ABCs Wide World of Sports telecast of the World Championships.
He and Bud Palmer had been filmed making introductory remarks against the backdrop of the
action in the Aichi Stadium, and of course ABC had shot a good deal of film. Now naturally
Dick wanted to be seen as a nation-wide commentator during the course of the show. If he
werent there for the voice over, he would vanish, be deleted out all together. And, the truth
was, he knew he was essential to any meaningful showing.
The problem was what material to use, and what to say about it. The ABC people
didnt know what theyd taken pictures of. They didnt have more than the slightest ABC idea,
173
really, of what it was they were watching. They just pointed their camera and took in
everything; so they couldnt go wrong.
They needed Dicks experience, his directing, controlling intelligence. In the end, of
course, it was all illusion. You picked the scenes, spread your voice over them. You put it
together, and it soundedor it was supposed to soundas if it were all coming live.
But how could Dick talk about what he couldnt see? No, no, he had to be there. And
if they could use a China story or two, his tapes, his films, and they wanted to pay him
something extra, well, what American who believed in a little push, a little hustle, could
object?
But Dick could talk all he wanted. No member of our Group was going to break away
while, he, Steenhoven, was spokesman for it. What would that look like? We had come into
China all together, and we were going out all together. In Tokyo and not before.
Now that Graham had settled that, he felt he could make a confession, or concession,
of sorts. Trying to get different characters personalities to work together on this trip is a skill
I havent fully masteredbut I keep trying.
Dick, however, did not take this remark in the
communal spirit in which it was directed, and said he
would very much like to leave and might even ask a
Chinese (Interpreter Yu?) to help him. (More than a
quarter of a
century ago,
when Miles won
his first U.S.
Championship,
Steenhoven had
presented the
trophy to him
with the dig,
Here, I hope
you behave like
a Champion.
To Graham,
Dicks behavior
had been
suspect ever
since hed been
Graham wants this donkeys
forced to shake
favorable attention
hands with him.
Maybe, said Graham, you dont understand
Dick says, Im not a mule.
me. To make his point, Graham told a parable about a
man who sold another man a donkey. Try as he might,
the new owner couldnt get this donkey to move, to do what he wanted it to do. The man
whod sold him the donkey, on being called, obligingly came over, and immediately knew what
was wrong. He picked up a two-by-four and smacked it across the donkeys snout. There,
he said, before you can get anything done with this donkey, youve got to get its favorable
attention.
174
I dont think Ive got your favorable attention, said Graham.

Miles didnt care how goddam mad Steenhoven was getting. Im not a mule, he said,
and you dont have a two-by-four. If you dont give me my passport back in Hong Kong, Im
going to have you arrested.
Why are you threatening me like this in public? said Graham very, very calmly.
Actually we had a table to ourselves. The Chinese were not there, were perhaps
preoccupied in arranging for our afternoon visit to the commune. And there were only a few
Team members aboutthe others had apparently gone to packall of whom found nothing
unusual in the fact that Miles and Steenhoven were throwing darts at one another.
Why am I threatening you in public? said Miles. Because I want witnesses. Like
Tim here.
I didnt see a thing. I had my head down taking notes.
Tims a very sensible man, said Graham.
Miles thought he just might leave without his passport and said so.
If you try to, said Graham, Ill have the Chinese restrain you. And then he added
sarcasticallyas if he felt exactly like Tannehill, that all people in the communication media
were pimpsThe notoriety might help your professional business.
My professional business is my business, said Miles, and I want to conduct it. Could
you please arrange it so that I can leave today?
You constantly walk in front of a Group picture and stick your hand in somebodys
face, said Steenhoven.
It was true, I thought, Dick had to be in the picture. But what could he do about it?
Whether he was an amateur or a professional, he had to strike a pose. One way or the
other, it was his job. With the others there was no questionthey were all admitted amateurs;
if there was a game to play, they didnt know the rules, or how to break them.
Graham, said Dick. Im 45 years old. I dont need you to tell me what I should do.
For a man your age, you should know better.
I know I want to exercise my right to leave this Group.
I didnt have time to agree or disagree. I just kept writing.
It seemed I missed a line or two.
Is money really that important to you? Graham was saying.
Are you an ignorant fool, said Miles with a sneer.
Youre not any different from anyone else, said Graham.
Apparently, after this encounter, Miles had had enough conversation for a while and
didnt feel much like taping anything on the bus ride that afternoon. And since Ive looked all
through my cellophane sack and cant find as much as an interesting note on anything about
this time, it appears I sat with him.
At any event, I find it so noteworthy that I didnt take a note back then that theres
nothing else I can do but take note of it now. And then go on.
175
Chapter Twenty-One
As we were coming into the Ma Lou Communeroughly 27,000 people, 6,632
households living in a cluster of long, low-roofed buildings on 360 acres of arable landI
remember a welcome banner making an arched entranceway 50 yards or so off the highway
and how it reminded me of a freak show off to the side in a pitched-tent circus grounds. Then,
I guess because my Imagination couldnt bear to see the place as it really was, it went ahead
and gave me another image, another feelingthat, as we rode in, in our expensive gray line of
Shanghai cars, it was like the Lord of the Manor coming down with some of his friends on a
balmy afternoon to visit the peasants.
George and Errol entering the Ma Lou Commune near Shanghai
After the applause along the dirt road had settled down, we went into a building and,
like at Tsinghua, had our tea and orientation period.
The income of the peasants had been raised. Ninety-five percent of the farmland was
tilled by machine. There was a stable harvest in rain or draught. Collectivization and
mechanization had brought to this Commune great changes. Production teams had
transformed the Great Proletarian revolutionary spirit into action. Last year was an all-time
bumper harvest. The peasants had listened well to Chairman Maos instructions.
And the Americans? Most of them were nearly dropping off to sleep.
But once up and out into the irrigated fields (all that yellow out there was from rape
seed) and working sheds and certain selected communal units of thatched-roof homes, all of us
would become interested.
176
Tannehill leading the way through the wheat fields
Thatched roof homes at Ma Lou Commune
Boat built at Commune

177
Yes, Rufford would be pointing out to me (he was still on assignment, getting cablegrams
like, Urgent. Rufford Harrison American Table Tennis Team Hotel Hoping Shanghai. Telephoning
you after eight tonight. Regards. Ivan Hall), the people own their own houses and are paid for the
work they do in accordance with output. And Graham would be saying, I had no idea that the
people could work individually for their own benefitthat they were free to own their own pigs
and to eat the meat themselves or give their pigs to their friends if they wanted to.
Meanwhile, white-haired peasant women worked the rows of green wheat fields, and
junks with patched sails moved slowly down canals to become lost in history.
Cowan told me later he was having trouble walking around at first. It was the tea, he
said. Ordinarily he hadnt been drinking it. But this was a very green kind and it smelled really
sweet. It was a very hashish type of tea. The more you drank, the more you liked it. I had
four cups of it, he said. Ginseng tea. He spelled it for me.
I looked at him.
The Chinese were holding me even before I got up. Id had visions of Liang across
the table from me. Then we took a walk around that rice field. I remember smiling a lot.
He was smiling now.
A little later, Glenn said, I was getting into the chickens. They were yellow and
really fascinating. You dont see them at zoos. And they were right up close to me.
Listening to him, I began to laugh.
But he was quite serious. I was very stoned on the tea, he insisted.
I believed him.
These chickens, he went on, werent in a cage or anything. They were just walking
around in between these houses. The houses looked interesting. So I went into one. It was like
a little Indian hut. Dirt floors. The bed in there was made of hard earthnot wood but dirt,
supported by a wooden board. When I came out, the chickens were still walking around. I
began to wonder, Were the people who lived here going to get one egg from them every
morning or what? What were the chickens for? It didnt look like there was a group of them
just occasional chickens. I couldnt figure it out.
We walked along. Roosters, hens, chickens, ducks came and went along the dirt road
with us. Others besides Cowan apparently wanted to follow them. But most of the Group
stayed loosely together. The Chinese casually watched us all.
When are you going to come and visit us? Brathwaite asked his interpreter.
When the time comes, said the man.
We went into a shed where a worker was fixing the bottom of a boat. One thing they
transport, said Jairie, is alcohol. They make it on the farm. I think they wait for the potato or
whatever it is to rot and then they squeeze the juices.
We passed on through into the industry of a little factory. Surely, said Rufford, it
would be much better, much cheaper, to make better wheels at an assembly line? But the
wheel-maker disagreed. Then, he said, we would have to rely on the cog-wheel factory;
this way we are more self-sufficient.
Our guide said, Chairman Mao teaches us that we should raise our workers to the
highest technical level.
We wandered out and down another dirt road, some of our people here and there, past
full-shelved general stores.
Tannehill came jumping out of one with cookies in hand. The Chinese had given them
to him. I asked him for one because I suddenly felt like establishing a bond with him, and I
178
knew he would be pleased to share with meas the Chinese had shared with him. I hoped that
the people staring at us would be watching me while I ate their cookie. As I put the last big
piece into my mouth, I thought, at least for that moment, There. I eat the cookie you eat. I
like it. I like you. I could live here. (Later, I thought, Wasnt I being awfully
condescending?)
We walked on, past huts of homes. In back of one was a makeshift basketball court.
Just a small area for shooting baskets, like on somebodys all dirt back yard in the
Appalachians somewhere where my Imagination could scarcely follow the arc of the ball to
the homemade board, the net-less rim.
In here, someone was saying, the workers make their own fertilizer, their own
insecticides. As we entered the small, unpainted building, Brathwaite asked the Life
photographer whod caught up with us to take a picture of him with some of the others. He
gave Fischbeck his camera. Fischbeck snapped a shot. He took a couple of steps and snapped
another shot. Then he crouched down and very quickly took two more shots. Hey said
George, raising his hand. Then snap, snap, snap. Fischbeck returned the camera and went on
about his business. No charge for his services. George had seven pictures. One ought to be to
his liking.
We moved into a carpentry shed.
What are those? asked Jairie.
Fertilizer buckets.
Oh, she said, theyd go nice in my living room.
On we went, through the tool-making one long garage of a furnace room, and out.
Tannehill was impressed with the fact that although all these peoples heads were into
doing separate things, they were all tied together here at the Commune. Still, they were so like
the poor people in America, the little man. And then John began to wonder how he could have
been thrown off by all that Chinas great, Americas lousy attitude he had. After coming
from that opulent Great Hall yesterday to this, he was beginning to think that Chou En-lai was
no different from Nixon.
John had been carrying around with him, like the leader of those red-badged kids 8-18
who were always taking the long march out here from the city proper, his silk screen picture of
Mao.
Finally Brathwaite, who often kept his thoughts to himself, could stand it no longer.
Youre just trying to be noticed, he said.
No, answered John, I just dont want to forget what Ive seen.
If you had Mao in your heart, said George, you wouldnt worry about forgetting.
That rhetorical line, I thought, would take time and care to rebut (Had George Mao in
his heart?). But Tannehill responded quickly. I forget my table tennis racket. Does that mean
Im insincere about table tennis?
Our Group was breaking up all over the place. Finally an interpreter, half-jokingly, said
to Howard, We dont know what to do with you Americans. You all seem to want to do
something different.
Some Chinese were asking Cowan about hippie communes in California.
Of course he would be able to explain. He began by telling them that the hippies were a
group of people who lived in the countrythat is, in the country-side; that they had a
different, revolutionary culture from the military-industrial one here; that they favored nonviolent revolution; that they preferred to make love not
179
Why the hell do you keep talking to them

about revolution for? Errol interrupted. What do you
know about revolution? I come from the Dominican
Republic. I know about revolution. You dont.
I never saw Errol so excited. He must really
have been sick of Cowan as a self-appointed
spokesman for America.
I wish you would talk more, Errol, said
Jairie. I dont like to do all the talking.
Then when Glenn seemed astonished by this
outburst, Jairie said, Errols upset at your extreme
leftist side.
I left them and turned a corner and came upon
a group of Americans, led by John, in the dung of a
courtyard timidly taking their turns petting what
looked to me like a cow but must have been a water
buffalo. It was a picture that so many of them would
want to remember for a lifetime.
Errol ought to talk more?
Amateurs and professionals came in a rush. (What was going on? Who was it? What
were they doing?) They shoved, pushed themselves in, to see the girl, Judy, and the animal.
But George Buben, who thought hed found a spot in time, was suddenly being
prevented from filming, this had-to-be-captured-quick-or-lost-forever moment.
It was Fischbeck from Life (hed borrowed $2 from me, never did pay me back) whod
swung into Georges eye. And though George had held his ground, he no longer had a point of
view to stand on. He got righteous angry, had words with this photographer, professional or
not, whod rudely moved in front of him. Youve ruined half my picture coming in like that!
To which words, Fischbeck, hurrying to ignore him, responded, Look, youre just
here. Im doing a job.
And George said, You son of a bitch.
But the professional, having got his picture, walked rapidly away, stopping the last
parting shot of a sentence to himself, Silly little.
180
We continued on, not knowing what was coming next. Nobody had any idea where we
were being led. Some were sure they werent being led at all. Then I saw this man in black
Why it was Mr. Chi from the Peking Foreign Ministry! What was he doing here in Shanghai?
He was keeping well behind us, making sure that none of us strayed too far.
Olga (whod been crying on the bus coming out here, whod said, Oh, why cant we
take the train home this afternoon?) was walking along now following through to the end.
This is no life, she said, after wed gone into another shed. Just working and sleeping. How
can they stand it? Then, trying hard to explain to herself what undeniably she was seeing, she
said, Of course, theyve never known anything else.
Glenn, of all people, was agreeing with her. He said tilling the fields from sun-up to
sundown would be awful. And working in that boathouse reminded him of what had to be
similarly overbearing at the Japanese Toyo Company. Whats the difference if you make ballbearings or canoes for 80 years? (Or Chryslers too?) One lifes no better than the other.
(What one day would Glenn do?)
Coming out of the dark of wherever we were, we found ourselves facing a two-story
Grapes of Wrath-looking hospital. It was something like the image I had at three of the old
converted osteopathic house of a hospital my sister (1933) and I (1930) were born in. Very
gloomy.
This Commune hospital, I thought, as I walked in, was like Schweitzers in Africa. I
knew almost nothing about Africa, about Schweitzer (lepers lying at Lambareneyou were so
far away from them, you liked the sound of it)but that didnt stop me from making the
comparison.
In the downstairs waiting room there were lines of people looking exactly as ordinary,
unhappy people would look. And that awful smell. My father didnt much like being a doctor.
No antiseptic could ever quite cleanse his memories; the never-ending wounds of othersthey
fizzed in him until he died.
There was the emergency room, where the policy was the same the world over
whatever the immediate unexpected thing was that would sooner or later befall one. Bandaged
people. A child with a little white head crying. I tried to comfort him, patted him like a dog.
They clapped for usthose that could. Jairie said, May I? and picked up a baby that
was crying and it stopped. When she gave it back, it started crying again. I thought the
mother could have killed me, she said.
There was the dentists officewhere Connie (back home in Grand Rapids she was a
certified dental assistant), on peeking in, had seen, boy, a dentists chair out of the 1930s.
Upstairs, there were frightening white menin white cap, white mask, a butcher-like
smock: Chinese who, behind the disguise, were dedicated to the preservation of human life.
(Of course thats what had chilled me so in one of those Whos the Killer? movies that had
played such an imaginative part in the theater of operations of my youth. The one in white who
with pure dedication had sworn to save was really the most dangerous of all.)
There in a room were white walls and forms under white sheets. Were just finishing
up with surgery, said a doctor via a local interpreter. Would you care to observe?
Graham said, Nobut I heard Connie say to someone she would have liked to go in.
There in another room, an old brittle, half-mummified man was being kept alive with
yellow fluid. He was like glass or plastic, like the hollow-cheeked Jing-Luo Jing Xue skeleton
beside the microscope of Chinese blood. He lifted his head, his red book, to the here and now.
Long live Chairman Mao!
181
Connie wants
to assist the
dentist?
Could be a hospital room in

Anywhere, USA
There was the place they gave you the acupuncturethe Eastern Room
with its herbs or pills from herbs. And, opposite, the Western Room with
its antibiotics.
We had as our guide one of the interpreters from Peking. But the
people in the hospital spoke another language. So that often those in
Shanghai couldnt communicate very well with those in Peking.
Steenhoven, about this time (wed almost finished our visit) was being asked for a
statement. What do you think of the Commune?that was the question. You might just as well
have asked him what he thought of China. He said what Judy privately did not say. He said, I am
impressed that the people are able to maintain their way of life as a group and satisfy their needs.
Judy said, I couldnt live here. Of course these people dont know any better. Dont
know they could have any richer lifeI mean, material-wise.
Before Chairman Mao, we were starving. Now, look!
182
But the woman whose second-floor apartment-room of a house I was briefly allowed
into seemed undisturbed by her visitors. It was understood that they had come to look at her
familys small eating table by the pane-less, irregularly barred open window, and at the gailycolored four-poster bed (I couldnt see underneathcould it have been made of straw?)
topped with quilts and bright, homemade throw pillows. And, was it just my Imagination
playing tricks on me, or did she have a spinning wheel there too?
Jairie told me that, in one of the houses she went into, rice and oats were stored in
huge crocks. Look, the woman had said to her, before Chairman Mao, we were starving.
Now, look!
And, surprise, there was an expensive radio. Though if it sounded anything like those
earphones I turned on, and quickly off, at the opera, Im sure Id much prefer not to have it
there.
The usual Mao pictures and peculiar prayers in red and white were on the wallthe
red catching my eye like those Sacred Heart of Jesus pictures from my long forgotten scapular
boyhood. And there was a bed in the corner for perhaps such a boy as I.
Errol said later that it was the same for him, too, when he was a boy. All those suntanned peasants in their Santo Domingo homes, worshipping, humbling themselves before
picture after picture of Trujillo.
There, too, along with Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, were pictures of relatives, not in an
album but on the wallas if to prove that even peasants could use a camera, a point that
struck home because I still didnt understand much about the one I was given, and hadnt any
confidence at all about anything turning out into a reasonable likeness.
Then it seemed Id been in there gawking too long, and so I didnt have much chance
to see the kitchen. (Jairie and Connie both told me that, though the housewife cooked over a
wood fire, there was a cement board that went on top and wells cut precisely into it for pots.)
Still, I caught a glimpse of the dirt-floor kitchen. It was broom-swept clean,
uncluttered as one in a 9-5 opened historic house of our forefathers, and then, with only the
thought that it was about the size as the one in my own Island home, I was whisked out.
183
Chapter Twenty-Two
To be met unexpectedly by Mr. Chi, the correspondents liaison from the Division of
the Foreign Ministry. There, in that little space of afternoon, twenty miles from the Shanghai
hotel I would likely never in my life be returning to (from the Commune we would head
directly to the airport, fly to Canton and then home), he was handing meI could hardly
believe ita black pen, and saying, This was found in your room.
His tone was cool, dispassionatesomehow, I thought, accusing. Id remembered very
well of course how our Team was always giving these pens as gifts. And, my God! Maybe to
someone like that Chinese who served against the Americans in Korea they looked like big
black bulletsnone of them were ever gaily colored.
Anyhow, ironically, here I was, in the reverse role of accepting a pen from Mr. Chias
if I were the Chinese and he the American.
Of course it must have been mine to begin with. It was usedit leaked. I was always
dropping things or misplacing thingsexcept my grab bag of notesand naturally I wouldnt
have remembered leaving so easily a replaceable thing behind. He or rather one of the men
coming into the Peace Hotel after wed all left must have found it.
I was so struck, though, that it had gotten to this envoy.
Had Mr. Chi been in Shanghai all the time and Id not noticed him? I was often
preoccupied. I always felt, when I wasnt holed up writing, this sense of energy that I should
see as much as I could, listen to conversations, break them off if they werent getting me
anywhereand where, in such a rush, did I want to get to? I always had to force myself to go
hear what others had to say, suffer their rightful suspicions that I would use them, their shared
experiences which suddenly they did not want others to see, to feel, to knowperhaps
because then they, too, would have to see, to feel, to know themselves anew.
I never wanted to miss anything. Always wanted to be everywhere at once. Wanted in
some blind way to do the impossibleif only to please myself.
And now here was Mr. Chi. I didnt see him as a runner, a
messenger boy, to be returning insignificant things to people. He
was obviously an important man in his Division of the Foreign
Ministry and had important things to do. What was it then with
this pen? And why did its return affect me sobecome the single
most important thing that happened to me in China?
WhyI couldnt help it, I had to ask myself, he made
me askwere the Chinese so hung up on returning even the
smallest of articles to the Americans? Were they saying, Dont
contaminate us with your things? Were they trying to prove
to us, or to themselves more than anyone else, that they were
scrupulously honest? Or that, of all things in a communal
society, they valued individual property?
Did they think Id been instructed to casually leave
behind a bugging device to end all bugging devicesone they
From Life, Apr. 30, 1971, 33
couldnt figure out and didnt want to take a chance on? Hey,
Mr. Chi
if nothing would go to waste, maybe even Chou En-lai himself
would like this premier pen and so would keep it on his desk while somebody in Washington
would get daily secrets all down on a tape recorder?
184
What absurd fantasies, suspicions, could play themselves out in an innocents head.
Might as well think that this returned pen was bugged by the Chinese to pick up my
exclamations when I was reminded by ink stains on my fingers that the pen leaked.
Obviously the Chinese could tell in a moment whether we were witting or unwitting
American agents. There were no spies in our Group. I certainly wasnt a spy. Was I? (Though
when I was to return home some lunatic on a live radio show was to call in and say in so many
words I was just that.)
Perhaps I have one of those Chinese minds that thinks that every act must have a
meaning. Was Mr. Chi then indirectly saying to me, Look, why dont you just take your pen
and go? Really, youve had it out at the most outrageous times. At one banquet after another.
Were civilized here, we use chopsticks.
What else could Mr. Chi mean? Could he be saying, You and your friend Miles and
your absurd press credentials. All the news thats fit to print. Indeed. Youre the perfect
symbol for all the cheap journalists of your Western world. As a guest, the most offensive.
Here, take your pen and stick it. We dont like your kind of sensational subject matter, your
obscene invasion of our privacy. We dont like your inquiring-and-what-you-cant-find-out-goahead-and-make-up tabloid sheet of a mind. We dont like you and your ignorant tabula rosa
and your note tabletsthat is, if you were ever professional enough to use them instead of
those stupid little scraps of our cigarette paper or whatever it is you write on and later puzzle
over trying to decipher a meaning from.
A man has a right to his privacy. And you come here with your worst kind of
businessmans head and drip your
leaky pen on everyone and everything around you and
think youre going to make a
fortune. Well, let me tell you something. Its not
individuals that are important.
Youre a little man and Im a little man.
This trip is larger than you and
me, larger than the little spheres of
our ping-pong associations.
As far as Im concerned,
this trip is for Chinaand
everybody here is
putting up with you
and your ragbag
Group until we can
safely see you across
the border.
No wonder then
that I found myself
awkwardly apologizing to
Mr. Chi for our Groups
incursion into these peoples
lives, particularly the womans
whose home Id just examined.
Im sorry, I said, I really
do feel Im being kind of an
invader here. That Im intruding
on these peoples lives,
bothering them. I guess all of us
feel thatwhether were
supposed to be here or not.
Privacy invasion
185
It doesnt matter, he said.

It doesnt matter? I thought. Then slowly I began to understand that he knew
everything I knew, and more. And I sensed in him an enormous conviction, an ideal I could
feel but not understand.
I walked on toward the bus by myself. I could never in my life remember being so stunned
by a phrase. It doesnt matter. And so naturally now I thought he must mean something else by
the return of the pen. Could he be saying, Look I didnt return this pen because it was of any
literal value. You can see for yourself that it leaks. No, I gave it back to you personally as a ritual
gesture. As if I, symbolic mandarin, were also a priest, a man-God of the cloth, black, with a roman
collar, mazed within my Information Office in a Jesuit complexity of language.
Your pen is valuable. You know and I know it. The pen is mightier than the sword.
Chairman Maos pen, for instance. We value the pen in China. We value writing, signs of
communication. So, heres your pen back. Keep writing. But, please, write the truth as best
you can. Or at least the little lies that are true. Be Chinas messenger, as I am. Make the past
serve the present and foreign things serve China.
You have value as a man, as a writer. We here, though faraway from you, could see it.
Why otherwise would we accredit you, give you the most respectable of credentials? Ive
offered you my hand. Now write. We in China will suffer the mistakes of your pen. Ink will
spill, there will be ugly blots here and therebut its better than blood.
Your invasions are necessary. We need you to report whatever you can see about our
people and your people. But whatever you try your best to say, none of it will make a historians
difference.We who work in the Correspondents Division know its the human condition to have
to be found out, sacrificed, suffer, bleed, leak from the stigma of being a man.
Besides, take whatever trip you may in this world, the truth is impossible to arrive at.
We have to believe instead that it sits, like that Red King of yours, atop the throne of a behindthe-mirror newer world. I believe in the reality behind the looking glass. You are my white
counterpart, I am yours. I am a black atheist, so are you. I am a priest, so are you. All are
Christ figuresall who want to communicate.
I, Mr. Chi, am China. But I am also all men, black, or red, or white. Just as the sphere
in which you, little man, report is all the world. All men are Parker Brotherspen palspingpong company to one another. All the world corresponds, has its correspondents.
This pen I give you is full of fairy-tale-true, different, inexhaustible things. It has the
leak of plenty. It is a magic finger from whose point words long after will lead us. This pen
implies the search for perfection. That which must come in another world, at the remove of the
minds mirror. From your hand, it is the quivering arrow that splits the Mystic Centre of its
targetthat makes conjunction and comes to rest.
Whatever Mr. Chi was thinking, he was there, ready to close the door, as I was about
to board the bus. We would be leaving him.
Thanks, I said.
What for? he said.
Stupidly, I didnt know what to say. Oh, I said, for lots of things. It sounded much
too casual.
He smiled, perhaps just politely, and I turned and climbed onto the bus.
On the way to the Shanghai airport, Connie was talking about the bamboo egg basket
that an old woman in the Commune had woven and given to her. This was what she was
looking for and couldnt find in any Friendship Store. This was China to her.
186
Still, she felt the Commune was the worst place of all. I never thought thered be so
much poverty, she said. Its crude to the way we live. You put an average American in there
without a stove, a refrigerator, he couldnt survive. And then she said, Do you ever foresee
the day when theyll be modern like us?
Jairie had other thoughts. There was no doubt she liked her comforts, but the visit to
the Commune had made her reflective. How simple life is in China, she was saying. The
more complicated life is, the less peace of mind one has.
Miles, meanwhile, was interviewing Tannehill. Would you really like to stay here,
asked Dick, and take a course in Table Tennis?Or something else?
Something else, said John. Definitely. Not Table Tennis. I dont think, like I dont
think my sport is Table Tennis. I think maybe Ill get out. Like I want to stick to what Im in at
Cincinnati.
What are you in?
Like developing myself and helping others. Like living for the revolution.
Non-violent, said Dick, or violent?
Non-violent for now. Till we get enough people behind us. I might make up maybe
1% or 2%.
Of what?
Of the youth, said John.
The road into the airport, as Rufford pointed out, was guarded by bayonet-bearing
soldiers. Although Shanghai and its suburbs serviced 8,000,000 people, there was only one
plane on the runway, the one scheduled especially for us. In the waiting room, there were no
passengers waiting for flights, no newsmen waiting for us. There were, however, a good many
Chinese about, not many of whom would be accompanying us to Canton.
A mini-revolution was taking place. Rosy-cheeked girls, waving their scarves like red
flags or daggers, pointing, lunging their rifles like red-tasseled spears, were smiling, showing
their pretty white teeth, getting quite a kick out of singing and dancing together.
When the show was over, we all went out to the plane. A great many children, barred,
protected, by a closed fence were applauding us off; adults were waving goodbye. In
Shanghai, in China, how many friends wed made, or might have made. Tannehill, on mounting
to the cabin, got quite an ovation as, turning round, he unfurled on high, for all to see, his silkscreen picture of Mao.
Flying toward home, from Shanghai to Canton, I exchanged addresses with Mr. Yu
Tsun-cheng, the interpreter whod been involved in that draw of an exhibition Miles put on
yesterday. He surprised me. First, by quoting a favorite line of hisfrom Longfellow, he
saidLet us find tomorrow is further than today. And then by having some familiarity with
Shakespeare. At least he knew the line, To be or not to be.
He knew more than I dreamed he knew. He heard that Byron went to help the Greeks
fight the Turks. Had read Shelleythe revolutionary poem, Ode to the West Wind, of
course. Could quote the line, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
But about that other great Romantic poet, Keats, associated with Byron and Shelley,
who said, I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if
my nights labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them, he knew
nothing.
Mr. Yu was carrying a piece of wrapped fruit from one of the banquets. He said he was
going to keep it for his little boy. First his boy would be able to play with it, then he could eat
187
Program of the
China Dance
Drama Troupe
Scene from the dance drama,

The Red Detachment of Women
188
itcould thus get this double use out of it. There flashed into my mind the little boys and girls
I had seen on the other side of the fence at the Shanghai airport. Faces of humanity. I told Mr.
Yu, whose name Tsun-chen meant Respect and Successwhat every father would wish
for his sonthat I had two little boys myself and that they would be wanting me to bring back
a present too.
On our arrival back in Canton, we were rushed to our hotel, past a table tennis tournament
(how many like me thought fleetingly of wanting to get out and watch and maybe even play?), and
then were driven almost immediately to the ballet, The Red Detachment of Women.
I had such a grip on myself I went off and left my sack full of notes on the bus and
never once worried about them. I couldnt have been more convinced that they were safer on
that bus this last evening in China than they would be in a bank vault back home.
Glenn said hed made a friend in Nancy Tang, Premier Chous interpreter, whod
accompanied us from Peking. She understood American ways and habits, he said.
I myself, however, did not have any warm feeling for Miss Tang, nor do I think she
liked meor Miles, for that matter. She was very smart of course, but too mind-oriented, too
guarded, perhaps even suspicious. But then all of us viewed each other under such unusual
circumstances that maybe what I saw in her eyes mirrored what she saw in mine. Miss Tang,
I addressed her once. It is Miss Tang, isnt it? And then as soon as I said it, I knew it came
out wrong. I had the feeling I myself was not above suspicion. That I might have said, were I
she, Mr. Boggan, is it? It is Mr. Boggan, isnt it?
Glenn said Miss Tang was giving him the most marvelous explanation about the
ballethow every move, every gesture, every line had a symbolic meaning. At intermission he
was telling me how all of Maos philosophyabout being strong of heart, of good character
had been built into this dance-drama, and how he was looking forward to Miss Tangs return
to tell him more.
But, said Glenn, Miss Tang did not return. She went and sat by Connie and never said
a word to her the whole time. So if Glenn were studying her so, it really must have bothered
him, huh?
I was fascinated by the mask-like, highly animated, highly made-up faces of the militiaminded dancers. They might have been girls in tights on a Broadway stagebut here they
were in Red Army shorts nearly down to the knee, and they had on long, heavy stockings, and,
so that no skin need be exposed, even about the knee, a kind of panty hose underneath. Or
maybe each costume was all of a pieceone little illusion, designed not just to fit the girl but
the whole of the pretend life of which she was a part. (Could Ruffords whimsical remark be
appropriate here? The only bare-legged ladies I saw in China, he said, were those dressed
for table tenniswhich probably accounts for the popularity of the sport there.)
This suggestion of sex being detached to a womans comradely arm being thrown
about not a man but another woman is typical, I felt, of what went on in China, in public,
outside the Red Army of art. I could remember seeing only one boy and girl holding hands
along those very clean streets of life.
Yet the cover of this revolutionary dance-drama Program had its emphasis on the
aspirations of the familythe husband and wife together, a boy my older sons age a little
behind them, all looking, pointing toward the future.
The ballet itself (would Roderick begin his Times article with a pun, The U.S. Table
Tennis Team, on the last leg of its visit?) was staged by Maos wife, Chiang Ching. As the
189
curtain opened, the heroine in red was instinctively for me China. She was the oppressed but
very attractive daughter of a poor peasant tied to a stake by a rich landlord who wanted to sell
her. The well-dressed villains large silver belt buckle suggested to me both a whip and the
betrayal of another human being for moneypieces of silver.
Perhaps because Id just come from cleaned-up, slit-skirt Shanghai and all its dirty
romantic past, I felt that there was probably a pimp-prostitute suggestion here (would red,
though, be white, the color of Western innocence?) and that the indirect message was, after the
peasant girl had been beaten, Get up off your hands and knees and make things better for
yourself and your motherland.
Left for dead, she was cleansed, revived, by a very realistically staged near-hurricane,
then found refuge through the help of some good people, and finally gained a social
consciousness in a womans detachment. So now, was that freed woman on the stage
representative of the new China? Was it the real-life dancer (as well as the make-believe
soldier) who would liberate herself in that company, that balletwho would dance for the
emancipation of mankind?
After the performance (or during it, or even before it), Miles, having seen Roderick,
was being quoted as saying to him (or Roderick was overhearing it, or getting it from a
reliable third party) that if Sol Hurok wanted to bring a Chinese troupe to the States, he
couldnt do better than invite this group. Theyd play to full houses.
It must have been about this time, too, when Dick himself took up his own ABC role
as tape recorder/commentator, and did an interview with Derek Wall, the Canadian #1, who
was also attending the ballet.
When Dick gave me this tape of their
conversation, it was just one more piece of information
I, as an amateur, wasnt sure what to do with. Still,
since it reflects recorded fact, I include it here, for the
record, as part of my truth telling.
Dick: News. What were your impressions of
China, Derek?
Derek: Well, I thought the whole trip was
fantastic. But theIts really hard to see what the
Chinese are getting at. Yknow? As far as all this
hospitality. Im wondering now if everything is going
to change for the future. You remember what Russia
was like a few years ago. Very similar to this in one
way. Then they opened up to tourists a bit. And, for
example, the way they dress now. They wear these
uniforms. Id like to come back in 15-20 years. See
From Canadas Welcoming Souvenir
how theyre dressing. If theyre wearing suits, shirts,
Program for Chinas 1972 Tour of Canada
Derek Wall
ties. And you get some of the Western influence
coming in. Im sure it will.
Dick: What are the things youre going to remember most of all?
Derek: Well, again, its the hospitality. This is the thing thats stood out more than
anything. You know, weve seem some interesting things.
Dick: Such as? I saw some too and I want to see if your reactions are similar to
mine.
190
Derek: Uh-aah
Dick: For me there were two great moments. See if you can come up with those
moments.
Derek: Ummm. About two great moments. Well, actually, as far as the table tennis was
concerned, uh, I thought it was a great moment when we walked into the Hall. The opening
ceremony, you know. II just, I felt proud. I felt great. And
Dick: This was in Peking?
Derek: Yes, in Peking.
Dick: In the Capital Gymnasium?
Derek: Right, yknow.
Dick: 18,000
Derek: 18,000 people, you know. The opening ceremony and the apparent warmth of
the spectators.
Dick: You say apparent. Didnt you feel it was genuine?
Derek: Yes. Yes. But Im wondering if those, some of those spectators werent
especially shipped in, for these matches.
Dick: That wasnt my opinion, Derek. And, actually, the two great moments for me
were seeing the Great Wall of China and of course the meeting with Premier Chou En-lai.
Derek: Well, I was about to say that. That, I think, the Premiera fantastic man, a
tremendous mind. Most of all, what impressed me most of all was his sense of humor.
Dick: Yeah. I had that impression too.
Derek: Unbelievable, you know. And the way he can
Dick: That was Derek Wall, Canadians top table tennis player. Canadas top table
tennis player rather. And this is Dick Miles in Canton signing off for (and here theres a big
sigh) ABC.
Ive said that this interview was recorded fact. But while it may have been true enough
for others, it wasnt true enough for me. It was a mere note scrap, a fragment of conversation
in a mans life. And as such it didnt have the context it really needed. It needed to be made
more true. Here Miles was just a voice over a machine, disembodied, even the sound of him
disappearing with that last sighlike the gnat in Alices looking-glass world. It was a fiction.
Miles last tape.
But useful to me.
After the opera, Olga heard (was it this particular night?), or thought she heard, the
voice in her own head anyway, that we were going to have Western food. So the minute we
got back to the hotel, her strategy was to quick jump off the bus and hurry straight to the
Dining Room.
But sitting there alonewaitingwaitingit became obvious shed made a mistake
the Team was somewhere else. Still, she was not going to leave. Finally, the cook said he
would try his best. So Olga had soup, salad, steak, fried potatoes, and fruit for dessert. And sat
there alone eating this, until the people from Life came and joined her.
191
Onlookers at the Canton Airport applaud and bid farewell to the

Americans as Tannehill and the Reseks offer their own goodbyes
192
Chapter Twenty-Three
Next morning, coming from Canton back to the border on that very clean train, Rufford
was talking about how outside the hotel this morning hed tried to get one last picture. But a guard
had stopped him. Had looked at him like, Whats your angle? (Were there guards at our hotels in
Peking and Shanghai where wed just wandered about?) Maybe, thought Rufford, he was off limits.
But then Miss Tang unexpectedly appeared and explained that, sorry, the guard didnt want to be in
the picture. So Rufford was forced to view the scene differently.
Me too. Why was it that the Americans loved to have their pictures taken and the
Chinese did not? Did the Americans, in their psychic looseness, in their insecurity, need some
reassurance that they in fact existed, were (just look in the mirror of the photograph)
undeniable? Were the lack of photos for the Chinese an insistence that each man in his
littleness be absorbed only in the bigness of China? Whereas the Americans were all ego?
Was the camera itself something so strange to the Chinese? Or the man pointing it like
a weapon? Did the Chinese opposite us whom we were trying to shoot confirm our steadily
upheld view of them that they had no need to try to preserve the varied moments of their lives
because they had no varied momentswere robots, machines? Whereas the Americans wished
to preserve those unusual human moments that would otherwise be forgotten?
It was one side against the other. Balanced like the poles of those age-old workers in the
ordered greenbeyond the mechanism of
the eye, the remove of the speeding glass.
Did it come as a revelation that the Chinese
were as human as we were? Jairie was telling
us how last night Errol had come to dinner a
few minutes ahead of her (shed stayed
behind, maybe because Connie let out a yell
on seeing a gigantic bug in her bathroom),
and when shed hurried to join him, Mr. Yu
had played a trick on hertold her Errol
went one way when he really went the other.
Then, when she strayed to the stairs, he told
her the truth.
At dinner (half the Americans werent
there, had
gone to bed
tired), Miss
Tang was
A balance is necessary
saying that
in the
morning theyd be having breakfast on the railroad tracks.
Which made Errol and Jairie roar with laughter because they
believed she misspoke. Her command of the idiom hadnt
registered with them, as it had with Cowan. Such a figure of
speech for on the train was beyond herand them. Miss Tang
laughed with us, Jairie confided sympathetically, but she was
From Life, Apr. 30, 1971, 23
exhaustedotherwise she never would have said that.
Interpreter Tang
193
Jairie was pleased that her interpreter friend, Kuo Chien-hua, from the All China Travel
Agency, whom shed first met on our arrival in Canton, was accompanying us to the border.
Hed tried hard to get Jairie records of the Red Detachment ballet and Jairie appreciated his
kindnessso much so that at the end, when it came time to leave China, she lingered tearfully
and gave him a hug and a kiss.
Judy, too, was disappointed; shed missed getting recordings of all that Praise to
Chairman Mao music shed heard and enjoyed. She didnt realize, until after wed left
Shanghai and it was too late, that her chance to buy them in China was behind her, gone with
their echoes in time.
Connie, looking at me, shaking her head humorously, was still talking about that little
old lady. Not the one yesterday with the gift of a bamboo basket who so appropriately urged
on her the Easter eggs of life, but the other, fictional oneknitting, knitting, foreverwho yet
was as real to her as any of those workers weaving among the not-to-be-stepped-on chickens
of communal life.
No, Connie would soon be saying at the Shumchun border, I wouldnt go back if
they paid me all the money in China. Shed thought aheadand back: 28 days, thats how
long shed been away from Dell. And this morning Michelle, Shelly, her two-year-old, would
be celebrating her birthday.
Still, Connie felt, with a missionarys conscience, and tears in her eyes, how could she
leave those poor people in that type of society? Where they had no personal freedoms. Where
if a government loudspeaker blared out Do this!Go here! you had to do it, you had no
choice.
Loudspeakers?Blaring directives?I could remember only that subtle light-signal
for the conscripted soldiers. Now, though, I was again hearing that half-hymnal, half-martial
music.
Off the train, walking, I saw, up there on a hill, at journeys end, what looked to me
like a temple. Nobody Ive talked to, though, can remember seeing itand although I stopped
to take a picture of it, it never came out.
Down I walked with the others (Errol said it was ridiculous the way I kept dropping
things), toward the bridge out of recorded China. Absurdly, I felt something like Stanley
coming out of the last century. There in the distance were the clustered pressmen (There are
the vultures, Cowan said) waiting to take up our pictures and wing them off to the far-flung
rookeries of the world.
Faced with this as I was coming down along those parallel tracks, I couldnt resist
moving away from the rest of the Table Tennis Group, right out onto those ties. I wanted to
take my own picture, opposite them, those newspapermen, those photographers,
thosevultures.
Welcome back! said the British guard, who earlier had joked, Maybe well see you
in a week. Then we all got our passports back from GrahamMiles, I remember, was one of
the first.
After which we crossed over. Where, as if it were true, as Tannehill had said, that we
were all going to come limping out of China, they fell upon us.
At first, Graham
How does it feel to be coming out of China? yelled a newsman.
I dont like the term coming out of China, said Graham, Were not coming out of
anywhere. Were leaving a very friendly country.
194
U.S. Team begins coming out of China
At first, Graham was trying to keep them away from

What do you think of Chou En-lai?
We think hes a very intelligent man, said Graham. He was still thinking he could be
the spokesman for all of us. Wishing it. Dreaming it.
But it was hopeless. The individual interviews had already begun. The minute we
stepped out of protected China, our Group had quickly, irrevocably been disbanded, picked
apart. And by the time the train had gotten to Hong Kong an estimated 600 newsmen were
covering us, our story.
We were all astonished. We couldnt believe it. Never had any of us gotten so much
attention in our lives. What had we done? What great thing had we accomplished? Proved that
800,000,000 members of the human race were human?
Cowan had ambled out and, seeing all those photographers and newspapermen, had
forgotten himself. It was fantastic, he said. Just fantastic. The Chinese people are just like
us. Theyre real, theyre genuine, theyve got feelings.
And then he rememberedhe was letting only those people from Life know his
innermost thoughts, deepest feelings.
Soon, though, he would be telling everybody he was a celebrity, and that he was
under contract with Life magazine for his story and that his picture might be appearing on its
cover.
Ill talk to you, he was saying to the crowd of newsmen jostling for positions with us
all, but I cant tell you very much. One reporter heard him say, I think this whole thing
ought to be worth about $30,000.
Actually, almost every time Glenn opened his mouth, he was quotable.
Now that Ive gone to China, he said, running a hand through his hair, Gee, Ive
become famous. While moments later, underneath his floppy hat, he could state confidentially,
I think I could mediate between Chou En-lai and Nixon quite easily.
A few lines later, a reporter, who was listening to him and who was just catching up
195
with the news, was

Looks like a version of
writing, Chinese
the little red book, does
champion, Tran Se-tung
it? Thats what everyone thinks who cant
presented Cowan with an
make out the
embroidered silk
notebooks
Chinese
handkerchief.
characters
It was a riot.
Ian Stewart of the
Times met me and told me
Mr. Oka would be
contacting me in Hong
Kong and that wed have
the interview on the plane
going to Tokyo. Then he
left me to the others. So,
while the reporters took
down my every word, I
began talking of Mao and
Christ and things you
could later better read
about elsewhere.
I told them how so many Catholics I knew when I was young took their prayer book
to church (my father would always say to me just before we were hurriedly leaving the house,
Do you have your prayer book?). But then they never opened it. They just carried it. I
wondered if there were a lot of Chinese like this (maybe who couldnt even read) who just
carried around a little red Mao book for whatever value it gave them. It was like a Bible,
always handy, just in case. And all those pictures of Mao, the Saviour, well, one got used to
them. Maoism was a condition everyone got used to. Everyone wore a Mao badgeit just
became an article of dress, and after a while you didnt notice it anymore.
I talked about how in every hut or shed there was a picture of Mao and how this
brotherhood reminded me (and the blood of Christs crucifixion too?) of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus and how for a time my heart bled red. I was quite a punster. Am still.
Jairie, of course, was surrounded by men. UP had made contact, was trying to
monopolize her, but it wasnt easy getting her away. The Chinese treated me wonderfully,
she was saying to one reporter. We couldnt have been better treated by our own relatives.
Errol, she said, had the distinction of being the only Team member to come out wearing a
large Mao badge. Oh? Another newsman asked Errol to explain it. I wear it as a Friendship
button, he saidI gave them an American flag.
Tannehill, as if he still had his head in and out of the Peking Review, was characterizing
the Chinese: I noticed a lot of individuality among them, though there was a certain
conformity to their philosophy.
It was true, he said, that hed wanted to stay in China, but 15 had gone in and 15 were
to come out. However, the Chinese had invited him back after the World Championships in
Peking, in 10 years time.
Id been up every once in a while to stretch my legsit was a two-hour ride to Hong
Kong. Though the aisles were partially blocked, the newsmen circled round, managed to get a
196
piece of, a piece from, all of us. Some of the players, I heard, were getting $150 for a color
picture, and $50 for a black and white one.
President Steenhoven, on being asked by a reporter whether the question of Sino-American
trade was discussed, said with surprising flippancy, Anywhere I go I try to sell a Chrysler.
For Howard the trip had been an I-opener. He said he was going to change his life-style.
The Chinese, he insisted, have stripped things down to basics. All the grist, all the fat, is out.
Everything they do is necessary, has a function. Their homes have no decorationexcept for
portraits of Mao. Their chairs may not be well finished. So what? A chair is to sit in.
For Jack, too (how long had he been working with computers?), everything, everyone,
had a function. Or was supposed to. But now, suddenly, what was his? He had to go deep into
China to see himself lost in America.
The literal life in China, he went on, is not satisfying to me. Id die of boredom in
two hours. But when I think of my own life in the States, my own job, its all grist, its all fat.
None of it satisfies me. Ive got to break away, get down to essentials, set up new priorities,
new standards.
Cowan, on coming back to Hong Kong in his half-blue, half-red flower shirt and seeing
all those neon signs, was himself lit up. My whole being is my message, he was telling the
world. What I am is my message. Prophet-like, he spoke of love and suffering. I loved
China. I loved the Chinese. Where else, man, would you see a child of three carrying a child of
two in its arms? As I say, he couldnt help but be quotable.
At the Hong Kong airport, there was a pre-departure Press Conference.
I am speaking from Pan Ams Golden Clipper Roomand please print that, Graham
told newsmen.Yes, he said, we extended an invitation to the Chinese Ping-Pong Team
and it is now being considered by them. Asked if there was any chance Chou En-lai would
visit the United States, President Steenhoven replied, He didnt say. But I think he would.
Why not? Its a good country.
Holding up a copy of the little red book, The Thoughts of Chairman Mao, Howard
was saying, or would be saying, in some Press Conference somewhere (did it matter?). Have
any of you gentlemen read this book?I read it and was impressed by what I read. And then
he went on to preach that he thought the United States could benefit from at least two of
Chairman Maos teachings: that there should be not polarization but solidarity among the
people; not profiteering butNo, he said quickly to the question he saw forming; No, I
dont mean to eliminate free enterprise. But to dampen enthusiasm to rob the other guy.
Judy smiled and admitted that shed brought back five of these little red Mao books. It
was very, very different in China, she said. Because people have so much less, they are much less
material-minded. But I think theyre happy. If everyone has the same, then no one is envious
because someone elses car is bigger than theirs. Asked if shed like to go back, she said, Id love
to see more of the country. I hope the next World Table Tennis Tournament will be there.
The Chinese had arranged for a Japan Air Line flight to get us all back to Tokyo
together. But there was an Air France jet that would fly us there earlier, so half our ex-Group
decided to take that. As it happened, however, this plane would be getting into Tokyo only ten
minutes or so before the other one. Miles thought it amusing how the Team couldnt wait to
split, and now, ironically, he opted to stay with Steenhovenas if now he began to see there
wasnt much difference between the two of them after all.
Mr. Oka, during our five-hour delayed flight, spent every minute of every hour with a
typewriter on his lap, while I painstakingly went over all my notes for the last two days. When
197
we were finally finished, I had a very great admiration for him. He was interested solely in the
truth. The commune home you went into, he asked, did it have a wooden floor, or was it
hard earth? I didnt know. I thought, somehow, both. The section where you entered, earth;
the floor by the bed, wooden. But it was so hard to remember. To be sure.
I did tell Oka that this womans one room apartment Id visited was 15 x 15. Actually,
it was a little larger than that, counting the dining nook and not counting the kitchen. But I
estimated it quickly, off-handedly for him when he asked the size of it, and I didnt think
anything about it. Since I wasnt going to write the piece, it didnt concern me too much what
of mine he was going to use.
Imagine my surprise then when I read a few days later that Vice-President Agnew had
seized on my words and complained that a family living in such quarters in the U.S. would be
described as living in poverty.
What, though, did Mr. Agnews complaint mean? Should I have said that Id gone into
a poverty-stricken household? I didnt see it that way at all. I disliked Agnews posture,
resented him pushing his anti-Red rhetoric at my expense.
Mr. Oka was admirablealways in pursuit of facts, sometimes those that were unverifiable,
until he, too, had to give it all up and do the best he could with what he had. For a moment, I
almost asked, offered, to do the write-up myself, but I was tiredand though I had great sympathy
for Mr. Oka, who was also tired, I figured he was the professional and I was the amateur. Besides, I
knew what I wrote would never be printed at all my way, and maybe it would Mr. Okas way, but
that if it werent, itd be all right with him because hed accepted that part with his job.
So I felt I could go on to the Imperial Hotel with a pretty clear conscience that Id
done what Id contracted to do. Thousands of people could have done better, but, well, I did
something. I regretted not asking more questions, but it seemed I didnt have much
opportunity, or time to think, or that I was too tired to. And, often, I just wasnt curious about
a great many things others would have found fascinating.
Also I felt self-conscious about asking a question and then writing down, lest I forget
it, the answer or non-answer under the persons very nose. Part of me kept thinking I was
supposed to be much more of a guest than a newsman. (Some said the Chinese never dreamed
theyd be letting in such a mongrel pack of reporters when they invited the Table Tennis
Team and so hurriedly had to get some professionals in there who knew what they were
seeing, else imagine the distortion that would be given to the American people.) And that, as a
guest, what business of it was mine to ask a highly personal, meaningful questionwhich was
the only question I was ever interested in asking.
And what sort of answers would I get? Obviously guarded ones for the most part
(people may tell a stranger, or confide in a friend or acquaintance, anything, but not if they
know hes going to tell hundreds of thousands of others)and where was the truth I was
seeking in that? So I fell back and rather silently observedor tried tothings which to
another might have meant nothing but which to me were interesting and so I took them down.
Still, surrounded by people, I usually felt isolatedcaught between writing and
looking, and, it seemed, in danger of missing much. So many saw what I didntthough now
of course they cant with all the good will in the world remember most of what they saw.
The trip, I wonder, lives more for whom? Me, or the one who wrote so little? My
novelist friend had advised, Write down everything. Dont trust your memory. But of course
I already knew that. Though I wrote a lot, I could have written moreor less. What was
meaningful, or not, was all in the eye, I, of the beholder.
198
Measured by great men, I knew only too well what little Id done. Im no Marco Polobut
maybe something of that other guy in the prison with him, who just enjoyed, perhaps for want of
something else to do, taking a pen in hand and getting whatever it was, down.
That night ABC was picking Miles up by satellite and would be using seven minutes of
his China film. As for Wide World of Sports, Reisman would be their World Championship
Coachso that they would then know how to say, He showed a good forehand there, Bud
or He moved around fast on that one, Jim.
Dick selected for a few minutes of interview time four of the players: everybodys Miss
Teenage America finalists, Olga Soltesz and Judy Bochenski, Miss Florida and Miss Oregon
(Judy would soon be writing her own article for Seventeen, said she could do it as well as any
would-be professional; the very non-controversial George Brathwaite (who was quoted as
saying he felt he got more applause during matches in China than did his white teammates
because they, the Chinese, probably identified me with themselvesthe struggle to liberate
themselves); and the very controversial John Tannehill.
Look, John, Dick had warned him, We dont want the peace sign, we dont want
clenched fists. (Why, then, had they invited John?) Sure enough, when Tannehill got on the
air, without a moments hesitation he began to get into a very heavy rap about China being
superior to the U.S.but he never got to finish what at that moment he was trying so
definitively to say.
The next day, Sunday, we came home. Easter, a week ago, we were in Peking. Now,
resurrected from the swirling dust, from Pekings Tien An Men Square, how many of us went
to a map to try and place ourselves, to try to find out just where wed beenand, in
comparison, where we were now.
Coming back to the States on the plane, Jack Howard was brooding. He was seriously
thinking about quitting his jobfor something, he said, he really wanted to do. He hated
Seattle, his IBM job there. And now he just didnt see much
purpose in doing anything. Why was he going to New York
to be on the Johnny Carson Show? What was the point of it?
After a time (wed passed the International Date
Line), I noticed that hed been doodling on a note pad. It
was a problem he, a Systems Engineer, a computer man, had
from time to time been thinking about.
There was a moving column of men, he explained.
Abruptly the head man peeled off to the rear. Then stopped.
Suddenly he wanted to go back fast to where he was in the
beginning. But in order to (hurry, hurry) get back to the
front, he really had to move.
Captain Howard began working furiously at the
mechanics of thisas if in solving this problem he would
solve the problem of his life. He spoke of one plus one
equaling two. Maybe, he said, I should use this theory
of one into two or two into one?
I couldnt help him.
Finally he half-raised up out of his seat, tapped his
pencil a couple of times, and said, Ive got it. Ive got
the answer.
Jack has a problem to work out
199
I waitedwaited.
The answer is, he said, there is no answer. I cant see through to the end of it.
Now as I write, he still cant. Except that after 12 years of teaching others the
corporate importance of being as precise as the Chinese, Howard, without the prospect of
even a temporary job, quit IBM for life.
And Tannehill, did seven days in his lifecould just seven dayswork a dramatic
effect on him too? Of course youve already seen the labyrinth of his dialectic. Id much
prefer the Chinese system if it could be set up in America, he said. I wouldnt like to live in
China because Im an American. Id like to go back and teach Maos philosophy.
And, wanting to be a teacher, John promptly quit school.
Olga at the Canton Airport enjoying a last-minute friendship exchange
Olga Soltesz, who when about to leave Canton for home had found company at the
airport (and a present too?), said she was a little depressed. The visit had opened her eyes, she
said. She agreed that it might do other young Americans good to go where shed gone. You
dont pay any attention when your parents tell you that the young dont appreciate what they
have. Ill be glad to get home, though Ive nothing against the Chinese.
So she returned to Orlandos Boone High, and that first day back, in her first period
course, Americanism vs. Communism, she sat eating a freshly baked piece of red, white, and
blue cake made especially for her by one of her classmates. (Which is harder for you to believe
I didnt just just make upthe course or the cake?But I didnt make up either ).
Judy Bochenski, on returning home, was camera- consumed. Soon she was back in
school too. She laughed and said, I bet I learned more about world studies than anyone in
Mrs. Prices (Advanced World Studies) class. And she wasnt going to stop learning either.
In fact, she remembered a few Chinese phrases, such as Ni hao (meaning How do you do?),
and thought she might one day be an interpreter. That is, unless now that shed played table
tennis with Oregon Governor Tom McCall, and had been chosen Grand Marshall for the
Portland Rose Festival Parade, and state politicians had proclaimed May 5th Judy Bochenski
Day, there would be an opening in the Oregon State Legislature for her.
200
Photo courtesy of Eugene, OR Register-Guard
Judys camera-consumed on her

arrival home. Oregon Governor
Tom McCall expected a more
difficult match?
ian
der
u
es G
yW
b
to
Pho
d
lan
ort
P
in
g
Ore
oni
an
Photo by Scott Hill
201
How then, JudyTell the Truthyes, shed done that, too, had flown east to be on
that programdid you interpret the unsigned letter you got? This one, with this line:
Did you ask your peaceloving Communist allies how many millions of people theyd
murdered?
I thought it was funny, she said. The writer thought I was a Communist or something.
I myself went home to a Tim Boggan Night lecture at Long Island University, and,
like the others, I did TV shows, and gave speeches and exhibitions at universities, schools, and
clubs. I even signed up with a big New York agency that booked me at a couple of places then
sent me off for a weekend to speak at Lamar University in Texas, and do some TV and radio
spots and a Lions Club luncheon. I made $1100less 33% commission, less plane fare.
Naturally they were very pleased with meI was on my best behavior. When I heard that the
very next week they were having Ralph Nader follow me in, and when the guy who was
handling the University bookings said, Look, you should get more money, I came home and
wrote this agency a beautiful letter suggesting I ought to get $1500 per assignment. They
never got me another onenot one. But of course by then quite a few experienced China watchers
had gotten into China and were ready to be on the Talk Circuit. Which did make a difference.
Because when all is said and done, people do prefer a trained eye to an untrained one.
George Brathwaite and his wife Merle, and Errol and Jairie, and Jack Howard, and
Sally and I did get a free five-day trip to Paris, courtesy of Radio-Television Luxemburg. And
Americans at the Paris Lido, L-R: Jack, Jairie, Errol, George, Tim,
Georges wife Merle, and Tims wife Sally
when I came back I was kept busy for monthswas often burdened by all my ping-pong
commitments, what with my teaching job, and my editing job, and my weekend-playing-intournaments-with-my-sons job. Then when it seemed I couldnt do any more, I decided to run
for President of the USTTA, succeed Steenhoven.
202
Some Chairman someplace must have a proverb for someone like me. Perhaps, he would
say, one of these days God will send down an angel or two to remove all your mountains. I hope
not, I like to climb them. Next thing, you know, Id be trying to write a book.
George Brathwaite and Errol Resek were also kept busy with appearances. They even
made a recordand sang it in the streets of New York. It was called Ni Hua (meaning Hello).
Repeated over and over again was the line, Open up the doors and let Friendship in.
Everybody who heard it said they liked it, said Jairie. But she or it never caught on.
Dick Miles, too, was back in New York, and after a while went to work writing a
China piece. But though it wasnt the kind of thing Sports Illustrated could use, they paid him
$500 for trying.
If Miles could write a book before China (The Game of Table Tennis), Glenn Cowan
could write one after. And he did, with lots of picturesmostly of himself, but also some of
his manager, Bobby Gusikoff.
At the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles one day, a guy from Newsweek came up to Glenn
and said that someone had told him that in China they were making a little white porcelain statue of
Glenn with redno, red had become whiteheadband and racket. Glenn said that was hard to
believeit was probably made out of soap or something. But he exchanged names and addresses
with the guy just in case either of them might hear anything more.
Glenns floppy hat that hed gotten so much mileage out ofyou know what happened
to that? One night he went to an Elton John concert at Carnegie Hall. When John began
dancing around, Glenn threw it up at him. John caught it and put it on for the rest of his act.
Then he disappeared with it. Glenn went back stage of course, but though it would be very
uncool of him to try to get the hat back. Instead, he said to John, Im the guy who went to
China. Here, Ill
autograph it for
you.
So in the
1972 Dec.-Jan.
issue of Rolling
Stone, Glenn was
given the
Groupie of the
Year Award.
Meanwhile, hed
been on Dinah
Shores Dinahs
Place, and was
already something
of a celebrity.
Rufford
Harrison? You
could get used to
grouping him with
Graham
Steenhoven
though only
203
Rufford would be studying Mandarin. Since Steenhoven and Harrison would soon be vested
by the USTTA Executive Committee with all the power they could want, theyd be working
withperhaps had already started working withthe National Committee on U.S.-China
Relations in handling the Chinese Teams visit to the U.S. Yes, we were about to find out, the
Chinese were coming (when, next year, the blossoms were in full bloom). But Graham
wasnt quite ready to announce it yet. Hed just gotten back. Had to catch his breath. Right
away, hed have to go to work, get things settled there.
Whos left? George and Madeline Buben, and Connie Sweeris, and more of
Steenhoven. Well, not Graham, but the three of them, can go home and stay theretheyd
been wanting to for some timeeat some good food, get some well-deserved rest, begin again
to lead some plain, predictable mid-western lives.
As for Graham, it wouldnt be that easy. He still had more of those press conferences
coming up. Still had the very straight posture to maintain.
Mr. Steenhoven, do you think the Chinese used the American PingTable Tennis
Team for propaganda purposes?
No, not at all! Im sure what they wanted was in some way for us to be friends.
It would seem Graham really wanted to believe that. (Just as once I thought I heard
him sayor wanted to hear him say and mean itthat Our trip has given us a better
understanding not only of our Chinese friends but of ourselves.
But of course it was always the great snake of tabloid sensationalism that Graham saw
curled behind a mike. When it stirred, flipped its tail, he had to try to be ready for it with the
vorpal sword of his rhetoric. He had always to be on the lookoutto keep the road to Detroit
clear for the Chinese. He had always this secret vigil.
On the Tuesday after our return, the stage was being set for the play that would follow.
The Chinese Team was coming to Detroit. It was official! And in Grahams city too, after the
Chinese Teams visit, Mr. Steenhoven would be receiving the Detroit-Windsor International
Freedom Award (that had been given to both President Kennedy and the Reverend Martin
Luther King) and, six months later, in the company of many well-known figures in sports, the
March of Dimes Citizen Award.
On Wednesday, Graham flew alone (to the disappointment of all our Team members) to
Washington to meet with President Nixon.
Hello, Graham, said the President to the President. (Could Graham have conceivably
thought of saying, Hello, Dick? (What would Cowan have said? Hi?)
Because pictures were going to be taken and they should be seen talking to one
another, President Nixon said, Lets talk about anything. How much is a ping-pong ball?
Graham said, A quarter.
An AP article reported that Nixon dabbled in our Sport. Said that supposedly hed
been playing for months at his Camp David retreat. But naturally he wouldnt be buying his
own ping-pong balls.
President Steenhoven insisted that the USTTA would not accept any money from the
U.S. Government to finance the Chinese Teams trip here. (Earlier Graham had wanted to
make it clear, as it had been made clear to him, that the Government could not even suggest an
organization that would fund the Chinese Teams visit.)
Asked why he wouldnt accept any federal subsidy, our President said, Because Im
not a politician.
Vice-President Agnew, a reporter pointed out, had been talking about the propaganda
204
advantage the Chinese had gained by our Teams visit. But Graham really couldnt see it,
didnt even know what Mr. Agnew was saying. He couldnt have been talking about us,
Graham said, were table tennis players.
Grahams point was that table tennis players couldnt be used.
President Nixon asked the man who wasnt a politician to tell him something about the
trip, about his and our Groups reaction to it.
So what do you suppose Graham said? What hed said to a Detroit reporter earlier?
That, yes, it was the most memorable experience of our lives. And that, no, there were no
incidents of any kind. All was peaceful. All for Ping-Pong Peace.
Now, while it was reported that administration officials were worried about the
Chinese Teams visit turning into what one White House official called a circus, echoing of
course Steenhovens fears, we might ask if the Sport profited from this historic Ping-Pong
Diplomacy trip.
People were soon saying alternately that, on the one hand, there never had been such a
boost to Table Tennis in this country, and that, on the other, once high up, like HumptyDumpty, it had been (if not USTTA pushed) left on its own by a do-nothing Executive
Committee to accidentally or deliberately collapse.
But such a fall was surely in a dream.
For we in Table Tennis, who live a little in this book, are real. Granted what we do is
competitively demanding, that it divides us from the masses, our Sport is not with HumptyDumpty headed for a fall. Connect Table Tennis with a Great Wall, if you like, but then realize
that if the Chinese players are allowed to come to the U.S. with reciprocal dignity, they will
show those who receive them the vast stretch and scope of their imaginative, seemingly
inimitable world.
205
Detroit Skyline
Photo by William Scheltema. From Table Tennis

Topics, Jan/Feb, 1970, cover
From Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Commemoration, 2002
Chinese arriving in Detroit

From the Apr. 13, 1972, New York Times
What the Chinese saw on

deplaning
206
THE GRAND TOUR

Chapter One
Friendship First, Competition Secondfor two weeks it was the line held to, firm as
a handshake, a look in the eye, as the Detroit-assembled Chinese and American ping-pong
players, following their flight pattern, looped in and out of the lost horizons of the East,
moved westward, to the perspectives of Memphis and L.A.
April 12th. Forth from out the Glory of the Skies, that Pan-Am 707 Jet Clipper
Friendshipits red flag unfurled to those given proper security clearance waiting in preassigned welcome positions in the suncame the Chinese, reciprocating, resurrecting, the
American Teams Easter visit to Peking almost a year ago to the day.
For Graham B. Steenhoven, President of the USTTA
and the man who led our Team, supervised our conduct, in
faraway China, it was something of a miracle, a dream come
true. As the Town Crier, Mark Beltair, put it in one of the
Detroit papers, what a fine gesture it would be for Chrysler
Corp. to loan Graham Steenhoven to give lessons in diplomacy
to our ever fumbling State Department. The mans simplicity, in
the very best sense, and sincerity, have been evident from the
start. And he quotes Grahams remark from almost a year ago,
I dont really care whether they play a single game of table
tennis.I just hope theyll come so we can show them our
country and try to repay some of the very real hospitality they
gave us.
First out of that heavy door of protocol burst the
Chinese photographerswaving their German cameras,
Graham B. Steenhoven
shooting pictures of our cordoned-off photographers waiting to
shoot them.
Then came Graham, alone, smiling and waving. (Hed
flown to Ottawa that morning to join the Chinese at the close of
their Canadian Tour.)
Following him, 30-year-old Chuang Tse-tung, World
Champion in 61, 63, and 65, thought by many to be the best
table tennis player who ever lived. Chuang Tse-tung (jwONG
Tseh-doung?for as one sympathetic translator put it, Were
faced with a spelling system that reveals nothing about how a
word should be pronounced) is a leading member (that
means in the egalitarian vernacular, the head?) of the AllChina Sports Federation, Vice-President of the TTA of The
Peoples Republic of China, and Deputy from Peking to the
National Peoples Congress. Its like having Hank Aaron in
Congress, somebody said.
And following him (you dont say Tse-tung, you say,
Chuang
or Mr. Chuang25 pounds heavier now than in his
Chuang Tse-tung
207
best playing days, a flowering diplomat whos visited at least 30 countriescame the rest of
the Chinese party. With matching flight bags, some 34-strong players, officials, interpreters,
journalists, two-thirds of whom itd soon be apparent, though dressed in Western shirts and
ties, could not, or would not, speak English.
Down below to meet them were the American playersunder the ever-watchful eye of
some unknown number of buttoned-down plain-clothes men and uniformed officers of the
Detroit Police Department, the Wayne County Sheriffs Office, the Michigan State Police, the
special agents and consultants from the White House, the State Department, and the National
Committee on U.S.-China Relations (a non-partisan educational organization financed in large
part by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the right wing of the
Chinese Scholars, as one observer put it) who assisted the hosting USTTA in raising the
estimated $300,000 necessary for the Chinese visit).
Of course our players had been briefed by our USTTA
International Chair, J. Rufford Harrison (Ruf, I heard
someone on the National Committee call him). Please, no
overt political activity. Please do not react to
demonstrations. It will embarrass the Chinese if we have
trouble.
Trouble? In the Briefing Room, Mrs. Steenhoven was
telling me over coffee that shed answered the phone at
6:00 a.m. one
morning to hear, I
hope you burn in
hell. Im going to
see to it that your
husband loses his
job.
Trouble?
Somebody wanted
to know about the
bus that would take
us into the
J. Rufford Harrison
Sheraton-Cadillac
Hotel. Itll be here when we need it, said Harrison.
Only the driver and someone else knows where it is.
Its been locked up since last night. Dont worry, its
been debuggedtheyre no bombs on it.
Of some embarrassment, however, if not to the
Chinese, to the Americans, was John Tannehill. He had
not originally been put on the Team because he had not
responded to the requisite forms requesting his
availability and uniform size. Turns out, though, he
really did want to be on the Team and had distinguished
himself by his play in last months U.S. Open, losing in
4 in the semis to the perennial U.S. Champion, D-J
Photo by William Scheltema
Lee.
John Tannehill
208
President Steenhoven felt that as John was with us on that historic trip to Peking he
ought to be in Detroit welcoming the Chinese. But he was not at all convinced that he owed
John the courtesy of playing him. So, at the last minute, John arrived at the airport in his
familiar Washington overalls, accompanied by two unknown Chinese friends, while the rest of
the Team was in uniform.
The rest of the Team, that is, with the possible exception of D-J Lee. I can remember only
that D-Js wife Linda and 3-year-old Jeffreythe little boy was suited if D-J wasntwere forced
to stand behind a security fence (Jeffrey had a gun) far away from the welcoming party.
Group photo by Mal Anderson
U.S. Team Members, L-R: Connie Sweeris, Pat Hildebrand, Wendy Hicks,
Patty Martinez Cash, Olga Soltesz, Barbara Kaminsky, Judy Bochenski, and Alice Green.
Sartorially resplendent, as if he were their manager, Bernie Bukiet.
And what an unusual picture our players presented. Heads all together. Head Ski and
Sportswear right down the line. The men in new, expensive blue turtlenecks and blazers. And
white pants (too often of untailored length, but never mind). And blazing in each buttonhole a
red flower. Cowan, for example, no one had quite seen him like this before. Forget about the
shoes and sockswhat obviously we had here were men of goodwill come together in friendly
people to people exchange.
And the girls. Wow! In orange turtlenecks and drip-dry, wont-wrinkle, all-white pantsuits.
Why, the jacket alone was a $50 item. What American Team had ever looked so good?
Except of course for Tannehill in his overalls. And, oh, oh, worse, one of his
mysterious friends with a strange box out there conspicuously in line with him. Finally one of
the security agents turns up his hearing aid and discovers him, Hey, you, who are you, and
whats in the box? Did it matter? Goodbye box. Goodbye Chinese friends.
John, it turned out, wanted to present to the Chinese not only the hand of friendship
but also a pair of his Washington overallswhich, as several people remarked, wasnt out of
line at all, was it?
209
Now nice, dull, friendly speeches all around. Sometimes droned out by planes
crisscrossing smoke above.After a time my mind wandered. the President. (The
President? Nixon? Steenhoven? Me? Come June 1st I would be the next President of the
USTTA? The ballots would be counted soon.) John Scali, a special consultant to President
Nixon, was talking about how all the flowers here were not yet in bloom, but that, as the
Chinese traveled the countryside, they would see many flowers and they would symbolize our
ever-improving relationship. (Why was I not given a flower for my buttonhole? Because, like
Tannehill, I had no uniform?)
On into the
bus,
the
Americans
ABC covering our bus
and Chinese were
ride into Detroit
packed together in
friendship. And,
crowding the aisle,
were press and
cameramen eager to
record the
phenomenon. Then
we were off, out
past the out-of-theway hangar where
wed landed to see a
delegation of
students of Chinese
Studies with red
banners: Long Live
the Friendship of the Chinese and
American People!Warm, Warm
Welcome from the Motherland! Signs I
would see again and again during the trip.
Tannehill asked an over all of a
question of 22-year-old Liang Ko-liang,
member of the winning Chinese Mens
team and Mens Doubles finalist with
Chuang at the last Worlds. Would
you, he asked like to have a date with
Olga? Interpretation back and forth,
while Miss Soltesz is demurely silent
(blushing? waiting?)Yes, comes
back the answer, we met before in
Japan, in Nagoya at the World.
Olga turns the conversation to
tennis, which she says she plays every
weekend, This is quickly picked up and
thought about and served round to several
Yes, says Liang
people nearby. The Chinese interpreter
chivalrously
Olga
210
replies, Concentration is much more important in table tennis than in tennis.

Youll soon be sweating in table tennis even if you havent had so much
physical exercise. Youll be sweating from the concentration.
Miles remarked to Liang that as a longtime defensive player himself
he was very happy to see another defensive player. To which Liang said (for
some reason hed taken out his Japanese-made Armstrong bat, inverted on
both sides), I used to play defensive, now I play offensive.
Chang Hsieh-lin, the Chinese player/coach, the so-called Magic
Chopper who with Womens Champ Lin Hui-ching is the Worlds
Mixed Doubles Champion, joined the conversation. He remembered that
he had once practiced with Miles and made the point that Dick was the
forerunner of his own chopping game.
Heres a great conversation! shouts an ABC cameraman,
bringing two of his crew stumbling our way. Miles tells Chang that the
Hungarian player Jonyer, though not Klampar (theyre the World
Doubles Champions), likes to play against the robot. Does Chang like to
play against it? No, says Chang with a smile. He prefers to play against
peoplepeople to people.
Much ado is made about the special signWe Welcome You To
Americathats come up on the side of the freeway. Who paid for the
sign? asked a Chinese. No one could tell him.
Prefers people to
Into Detroit we roll, with our helicopter/motorcycle-escorted
robots
motorcade, the police flashing their bubble-like lights to clear our way. Then
out of the bus into the street-level of the Sheraton-Cadillac, past curious shoppers and businessmen,
to the elevators that have been roped off by security men. Then up to the 16th floor (where the story
had gone round that a police dog had been panting and padding and sniffing about for
nitroglycerine)there to get a little blue button that would make us all instantly recognizable.
Then down, via elevators that kept getting stuck, to lunch. Local Chinese restaurateurs
wanted to provide meals for the distinguished visitors, but werent allowed to, I heard,
because of the hotels union rules. Team Captain Howard spontaneously said to a nicelooking lady that it was disgraceful to carry security to such lengths, and when that nicelooking young lady reported him to her newspaperwell, it was poison to some of our
officials. Anyway, standard hotel fare or not, the required La Choy Soy Sauce (so it came
from Archbold, Ohio) was soon available on demand.
After lunch the Chinese are presented with several gifts, the most interesting of which
is a Polaroid Camera. Its a very crowded, confused room were in. If the press cant keep
out of the way of our guests, then please get out, says a Mr. Frank Carpenter, the man
responsible for such media relations. The Polaroid people want to put on a good show.
Ruf shuts the door in the face of a cameraor rather a manthats not a Polaroid.
Immediately the door swings open again to show the resigned face of the ABC cameraman.
Yes, he has a job to do. His camera must catch the Chinese and their camerasor better yet
their instant delight at their cameras.
Only, what is this? None of the Chinese seem to care about taking the cameras out of
their boxes. Dont you have any interest in taking pictures? I ask an interpreter whos just
offered me a Chinese cigarette. Sometimes, he says, when I go to the park with my family
or when Im on vacation.
211
Several discreet minutes later I try againwith another interpreter who is wearing a
Square of Heavenly Peace button. Will you keep this camera for yourself or will you give it to
a friend of the family or to some poor person? (Too late, I think, there are no poor people in
China, are there? What am I thinking of, just mechanically trying to make conversation. Poor
people. Why in the world did I say that?)
Your question is very new to me, he says. I have never given any thought to having
a camera.
Later, Tannehill, who is not to be with us long, is explaining the picture in his own
instamatic eye. The Polaroid Camera tends to point out the technological inferiority of the
Chinese, whereas the present I tried to give them.
Now that the meals over, there will be a little rest, followed by some practice at Cobo
Hall. The press, its made clear, will have an opportunity to have a direct confrontation with
the Chinese at the Chrysler factory tomorrow. As for now, no individual interviews.
Later that afternoon theres segregated practicing. (Im telling you, theyre so precise
its pathetic, said one of our players shaking his head in admiration. They hit the ball so
much harder; are so much quicker.) Theres some talk of how hard the Nittaku ball (used at
the last World Championships) was. One Chinese interpreter is surprised to learn that the
Super Barna, to be used next year at the Sarajevo Worlds, is even harder. Has this ball been
finalized yet? he asks.
Chang Shieh-lin and Li Fu-jung, 3-time World finalist, are

given a Super Barna by Miles. (Li is thought something of a
handsome movie star by several of the women in our Group. A
reporter, apparently picking up on this, later wrote, The Chinese
do not make heroes of their sports stars in the same way Americans
do. As Li had said to him, We play in public, and people know
our names, but there is no special treatment.) For a few moments
Chang and Li can barely keep the Super Barna in play, and look at
one another curiously, ironically. Its a scene right out of a movie
a training film.
Errol Resek was talking, through an interpreter of course,
to his Chinese friend, Chiu Yen-liang. Errol said hed noticed that
Chiu had changed both his forehand and backhand since last years
Leading Man Li Fu-jung
exhibition matches. Questioned whether it was good or bad hed
done this (he seemed to have made much improvement), the young Chinese made light of it,
smiled and answered with a question of his own, How much could I have progressed in only
one year?
Hes being polite, explained Perry Link, the Harvard interpreter. To deny a compliment
is Chinese. To say, Thank you is American. Theres no such thing as luck, Chiu added. The
only thing you can talk about is progression. Either you progress fast or slowly.
212
And now, having worked up an

Glenn: not his usual self?
appetite, there is the Mayors banquet. To
which not all of us are invited. Cowanno,
hes not been excluded, but he doesnt have
his customary energy. Indeed, hes been
accompanied on the trip east by Bob Gusikoff
who, looking out for him, will have to take
him back to L.A. tomorrow. Cowan, feeling
nothing but love, though hes not well, will be
no trouble.
But Tannehill in his Washington
overalls is something else. Did Tannehills
non-conformist behavior have an effect on his
missing person status? asked a reporter.
Good heavens, no, answered Ruf Harrison.
We didnt consider that a factor in the least.
As for Linda Lee and Jeffrey, they
were out from behind the fencebut with respect to accompanying D-J to the banquet, they
were now sitting on it.
There were, in fact, eight in all on that fence, at the moment missing, waiting, including
Tannehill. President Steenhoven is put in an embarrassing positionhe doesnt want to be
thought overreaching with regard to the number of people he invites. But what can he do? Its
difficult for him to ignore the requests (If the airline stewardesses can come, why). Finally
he is direct. Calls Mrs. Gribbs herself. And, yes, its o.k.except now at the last minute there
is no time to go upstairs and try to find a uniform for Tannehill. Perhaps in the morning he will
outfit himself properly? As for now, he obviously cant go like that.
If there is to be peace, there must be understanding. If there is to be understanding, there
must be communication, said one of the speakersalmost as if it were meant to be a grace before
the meal. The banquet, bountiful, included: fresh American shrimp, Swedish meatballs and pickled
herring, Danish ham, Polish sausage, Ukranian stuffed cabbage, German potato salad, Kosher dill
pickles, Jewish and French breads, French green beans, Italian salad, Spanish olives, and AfroAmerican black-eyed peas. No matter how you arranged it, quite a smorgasbord.
Mayor Gribbs toasted his Chinese guests with cold duck and spoke of his Polish ancestry
(and of how his forefathers, peasants all, came looking for the freedom and opportunity they
couldnt find in their own land). Deputy Mayor Greene, a black man, kidded that, unlike the Mayor
and his wife, his ancestors had been in the United States for 300 years. The true American,
interjected Mrs. Gribbs laughing. Identifying himself as an Afro-Saxon, which brought loud
laughter, Mr. Greene went on to say, in something of his Flip Wilson manner, They wanted us so
much they didnt want us to come voluntarily, they forced us to come.
The Chinese showed their appreciation by giving the Mayors six-year-old daughter
(who wore both a USTTA flag pin and a Red Square of Heavenly Peace button on her white
Bo-peep dress) some intricately colored eggs in a plastic case. Almost as if something had
happened to the space-time continuum and miraculously it was again Easter for all children.
Ziggy Bella and his gypsy fiddlers entertained. As Mr. Bella said to one reporter, his
opening number was called Fascination because were all fascinated by these people. By
these people he meant of course the Chinese.
213
Chapter Two
April 13th. The next morning Tannehill got his uniform. Came down to where we
were all having breakfast. And was surprised naturally that he was the only one wearing it.
(When do you wear it and when do you not?) With his fluffy, heel-hitched-up socks and
rather worn red tennis sneakers, he looked if possible even more the misfit to anyone
concerned with preserving our Group image. (What is it about being comfortable as a Team so
many of us resist?)
First thing, theres a visit to the Chrysler Assembly Plant. Here were again joined by
reporters ever eager to get at a truth behind a story deadline. Most of last night the official
door had been closed to them and theyd been caught peeking in at the windows. (The press
was more restrained in China, observed Mr. Steenhoven.)
Each of these doors will meet the right body, said our guide, a Mr. Cirilli, who was
wearing an American flag pin in his lapel. Meanwhile, many of the workers on the assembly
line (some wearing an I am a member of a Quality Team button) looked at us with hands on
hips and So What expressions.
Caution, says a sign. Do not enter this Dept. without eye protection.
Would you step aside, please? says a man with a Cinema Products camera. It may
be that he has been cleared to shoot a documentary.
Whats the rate of productivity per employee?
Mr. Kao of the U.N. wants to knowor at least asks.
(Many of the Chinese appear interested in statistics of
this sort.) He waves to the workers, and some smile and
wave back and accept his hand of friendship. Mr. Kao
has, I think, the most civilized, balanced yin-yang of a
face Ive ever seen. And yet it is something of a lizards
facebut ancient, god-like. What could surprise him?
What would he not understand? It wasnt so much the
overt acts of friendship, the little politenesses, I observed
among the Chinese that moved me to care something
about them, it was what I saw in their faces. A decency.
In the depths of their eyes, I thought, the individual did
matter, would not be left to
drown.
I dont know how
suddenly it all gets together,
says one of the American
interpreters, Mrs. Vee
Edwards, a very nice,
middle-aged lady, a teacher
The savvy Mr. Kao
of Chinese dialects from Ann
Arbor. Turns out all the
Chinese have been schooled to speak Mandarin and she is already
feeling somewhat useless. Already she would like to get back to
the two small islands she owns way up in Northern Michigan
where she can content herself with her ceramics and pottery.
Mrs. Vee Edwards
214
We can build over two million cars and not get a duplicate one coming off the final
line, says the voice of production accompanying us. PRIDE, reads one of the inspirational
signs on the wall. Pride in workmanship along with extra Care in Engineering makes our cars
the kind America wants. Signed, Arthur Godfrey.
How many women are working here? asks a Chinese interpreter. Answer: 10% of
the work force2,700 workers a shift, 3 shiftsare women. And of course they do the work
as well as men. Indeed, one woman whod been here for 22 years was so efficient she didnt
like the idea of visitorsshe didnt want to stop and fall behind in her work.
I noticed all your journalists are men, says a woman reporter to the interpreter.
Dont you have any women journalists? Answer: Oh, yes. Yes.
Eighty percent of the people want whitewall tires. Whitewall? Its explained to the
Chinese.
Sometimes questions and answers get mixed up. Whats the percentage of cars that
come back because of malfunctioning? Answer: Each person has 46 minutes a day free
time.
A worker comes up to Chrysler supervisor Steenhoven, shakes his hand. You signed
me up in 29, he says. Graham is pleased. He remembers when he was an interviewer and
write-up clerk. Hes come a long way. Thanks, he says for coming up and saying Hello.
Would you like a car? one of the members of the TeamQuality Teamasks Liang.
He doesnt need one, an interpreter answers. It would be of no use to him. (So much for
Chrysler plants in China?)
At the Custom Dept. there is a sign, Friendship First, Competition Secondwritten
in Chinese characters. And a foreman who can say Hello and My name is Jim in Mandarin.
And soon along the route another sign in Chinese is posted. We welcome you to
Detroit. We borrowed it from another line, says one of the workers.
See how much fun theyre having, adds President Steenhoven. Theyre glad youre
here. The very pleased Chinese have the worker take the sign down, and then they get their
cameraman, and then the worker puts it up again with masking tape.
At the Product Evaluation Stage
(the plant rolls out a new car every
minute), its suggested that one of the
Chinese get into the red Charger of a car
thats been show-roomed out before them.
Go on, get inside! is the command. And
after Deputy Li Meng Hua demurs, Liang
is selected. He sits there behind the shiny
new wheel as if, with practice, he could
get used to it.
Now into the relaxed atmosphere
round the Wonder Chef, the machines
that can give out Hot and Cold Drinks,
Food. The Dodge Personnel Manager
decides to say a few words. He describes
his job as that of a table tennis ball
between the two paddles of Management
and Union. The translation is made, but
Liang ready to rev up his Charger
215
(somethings missing, someones playing a game?) it could be everyone is tired from working
in the factorytheres nothing humorous in it.
Undoubtedly the Chinese have some questions relative to the operation? No, no
questions. After all, its just the second day. Chuang and Co. are still feeling their way.
(Perhaps its matter of pacing themselves?) Certainly they recognize that the Americans are all
friendly and open, and theyre the same way. Theyll be sure to ask questions freely later. As
for now, the factory is larger than theyre used to, the technology more modern, the workers
clothes hung up neatly, the sanitation good. American workers, they see, are enthusiastic. We
can learn from all this, they say.
At the nearby Stamping Plant, in a cafeteria reserved for
managerial and office personnel, we had lunch. I thought the
sour cream was Roquefort dressing and advised Miss Shen,
the interpreter, to put it on her saladwhich she did. Later, I
saw her putting it on her baked potato. All the time she knew
it was sour cream, but didnt want me to lose face?
Ah, and now time for a table tennis exhibition! Yep,
between the heads of the U.S. and China Delegations. Who do
you like? Mr. Steenhoven takes his paddle out of his briefcase
and to the cry of Illegal shirt! strides out to meet his
opponent, Chuang Tse-tung. Miles, the umpire, makes it
understood that its a 5-point game. To 5 points, that is. Then
he introduces the players. Chuang Tse-tung3-times World
Champion. Graham Steenhovenno-times World Champion.
Chuang, up 2-0, pushes one of Grahams serves into the
net, looks at his racket. Chuang makes another point, loses
another. Then Graham switches from being on the defense to
Photo by Don Gunn
smack one in. Aw, one of the workers said, he could slam
Shen Jo-yun: sour cream on salad? any one in he wants to. Chuang wins 5-3.
Other matches follow, among the Chinese themselves
and with worker volunteersincluding the plant manager and the local Union committeeman.
Riding back to the hotel in one of our Challenger buses, the Chinese group towards the
front began singing, as Miss Shen explained, a minority songa Korean folk song. I
wondered aloud if it had anything to do with D-J being up there. Oh, no, said Miss Shen.
Ours is a multi-national country. We have many folk songs. Except it was the only minority
song, outside of Home on the Range, and Row, Row, Row Your Boat, I heard them sing
the whole trip.
That night the U.S. Team went to Oakland Universitys Meadowbrook Hall, the 100room Tudor manor house of Matilda R. Wilson, the widow of John F. Dodge, the automobile
pioneer. You need room to clear your mind, says the Meadowbrook brochure. Here you
have more than a hundred acres of freedom, and for $35-$40 a night its totally, mercifully
private.
That is, usually. Tonight the castle walls are crowded with hands holding wine punch and
stuffed mushroom caps and chutney cheese balls. The most exciting thing the volunteer guide was
saying, her hair all caught up in a red, white, and blue pony-tail, is that Meadowbrook Hall is an
American productbuilt with money (its worth $4,000,000) made right here in Detroit. The
wood, for instance, in these reproduced English rooms, cant be bought now.
216

Challenge match (with Dick Miles as umpire) between 3-time world champion Chuang Tse-tung
and no-time world champion Graham Steenhoven
217
There is much talk of how, despite the fact that they used to have 24 maids hereor
rather 25, for they needed a maid for the maidsthe Wilsons daughter, at age 12, learned to
keep house for herself. Her parents bought her a 6-room miniature Dolls House, constructed
with the very same irreplaceable materials, the bricks and wood, of the larger Manor House.
Of course it was only two-thirds scale, still its the finest Dolls House that exists in the U.S.
Ibsen and Womens Lib the Chinese may never have heard of. But you can be sure they
were aware of their surroundings, had already reflected onover a candlelight dinner of Roast
Prime Rib and Lobster Newburgwhat President ODowd would soon be telling them. That
this gracious home, with its tapestried, art museum-like walls, its Farm by the River
(Constable), its Innocence (Jean Baptiste Greuze), had been transformed into a cultural and
educational center to serve all the citizens of Michigan.
And to add a further touch of romantic simplicity, Wordsworth was called inhis host of
golden daffodils. Perhaps in the inward eye of the Chinese, Meadowbrook Hall, with all its
English pastoral haunts, would, one day, in the shadows of Peking, offer the bliss of solitude.
That the translator was caught by surprise and could only give a one-sentence resume
of the concluding six lines of the poem could not be helped. At least the spirit was there. And
the gifta clock. Which, in the flickering shadows of Old China suggesteddeath. But of
course this was New China. And the bus went Merrily, merrily, merrily back to the hotel.
218
Chapter Three
April 14th. The day of THE big International match. What does everyone want to do
most of the day but rest and practice. In China, says Chuang Tse-tung, the sport is part of
life. It keeps people in good health so they can do their work much better.
Many are curious about the work of the Chinese players. Question: How much do
they practice? Answer: Two hours a day normally. (Is that believable?) A month or so before
big tournaments a Team gets together and practices maybe four hours a day. Question: Why
didnt Li Ching-kuang, who beat Ito 3 and 6 in the Mens Team final in Nagoya, come on this
trip? Answer (from the same American whod asked the Question): Because he cant afford to
come and play exhibitionshes in training for the Sarajevo Worlds. Last year, said an
interpreter, he lost to Bengtsson after leading 14-8 in the 5th game because he was nervousit
was his first World Championship.
The Americans are surprised to see the youngest member of the Mens Team, 20-yearold Hu Wei-hsin, with a two-pound steel racket. Helps his forearm develop, he says. Errol and
Jairie had already asked their friend from last year, Chiu Yen-liang if he does weight lifting.
And Li Fu-jung had answered for him, Yes. If one needs to do it, he might work with 100pound weights or so. Later, on the bus, Jairie felt Chius armand, wow, he had muscle all
right.
Cobo Hall wed all been to before, but never like this: 11,000 people in the stands! And
tonight the arena and its electronic scoreboard above wasnt for the Pistons, it was for us. For
a moment, the audience for the Bucks and Lakersthey too would be watching. And what
everyone would see would be different from any exhibition anyone in this vast gathering had
ever seen before. Said one viewer on seeing the coverage in the Detroit papers the next day,
It was like an acid high.
Top: Chinese men at the ready for their first Friendship Match
Bottom: U.S. Team members, L-R: Dell Sweeris, Fuarnado Roberts, George Brathwaite, Bernie Bukiet,
Errol Resek, D-J Lee, Alice Green, Judy Bochenski, Barbara Kaminsky, Olga Soltesz,
Patty Martinez Cash, Wendy Hicks, Pat Hildebrand, and Connie Sweeris
219
For the requisite pre-Match ceremonies, players on both sides had rehearsed in Peking.
China came out single file and so did the U.S. Each met in an exchange of pennants. Graham
Steenhoven, Detroits own, was introduced to loud applause; his counterpart Chuang only a
little less so. Players were individually introduced. Each exchanged some simple gift as a table
tennis shield or flag of a lapel pin, then moved to their private row of chairs to the rear of the
court. This ritual would be followed throughout the Tour.
Then, just as the Michigan Symphony band swung into the Chinese National Anthem,
The March of the Volunteers, anti-Chinese demonstrators in the upstairs balconies were
shouting and strewing leaflets, like from a plane, and continued doing so right on through our
anthem. Something seemed to parachute through the air (and bombs bursting in air),
which later I was told was a dead ratnot in celebration of The Year of the Rat though. It had
a red coat on it and the name Kissinger.
The security men did a quick job on the demonstrators. Somebody draped a banner, Send
us our POWs not Ping-Pong players, but it was almost instantly gathered up. Soon the
disturbance was quelled and play was well underway. The umpires in their new all-white uniforms
were closely minding the ballas were, too, Steenhoven and Chuang, for theyd settled down to
signing autographs with as much equanimity as Chuang was later to sign an orange.
As for the matches, what can I say? Judy Bochenski, who gamely led off (Whos
nervous? Theyre only World Champions), was all smiles all the way through. And the many
Chinese spectators were more than fairthey applauded her vigorously when she kept the ball
in play or slapped in a shot.
L-R: Sheng Huai-ying, Liang Ko-liang, and Ho Tsu-pin

getting Jeffrey Lees attention
Lee, who in this sort of exhibition was all business,

who, competitive, didnt want to cooperate in playing an
entertaining match, got caught running around his
Judy, all game
forehand by an opponent who was going all out. The
Chinese were soft on D-Js son, Jeffrey though.
The only match worth talking about was Sweeriss wildly popular 22-20, 21-18 win
over Liang. When, in the 1st, after marvelously lobbing and countering from as far back as the
barrier, Dells return hits the edge, a whole row of arrow-like hands phalanx out from the
Chinese bench. Down 18-19 in the 2nd, Liang serves into the netan obviously costly point.
In a moment, game and match to Sweeris.
220
Dell Sweeris,
U.S. star of the first Friendship Match
221
Afterwards, Dell said, Liang wanted to make it look goodand I was playing well
enough to take advantage of the openings he was giving me. Liang is possibly one of the best
players Ive ever played. [Possibly?] If youre afraid of his spin, youre in trouble. You cant be afraid.
Now, said Dell, I can be Mr. Sweeris again. Ive been Connies husband for a year.
(It was the same line that had worked so well for him last September after hed taken the
Canadian CNE tournament at Toronto.)
Its nice to have won, he went on, but better to have played a match I know was
appreciated. In a Friendship Match its better to be more cooperative. When I play, its not my life,
not that serious. In fact, sometimes I enjoy playing too much. Enjoy moving around too much. No,
I wasnt nervous, even when I was winning. But if I were playing Li Fu-jung, say, I wouldnt have
wanted to beat him if I knew he was giving me the match. Hes worked too hard.
Then, after relaxing a bit and thinking some more, Dell added, You know, we ought
to work on our marching.
Which reminds me: Tannehill, who in line earlier had raised a clenched fist, was the only
American not to play a match. Steenhoven didnt want to take a chance on me, he said.
April 15th. Yesterday John had lost his expense account sheet and was asking how to
get another. No need to worry about that now. This morning hed called Steenhoven a m-f r p,
which of course meant that it was all over for him. Though one person advised him to put his
bags on the bus and get on, he would not continue with us to Ann Arbor. I made up my mind
to go all out, he said. When the 2nd best ping-pong player in the country cant play a match,
somethings wrong.
I agree. Question is, What?
Said John, I was late for the bus last night. Thats why Steenhoven threw me off the Tour.
Said a brooding Jack Howard to John, I fought to get you on the Tour, fought to get
you in a match. (Tannehill didnt know it, but he was to have played in Ann Arbor.) Yet not
only Jack but all of us were sure that John often seemed totally closed to the effects of his
actions on others. The quizzical turn of the head, the wide-open eyes, the rebellious innocence
of, Wasnt what I did there in the lobby, the restaurant, wherever, what everybody would do?
Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, who made thee?
Was Jack, as John said, mean? To say as Team Captain that he had to do unpleasant
things toward a higher goal? To say that not everything worthwhile was fun to do? Hey,
ask the Cobo Hall umpires.

Umpires, L-R: Bill Byrnes, Andy Gad, Dick Evans, and Jim Rushford
222
Was Johns bearded friend right when he said there in the lobby as the bus was ready to pull
out, All this is a symbol of a terrible cause? (Whats all this? Whats the terrible cause?)
The ride to Ann Arbor begins. Outside there are leafless trees and apartment projects
that seem half built and half abandoned. A huge Uni-Royal tire stands in a circle of fog. Olga is
talking to Liang about how her father started her playing. But its real hard to listen to a
father, she says. Mr. Yeh Chih-Hsiung is looking at a small English-Chinese dictionary
someone has given him. I ask to take a look at it. By chance I open to page 514, to man;
manage; manager, underlined in red. The Chinese certainly wont have any management
problem. And now that both Cowan and Tannehill are no longer with us, its not likely
Steenhoven will either, is it? Fellow sitting next to me (student functionary?) wonders if
Communism is in that dictionary. Does that word really translate? he says.
Ann Arbor welcome
Once on the Ann Arbor campus, we pull up at the Student Union. Flagsso many
golden-star flags. Where did they get them all? Long Live the Friendship of the Chinese and
American people!Warm, Warm Welcome from the Motherland! Its like arriving at
Tsinghua University in Peking. We enter the Union. Students in the Chinese Studies Program
with red notebooks in hand are excitedly mingling with their Asian guests. The American
interpreters are talking nothing but Chinese. There are intense handclasps and smiles. Boys and
girls with Free Angela Davis buttons sip tea.
One of the welcoming speakers tries to make the visitors feel at home. The University
of Michigan, he says, has had connections with China for a long time. There are more Far
223
Asian students here than in any other area of the world. Turns out, though, a walking tour of
the campus has been cancelled. Well be taking a sort of sightseeing bus to lunch. Coming
down the hall toward our exit, we pass the large billiards room. One lone, bearded shooter is
there, thinking about his position, chalking his cue.
Outside I am handed a flyer: People Against The Air War, in bold letters. The
people of China have the trust and respect of the American people.We recognize the lies of
the Nixon administration for what they are.We trust your journey will serve long-time
revolutionary goals. Flags and hands wave and wave.
Opposite me is the Museum of Art. Art and the Excited Spiritthats the topic for
discussion. Then were bussed past the Presidents house, where a couple walk by hand in
hand. Then past the Salvation Record StoreHoneywell HappeningSleuth.
In this building, our guide points out, the students get free health care.And this is
the Counseling Center. We pass a student with a bike and a knapsack heading for the bicycle
parking lot. Theres the North Campussite of future expansion. Somebody on the bus is
talking about a camera, about color negatives. Negatives? I cant translate that, says an
interpreter. Theres the Physics and Astronomy building.The Phoenix Memorial Laboratory,
where sits the Universitys Nuclear Reactor.The Space Research Cyclotron. Translate that
one, says a player. Thats as good as microcosm. Or Afro-Saxon, says another.
All out at the Coed Dorm. Up to the cafeteria, where somebody in line looks at the
notices posted on the wall. Records for SaleMoody Blues $3Soul dinner.
How do you manage to explain what soul is? an American interpreter is asked. I use the
word spirit, he says. Its not just the language. Its a cultural thing.
How do you like American food? the students ask the Chinese. Were getting used
to it, says an interpreter. So are we, says a student.
One bearded boy has a copy of the Ann Arbor Sun, published by the Rainbow Peoples
Party (All Power to the People). The Suns Human Rights Party, I was told, had successfully
gotten two of its candidates on the Ann Arbor City Council. I open the paper. Sun outlawed
in Ann Arbor Schools ran one headline. Sunrise Communal Farms Needs Help! ran another.
Next stop, the Chrysler Arenawhere the Rev. Carl McIntire and his pickets are
waiting. Tricky Dick, Mao wants your blood. Were hustled into the locker room. More
signs. Nobody knows What He Can Do Until He Tries. Go Blues!
Play is ready to begin. President Steenhoven comes out, holding Chuangs arm,
smiling. Ohh, say can you see.Oer the ramparts we watch. The table tennis announcer
welcomes The Republic of ChinaKAO! WOW! OH! Thats of course Taiwan! It is very
easy to insult the Chinese, Mrs. Edwards had warned me.
The announcer tries to correct himself. The National Republic of ChinaBOO!
BOO! shout the students.
A very embarrassing blunder. Poor guyhes a decent fellow, Ive known him for
years. The Peoples Republic of Chinais that so hard? Why didnt he get it straight? Because
hes American to the core and theyrewell, theyre way over there someplace, unseen,
unknown, ignored, until theyre suddenly here.
The announcer continues. The Blues, he says, are to my left. Loud, political
laughter. In his innocence, hes forgiven.
After play is over, the two Teams go back to their separate locker rooms to say
whatever they say. The Americans are joking. George and I are the first ones dressed, says
Errol. It just shows our experience in getting dressed in a hurry.
224
Chinas Chen Pao-ching
Out of the Stadium and past the Pioneer High

School. We were on the movehad to catch a flight to
Virgina. The students are a lot less militant than when I
was here three years ago, says a guy on the bus.
A sensuous man with the stewardesses
Sweeris, after a time, is singing, Where Have All The
Flowers Gone.
George Brathwaite wasnt able to beat Chen Pao-ching at Ann Arbor, but he sure is a
winner on the plane. Theres a celebration for him. Its his birthday. The stewardesses get
together, give him funny little notes and cards (Ladies should come first, now its your turn)
and gifts (a book, The Sensuous Man; a Horoscope pamphlet: Ariesthe sign of the Ram; a
clever flower drawing; and a super-giant all-day, all-night sucker).
The weather was cloudy over Newport News. At the Patrick Henry airport we were
joined by USTTA Presidential candidate Jack Carr. Later, at our motel in Colonial
Williamsburgh, name cards extending out at the doortops of our rooms told us who we were
and where we lived. We were all surprised at the extra attention given us.
Our tour of 18th-century Williamsburgh began as we walked into the most elegant
house in town, the restored English Governors Palace. Upstairs, it was explained to us by
people dressed in perukes and farthingales (how strange that people of some time, of some
place, wore these things) that the very old, heavy, red curtain on the circa-1600, solid, handcarved, English-oak bed, already an antique in the 1770s, kept out drafts in the winter,
mosquitoes in the summer. The bed looked 5 feet but was really 6 feet long. The heavy red
canopy made for an eye-fooler. In the candlelight, the wallpaper, too, was deceptivemade
not of paper but of leather. One could see what appeared to be a first edition of Lord
Chesterfields Letters (Take the tone of the company that you are in).
Downstairs, more candlelight. A simulated 18th-century concert. Mr. Darling in periwig
played an old bureau organ The March of Washington. To one of our players it was a grade
B Dracula movie he was caught up in.
Dont turn on your lights! the cameramen were warned. Our hosts say it isnt
authentic.
Purcell came nextand of course a recorder was pointed out.
225
Then special thank yous. In translation, Mr. Darling became the Mayor, while the
President of Colonial Williamsburgh, who had wished the tennis table players welcomehis
name became untranslatable.
Now out into the landscaped garden, lit
by Statue-of-Liberty-like torcheswhich Patty
Martinez Cash, husband Larry or no Larry,
found romantic.
Then out into the present night again, to
the modernized Kings Arms for another
candlelight dinnerwhere I broke bread with
writer-novelist Jose Yglesias (The Truth About
Them), a very nice man, and a source of
strength to me on the Tour. Under the influence
of the wine, I soon begin to share with him my
not so orderly life. We agreed we could not be
fooled by wordsat least not by words in
books.
And now, lights out-illusion. Time to
take a nap, said one of the State Department
men. A movie was on tapabout Revolutionary
Williamsburgh (the real thing we visitors were
Patty Martinez Cash: out into the garden
going to see tomorrowthis was the warm-up).
The Story of a Patriot opened with a little
black boy walking from out a thicket into a field (I almost said of daffodils). The Promised
Land of Williamsburghtwo centuries later his descendents would be working the tables at
the sprawled out Cascade Inn where we were staying.
If one wants to be free, one must learn to
Thats Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O! said the fellow next to me. This was the
same brooding American who, as he continued to watch George Washington, Patrick Henry,
and Thomas Jefferson, and the beginning of the imminent split between the governing body
and the Colonialists, said, Sincerity, Nobility, Integrity have to have a common enemy, or they
never emerge.
Then Jefferson was speaking of the 1st of June, and telling me of fasting and
humiliation and prayer. Unite our cause with our brothers in Boston. Soften the hearts of our
brethren so that this way be resolved short of war.
But then of course there were the marchers with flags and banners and fifesand
along with them the requisite bloodshed.
226
Chapter Four
April 16th. The next morning, over a good old-fashioned breakfast of meatballs and
greens and hominy grits, the Chinese and the Americans sat in their separate Groups, and some
of us read the paper (Waves of U.S. Bombers Blast Haiphong).
After wards, we strolled out to the verandah and looked out into the woods and
watched the ducks, and the water cascading down. Am I getting paranoid? said the player
next to me. (No, it wasnt Cowanhe wouldnt be rejoining the Team.) Ive got some crazy
fantasy of a sniper out there in the trees.

Lin Hsiu-ying with Williamsburg hostess
in farthingale
Off now to continue our tour of

Williamsburgh. First, the Capital
Buildingwhere our guide, a woman
(they all dressed in farthingales), told
us the Virginia General Assembly met. Washington, Henry, Jefferson had their training here.
Man had dignity, worth, certain civil
rights that no government could
take from himso that after 10
years of thinking about this, Patrick
Henry could say, Give me Liberty,
or Give me Death!
Give me Liberty and what?
says the Chinese interpreter.
227
We examine something that Henry wrote. Nice handwriting, says an American.

Better to have a typewriter, says a Chinese.
We enter the General Courtroom of the Colony of Virginiawhich back then was the
only major Civil Court, the only Court of Appeals (Whereas, read a posted notice, my wife
Catherine Anberry, alias Haines, has absconded from us). Steenhoven and Chuang, keeping
to themselves, take a seat. Twelve jurors occupied these benches (where now sit only
Steenhoven and Chuang with their interpreters). They would be locked in until theyd
reached a decisionwhich of course brings laughter.
The rights we all enjoy, said our guide, came from England and were further developed
to meet the needs of the people. Free men were equal before law. A man had a right to be innocent
until proven guilty. We had responsible leaders, men who gave of themselves.Hopefully, adds
our guide, you take as you leave a small understanding of our heritage.
Maybe the Chinese did take away that. Or maybe, unlike the Americans at the Japanese
Toyo Bear Company or the Shanghai Commune, they politely masked their disinterest. The
guide did her best, but one had to wonder just how much the Americans cared about their
countrys history. Said one on leaving the Court, You know what impressed me most back
there? The sensuousness of that woman. She has a lot of lan.
I asked Rufford, who is English, if in that room back there he felt proud of his English
heritage. Its difficult to feel pride in either country when I can get mugged within a block of
my home, he said.
We walked on.
I suppose I should be writing articles, said one of the players who went to China, but
$50 here, $100 thereif I cant make a huge sum, it just isnt worth it.
I imagine, said Rufford, that the only articles from now on will be written by pros.
As we moved down a restored street, an American said, I dont like these press
people pushing me out of the way. I understand theyre doing a job, but Id like to see what
there is to see, I really would.
Shades of Shanghai and its Commune. First stop, the Apothecary. Its like a Chinese
herbal shop, said one of our visitors.
Whats that? asked an American pointing.
Licorice, said a Chinese. It helps to make a cough mixture.
Yes, elaborated the periwigged proprietor. Thats the root. You take off the bark,
boil in water, and make syrup for medication.
That shows the achievement of the American people in medical science, translates a
Chinese interpreter.
Would you like to be
bled, sir? The man in the wig
disguise is talking to a State
Department man. He, the man in
the wig, pulls out a little horror
machine. You see, the blades
come out like this. Really, sir, it
will help your humor, balance
your fluids.
Now over to a symbolic red and white pole. Authentic Barber and Peruke Maker. A
sign in the window says, Whereas my honest neighbor that has advertised for two or three
228
journeymen has lately seduced one from my service in a clandestine and undermining manner,
it is hoped that one of the number he has advertised for will come into my service.
There follows a demonstration of wig making. A man must have just the right kind of
blockhead. Any volunteer to try on this wig? How about Steenhoven? someone says.
O.K., says Graham good-naturedly. Ill put it on for a joke. He puts it on. Laughter. Takes
it off. You dont look so different, says an American.
Now into a tavern where there appeared to be plenty of restorativesbut none for us
to drink. A print on the wall reads, The Diversion of Battledore and Shittlecock. Oh,
Badmiton, says Judy. Badminton, says Lin Hui-ching in perfect English. But of course,
besides being a World Champion, shes a quality control inspector for a sports equipment
manufacturer. Its her business to be careful.
One Chinese sees a long white pipe, calls the
attention of another Chinese to it. The pipe of peace.
Savage
Hogarth
engravings line
the wall. The
Rakes
ProgressMarriage
ala Mode. The
dog in the
picture tears
viciously at a
piece of meat,
while some upper class animal has just burst in and
gone off with anothers.
We cross the street to the Post Office where a
print catches my I. The Fly Catching Macaroni. Two
worlds side by side, the size of ping-pong ballsArctic
and Antarctic. And an 18-century English dandy on
From Colliers Encyclopedia, Vol. 12, 1962
tiptoe with his racket out. There are these words
William Hogarth
below:
I move from Pole to Pole.
You ask me why
I tell you truth
To catch a ________ Fly.
The meaning was elusive. I sensed it was there, hiddenin the word fly.
What does it mean, To catch afly? I ask a woman in a farthingale.
I really cant define the satire for you, she says. What they thought was funny, you
wouldnt.
Now into a printing shop where Chuang, the Universal Man, is very much interested in
how the pages of a book are being sewn together.
And out over a little bridge.
What kind of flowers are those, Graham? I ask.
229
Daffodils, he says.
Really?
Sure, he says. Just ask me anythingand laughs. If I dont know, Ill tell you.
Because if you dont know, I know.
With Mrs. Edwards, the Chinese-American interpreter, it was as if shed crossed to one
of her islands. Theyre narcissus, she said. Two kinds. One is the Chinese version, single
petal. They should open at the beginning of the Chinese New Yeartheir blooming brings you
luck. Of course we can force them to open. The other kind is the double petal American. They
have a thick, strong flavor.
We walk up to where a man is making
sheets of paper from rags and ordinary stream
water. The rags are shredded up, the fibers broken
down so theyll soften, then theyre pulverized by a
mortar and pestle and thrown into a large tub
10% rags, 90% water. The pulp is in suspension. Is
stirred up. A screen through the water captures the
little pieces of pulp, which are then pressed onto a
piece of felt. The layer of pulp, which is now a
sheet of paper, is left to dry. Soon you can suit the
action to the word, the word to the actionpen, it
may be, your own name. This shows the wisdom
and knowledge and ability of the working people,
says an interpreter.
And now for a demonstration of how to
color the end papers of a book. Jackson-Pollacklike flips of oil-coloring float on water. Add ox bile.
And the waterproof of it all is that the Chinese are
Whats Chuang gonna read in the new paper?
fascinated.
Now we
wind round a
hill, go up a
street, and
theres bowling
on the green.
The Chinese
Champions get
some
instruction, try
their hand.
Three to a
team. Much
depends on the
grip, the way
they arc the
ball. Theyre
Photo by Ken Feil of the W ashington Post
not bad.
This balls heavier than the one the Chinese are used to
230
On down to a windmill. With just

the one lever a person can turn the
anchored world of the windmill
round to take advantage of the
wind.
But now, the way the wind blows,
we have to bid adieu to Colonial
Williamsburgh.
Time for
lunch. Then an
exhibition at
William and Mary
College.
Patty
Martinez Cash may
not be smiling, but
shes smacking balls
past Cheng Minchih. Only, she has
to watch her
pushing because,
though Patty would
say later that Miss
Cheng has no more spin on the ball
than Canadas 3-time U.S. Open
Champion Violetta Nesukaitis, she
can pick-hit a forehand. And, uh, she
can also, unexpectedly, crazy-like,
counter-clockwise that backhand
Chinese at the Windmill; last man coming down the steps:

Deputy Head of the Chinese Delegation, Li Meng-hua
chop of hers into a hit from 6 in the morning till 9 at night and
never miss.
Do you think Patty can beat that girl? asks
someone in blue. Are you kidding? says someone not in
blue. Its a 10-point game. No, no, says someone else in
blue, about 7 points.
In the 1st game of another match, Errol Resek has
failed to return 1-2-3-4-5 serves, is still up 17-14, still loses
at 19. In the 2nd game, he jams his forefinger into the front
edge of the table and loses part of his fingernail. The match
continues, though, until Errols opponent stops play, comes
over with his towel, and aids him by cleaning up the blood
on his side of the table. Whereupon out of the stands
comessurprisea Chinese with a case. Turns out (as
Jairie comes rushing onto court with a camera) that its the
231
Pattys forehand almost beats the

World Womens Doubles champ
Chinese Team physician. That guy? says one of our players. I thought he was just another
dumb journalist.
Dr. Linn Yuan-Shu bandages the wound. Errol finishes the gamebut of course how
could he win? His Chinese friends tell him he was very brave to continue. Especially since, as
someone said, Its going to be harder now for him to sign autographs. Says Dell Sweeris
with a smile, Aww, Errol and them had it all planned in advance to get a story in the
newspapers.
The two Mens Teams go back to their shared locker room and the women return to
theirs. The Chinese women, I understand, are very modest. They dont want to change their
clothes when the American girls are in the dressing room. So the Americans discreetly finish
and leave.
Over on the mens side, Team Captain Howard is making an important discovery. The
Chinese wash their playing clothes while showering. Miles wants to observe this phenomenon.
He and his camera go into the shower room (though not into any downpour). Captain Howard
thinks this very funny and orders Boggan to go in with one of his notebooks. Are you writing
a novel? asks a Chinese interpreter.
On my way to the bus I am stopped by a very serious-looking, long-haired young man
whose hands are shaking, perhaps out of nervousness. He asks me very politely how he can
become a member of the team. A member of the USTTA? I say. Well, yes, he slowly
replies. A member of the group. Most of them had gone to China, hadnt they, and hed been
into ping-pong and wearing his Heavenly Peace button even before their trip. I want to travel
with them, he says. You know, travel with them around on the Tour. Can you tell me how to
join?
The buses back up and go out the back way. Carl McIntire and the pickets are
demonstrating out front. The last image I had of Dr. McIntire was back in Ann Arbor. He was
fending off a student whod grabbed one of his Mao Hates Christians posters and was
tearing it up.
A long bus ride in the rain to Washington. And what else but Home, home on the
rangeand seldom is heard a discouraging word. Then suddenly a long stretch of rural
graveyard is before us. Automobile gravesthousands of them. As if theyd towed them from
as far north as New York.
Were changing frequencies, says a man at the head of the bus holding a walky-talky.
Why are we changing frequencies? asks another.
I dont know, says the first guy.
Better ask how much the toll is up there.
Negative, says the radio. Theyve got tickets thatll take care of that.
Roger, says the man.
At the Evans Farm restaurant in McLean, Virginia, outside Washington, we are met by
Alice Green and her parents, by Barbara Kaminsky and Bernie Bukiet, by Pat Hildebrand and
her husband, and by Fuarnado Roberts and his girl friend. Theyd been making frantic
telephone calls and sending telegrams in an effort to communicate with somebody, anybody, in
the USTTA so as to find out how to go about making contact with the Chinese.
But the Chinese, President Steenhoven said, felt that too much of their itinerary was
being given to the press. So better it not be given to anybody, eh? As chance would have it, my
mother lived in McLean. Only since I didnt know until we were on the bus that that was
where we were going, I could hardly invite her to join us. Could I have otherwise?
232
Robbie, over drinks and dinner, was trying to establish communication. Fu-ar-nado,
he was saying. Fu-ar-nado. (Meanssomething?nothing?) At the table ahead of us, the
Chinese were teaching the Americans that, If you wear a flower, wear a big red flower. It
was a party song.
Out again into the rain. I was in the back of the bus. After a while I could seeor
rather hearthat up front all was going Merrily, merrily, merrily. Its like coming back
from summer camp, said a grown-up girl beside me.
Why was Washington selected? I thought I heard.
Because, I broke in, Bob Kaminsky kept pressuring a reluctant Steen
Laughter. No, no. They werent talking table tennisthey were talking politics. Why
was Washington elected?that was the question.
The Capital, an interpreter explained, was moved from New York to Philadelphia to
Washington.
Up, up, up the slippery steps in the rain to surer footing
round the gigantic figure of Lincoln. I followed the lines to the
right and left of him. With malice toward none; with charity for
all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right.The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did herewe here
highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
Back down the slippery steps in the rain. Which bus
should I go in?
The Washington Monument, said our guide going up,
was a triumph of American engineering. Through the turreted
windows I looked outand down.
Someone comes by and hands me a blue pamphlet put
out by the Department of the Interior: integrity and firmness
is all I can promise; theseshall never forsake me although I
may be deserted by all men. I think maybe Id better take a
walk round the top of the circlemaybe even mix in a little more.
Li Fu-jung, I see, is pointing excitedly to a picture with
From Newsday, Apr. 18, 1972
the words White House written under it. White House, he
Cheng Min-chih at the
says, and points for all to see. Id heard that the Chinese had
Lincoln Memorial
been studying about America, but I was surprised, after
traveling with Li for several days, that he knew any English at all.
Down from the tower and into the bus and over to the Park Sheraton. Bernie and
Robbie were to share a room next to mine. But going into their roomwas like opening a
door into a spy movie. Except, preserve the allusion, their room had been ransacked, ripped,
torn apart beyond all power I have to film it for you here.
Later I found out from Jairie, whod gossiped with the maid, that thered been trouble
at the hotel only a week before. A gang of Boys Club kids had come in, had stolen TVs from
quite a few rooms, and left the place a bombed-out mess. The Chinese wouldnt have to worry
thoughtheyd be surrounded by security.
233
Chapter Five
April 17th. This
afternoon we were bussed
out to the University of
Maryland, to Cole
Fieldhouse. There, set in back
of the archery range, was the
Presidents home. Not far
away were lacrosse players
with sticks and masks. Since
only the Team was invited to
have dinner with the
President, the rest of us
wandered about looking for
our designated cafeteria.
When we came to a building
with a Reds Off Campus
sticker we knew wed been
Tim
and
Jose
discuss the demonstrators
misdirected.
Before the evening
matches, I was with Jose Yglesias (Joe
Church hed called himself in translation, as if
he were just a regular guy, as if it made not just
his name but he himself easier, simpler to
understand). We were watching, amid dozens
of knots of people, Dr. McIntire and his
International Council of Christian pickets
demonstrate outside the Fieldhouse. We were
witnessing, you might say, a conjoining of the
Mao-Nixon parties.
Did you see that red jacket? says one
of the picketers walking in a circle to another.
The passerby wearing the sport coat, whod
been minding his own business, looked at the
speaker as if he were crazy.
Everyone in the picket line was
Photo courtesy of ITTF Museum
holding onto somethingan American flag, a
Bible, a placard of some kind. Red Chinese
Use Bats to Crush Head of Capitalist Enemythe full force of that was hoisted by a man
wearing a VFW hat. Lets TradeWell keep the Ping-Pongers and Send the U.N. to
Chinathis wrap led a woman back and forth.
It didnt take long for the noise to start: 1-2-3-4! We want to win the war! Followed
by the counter-chants of students who, later that night, would be breaking windows and
marching on the Presidents home: 1-2-3-4! We dont want the f___war! It was Onward
Christian Soldiers. Onward into battle vs. Mao! Mao! Mao Tse-tung! Revolution for the
234
Cole Field House spectators, L-R, rear: William Rogers, Tricia Cox Nixon,
John Scalia ... and future UN Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick.
Below: Interpreter Shen Jo-yun, Graham Steenhoven, and Chuang Tse-tung
U.S. and Chinese players stand

attentively prior to play
235
Young! A firecracker goes off. It reminds me of how the 4th of July used to be when children
gathered together to see the colors and hear the noise.
Pray! hurls a woman into the glare (and bombs bursting in air). Her eyes veer
left to catch a bearded figure. Out she steps, vulnerable from her protecting circle. Go off and
read your Bible, she almost screams, and youll see that Jesus Christ is the Son of God!
The young man with the beard, his voice shaking, says, Christ said, Love Your
Enemy, did he not, madam?
Dont you UNDERSTAND! the woman shrieks. The Communists want your
SOUL!
And with that, another soldier drops out of the circle. Protect us from the godless
brethren, he says. 55,000 theyve killed!
Mao! Mao! Mao Tse-tung! Revolution for the Young!1-2-3-4
This is more fun than watching the 11 oclock News, says a young man next to me.
We are the 11 oclock News, says another, beside himself with glee.
Now on to where Bob Kaminsky has set up a special buffet party for visiting
dignitaries. The Russian representatives are there. First Secretary Krasheninnikov, who came
and talked not of Russian ships being hit but of life in Chinahow hed once lived there and
worked very hard to learn the language. Also notable among the roughly 300 attendees were
President Leonard Milton of People to People Sports, and Mr. Allen Reich, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Cultural Affairs. USTTA Graham Steenhoven, however, does not attend.
His duties with the Chinese forbid it.
Soon, however, to the delight of Tass, Reuters, the French, Canadian and German
press, and who knows how many other newspapersJapans Asahi Shimbun, for instance
Graham and Chuang will be sitting with Secretary of State William Rogers and Tricia Nixon
Cox (Tricia Nixon Likes Ping-Pong While Her Father Bombs Haiphong).
Meanwhile, off, unseen, in the locker room, Team Captain Howard has his back to the
wall and whats on it: Winning is not a sometime thing. Its an-all-the-time thingVince
Lombardi. Jacks trying to give his players, not to say, himself, a last-minute pep talk. D-J Lee
is grumbling about how he should have been asked to play seriously and not have to involve
himself in all this damned politicking.
Yes, of course, Howard wants to win, who could doubt it? But he is also trying to play
every player an equal number of times and has a problem of logistics to work out. Especially
since hes not sure he ought to play every player an equal number of timessince of course
they arent all equal. That is, equal in ability. The thought for Jack to hold on to, then, is
apparently this: that the International Experience we want to bring back to our own locale is
more important than anything else. Though we want to win.
There are any number of people on the Chinese Team we can beat, says Jack, if
only we can play them.
Bukiet says, Give me 30-1 and I play anybody.
Theyre not going to let us fix it so we can win a match, says Lee. Ask them, Jack,
What is your order of play? Who do you play? Get them to tell you this first.
Yeah, I dont want to play the same guy again, says somebody, everybody.
O.K., O.K., says Jack. Nobodys going to play the same guy twice.
Who do you want to play, Bernie?
I play the best, says Bernieas if he hadnt even heard the question.
Now the lights in the Fieldhouse are dimmed, as if it were a basketball game. Already
236
the spotlight is on the flag, soon it will be on the Presidents daughter. But abruptly,
unexpectedly, the lights are turned on. I look over at the security agent nearest me. Hes
standing at attention but hes not looking at the flag. We are honored to present Boo!
Boo! A man is seen waving a National Liberation Front flag. Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! The
NLF Is Gonna Win!
Inset photo by Mark Ratner
30-1 - think thats about right?
As for Bernie winning, he cant begin to handle Ho Tsu-pins servesits a 9 or 10point game. Its the same with Brathwaite and Liang. With Roberts and Li Fu-jung. The
Chinese seem out for blood tonight. Choose Freedom, Defect Now, urges a sign in the
stands. (The group there represents Taiwan Independents?)
Though Barbara Kaminsky is beaten soundly by Cheng Min-shih, Pat Hildebrand is
playing the match of her life and is being rewarded with a deuce game by pretty, pig-tailed
Shih Ping-lin. Only, up in the seats theres so much commotion (a Smash ROTC banner goes
up), theyve got to stop play. When they resume, Pat cant win it and cant hold in her
disappointment.
The Americans are to understand, however, that its necessary for the Chinese to beat
them, at times unmercifully. It wouldnt show any respect for your opponent if you just
obviously, arrogantly, again and again gave up the point, hit the ball off the table. The West, as
Perry Link was telling me, had brought their technical skills to China, brought wars, traded
with the Chinese on unfavorable terms, took advantage of them. Now the Chinese were
bringing their technical table tennis skills to America. Each could learn from the other. By
trouncing our players, the Chinese were intent on letting them keep their self-respect.
Patty, too, is having her troubles. Shes won, with those fast hands of hers, the 1st game
against Yang Shun, and is down 18-19 in the 2nd when Yang misses a shot, only to have the
ball hit Pattys racket. Big swing: game to the Chinese. In the 3rd, down 0-5 but up 19-16,
Patty looks like shes going to do it (All that coaching I got from Bong Mo Lee at the
Nationals really helped, shed said). But then she misses a hangar, and fails to return a fast
serve to her backhand. Though she keeps her cool, she cant win the game and match.
237
Barbara Kaminsky
and Coach Larry Folk
Pat Hildebrand
Photo by Mal Anderson.

From 1972 U.S. Open Program, 4
Patty Martinez Cash
Wendy Hicks scores a win over

World Champion Lin Hui-shing
238
Its Li Fu-jung (L) over

Fuarnado Roberts
Our D-J Lee (L)

beats Hu Wei-hsin
Liang Ko-liang (R) gets the

better of George Brathwaite.
Umpire is Cyril Lederman
239
Against Hu Wei-hsin, who was reported back in Detroit to have flashed a V-fingered
peace sign (Viva la Revolucion!) at the headquarters of Latin Americans for Social and
Economic Development (LASED), D-J is down 5-18 in the 1st, and it looks like the Chinese
are going to win their 11th straight match of the evening. But despite someone assuring me that
Theyll never let Lee win, he does.
And Wendy Hicks (with those bunnies, cottontails, that keep her footlets from falling
down) jumps off to a 9-0 lead in the final gameand wins it, too, at 19.
Wow! says somebody. This finish makes us the best table tennis players in the world!
Flower girls in white present the Chinese players with tulips. They in turn throw their
bouquets to the audience. Red flowers to the people!
Flower girls, led by 6-year-old Yvette Kronlage and 7-year-old Alexandra Sandy Kaminsky,
bring smiles to the Cole audience. A might self-conscious, these girls, L-R below:
Alexandra, Yvette and near-5-year-old Michele Newell
240
Tricia Nixon Cox greets Olga; Secretary of State William Rogers greets Barbara
Tricia Cox comes down out of the stands (shell admit to the press that her husband
Edward plays ping-pong, but that hes no match for the Chinese), and greets our Team
members. Hey, how about that! says Dell. Tricia said she saw me play on TV!
April 18th. Bright and early were bussed out to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase School.
There on Closed Circuit TV we watch the Chinese Team being interviewed. Perhaps we can
get some answersor some questions, since few among us seem very good at asking them.
(Wish Cowan were here?)
How much training is involved in being on a table tennis team? Boy, says an
American, Id like to get an honest answer to that question. But because of technical
difficulties no one around me heard the answer.
We go into the school library where several students are at a table. I see, said the
Chinese interpreter. Its time for self-study now. One boy is studying geometry, another
French. They make some polite, monosyllabic conversation. The boy opposite them is buried
deep in fictionthe mysteries of Edgar Allan Poe.
In and out of the Typing Class (What Is Your Technique I.Q.? Eyes on Copy.
Proofread Carefully).
I ask a student in an open classroom why he isnt out watching the Chinese. We just
cant wander around here, he says.
The Art Class (Line. Form. Color. Texture. Value). The teacher tells her students,
Theyre trying to get some idea what a high school is like. Yeah, says one student to
another, with all those security guards.
241
Out to the baseball field, where a

game is in progress. Care to hit a few?
Chang Hsieh-lin and Li Fu-jung say, No.
Theyre afraid it might hurt their table
tennis arm. But Chuang, their leader
(Hey, says a security man, lets have a
batting helmet out here!), is ready for
anything. The student pitcher moves off
the mound, comes up close to Chuang,
lobs one underhandas if pitching to a
six-year-old. Chuang takes a few swings,
pops one out to second base. (Several
days later, in an interview, hes to
remember he connected on 3 out of 5
pitches.)
Now in to hear a blue-robed
choir singing Christian hymns and songs
of faith. The stars are with the voyager
wherever he may sail, so love is with
Oh, oh. Welcome to the Table
Tennis Team of The Peoples Republic of
China reads a strung-out banner. But
the word Republic is misspelled. The
Chinese find this objectionable, so the
order goes out, Either change the word
Batting average: .600
or take down the banner. Soon a
spokesman for the party finds that time is running short. All must leave. The young
choirmaster hears that the Chinese were offended. Hes told (rightly or wrongly) that they
were offended at the selection of his numbers. As I pass by, I hear him dejectedly explain to a
friend, They were offended by the word God. It was my fault. Next time Ill know better.
Now for an exhibition. The audience in the auditorium is expectant, enthusiastic. One
young man raised a Taiwan flag, but when an interpreter asked him to put it down, he did. So
many kids were stretched out with the press photographers into Chang Hsieh-lins backcourt.
Lets hope the Magic Chopper avoids trampling them. Anyway, one student gives Chang a lot
of credit. Wow! He has to play that guy whos the World Champion. It takes a lot of
courage to get out there.
Whats an exhibition between Chuang and Chang like? Well, Chuang would hit (at first
I thought he was dramatically exaggerating his follow through) and Chang would float back
returns. Initially, they would play strong points, then quickly, here and there, would mis-serve,
fail to return serve, mis-play just to move things along, all the while interspersing their errors
with great shots. At, say, 12-all, the balls would get higher, the points longer. Chang would
begin to employ his actors repertoire of gestures. Hed chop the ball like a discuss thrower
beginning his wind-up; on missing would come from his crouch and, in open-mouthed (Howdid-it miss?) astonishment, and with a long, intimidating stare at Chuang would imply, Well,
anyway, you see what I can do, so, though I lost that point, dont think you can fool with me,
cause I dont care if youre a 3-time World Champion or not.
242
After a
strong attack/
defense rally,
Chang would
come rushing in to
pick-hit (though
not too hard) a
set-up and, still on
the run, would end
up behind Chuang
who of course had
neatly blocked the
ball back. Before
the applause could
die down, another
point or two
would quickly be
played. Clearly the
Who has the more courage, Chuang or Chang? Umpire is Stuart Lassar
pace of the thing
was important.
And now there might be some soft, patty-caking play around the net. Then to, I presume
prearranged spots on the table, hard hits and drops. Followed by smashes to one side, then the
other, that had Chang repeatedly whirling round, but not dizzying himself cause he suddenly
exploded with a series of attacking shots which Chuang of course marvelously anticipated.
Always at the end, there were long rallies and some sophisticated dumping. But the
play was gutsy. I remember once it was 19-all and Chang, I thought, was keeping the ball too
low, for Chuang was all-out hitting it hard. What if Chang should winit might not look so
good. But Chang didnt win (Chang never won)and for a moment he took it hard, was
properly disgusted. But then he broke into a smile and shook his leaders hand.
Off now to the new John F. Kennedy Cultural Center. There is talk of Rock Creek Park
and the daffodilshow there must be countless varieties (including Wordsworths).
As were riding along, Im struck by one of those rarely voiced observations by a
Chinese. The color of the houses matches the color of the trees. I didnt see it this way even
after hed pointed it out to me. Musingly, I said aloud something about how each person had
such a subjective eye.
Yes, said Mr. Yeh, the Chinese journalist sitting next to me who was sending back daily
dispatches. Readers are interested in my individual impressions. But the whole history of mankind
has proved that theres objective truth out there, and Im trying to report that. This seat cushion
its not red, its blue. Thats a fact. The whole history of mankind has proved that red is not blue.
I, though, was not at all convinced that I should be trying to report just the facts.
Didnt truththe truth of the momentlie in ones interpretation of facts? Or even in ones
interpretation of non-facts? But my mind had not been prepared to rationally discuss these
instinctive thoughtsthe pros and cons of which must have been argued for centuries.
We look out the window of the bus to the zoo. Why cant we go there and see the
new pandas? says one of our girls. It was more a whine than a question. The morning paper
had made it clear that Mr. Nixon wanted to officially welcome the animals.
243
Nowsurprisethe Chinese have changed their mind. They arent going to the
Kennedy Cultural Center. (They need a rest?) The Americans, however, will continue on,
follow the itinerary.
We enter, walk down through the largest unsupported room in the world, and come
into the Center Hall that can seat 2,750 people. One great advantage we have here, says the
guide, is that were very deep. This place is something of an acoustical miracle.
What do you think of those Chinese cymbals? someone asks him.
The guide is clearly miffed that the Chinese havent shown. What do I think of those
Chinese cymbals? he says, his voice rising. Im afraid to think anything. I mean, is that
question supposed to be significant? O.K. I think Wagner uses Chinese cymbals.
Now to the cast-in-bronze statue of Kennedy by Robert Berks. He has three faces,
says the guide. Look at it from this side he has a youthful face; from the middle a mature
face; from the other side a face that favors introspection. It all depends on your perspective,
where you stand.
Why isnt the Chinese Team here? asks one of our players. When we were in China,
we were tired too, says another. We had our problems.
I dont think its outrageous that theyre not here, says Howard. Moreover, I
suggest you dont say much. Then you wont fall into any trap.
Yeah, agrees another, youd just be amazed at the way the press can twist things
around.
Our policy in the West Indies, adds Furarnado, is to say, See the Manager. The
players know nothing.
We need to get good publicity, says Jack. We want to promote Table Tennisthats
our one aim on this trip. So I ask you to be very discreet.
The players talk among themselves about how they might better be identified as a
Team. Maybe if we travel in our uniforms, well be recognized, says one of the girls.
And now the long awaited momentthe meeting with
President Nixon. Except for Bob Kaminsky, who worked so
hard and at such short notice as Chairman of the Host
Maryland Committee. He was not invited to the White House.
In fact, he was not even invited to the upcoming dinner party
given for the Chinese in the area.
We, the common people, the hard workers, ought to
be rewarded, he says. Does Nixon know who I am? Or any
of my committee people? Such snobbishness. I want a
symbolic representation at the White House. But he would
just have to settle for the U.S. Team representing him,
indirectly, in the Rose Garden.
As we approach the White House we see a very long
line of people round the margin of the well-kept lawn.
Somebody in the bus says, Do you think the Chinese think
theyre all waiting to see them?
All out for the Rose Garden.
Where the hell are the roses? someone asks. I know
about roses and I dont even see the bushes. Why do they call
Bob Kaminsky: Does Nixon
it the Rose Garden?
know who I am?
244
Past grape hyacinths, tulips, and magnolias. What a green carpet. Or should I say a
red carpetfor the Chinese. As Im listening to the birds and watching the bees and the
butterflies, I hear, Do you want to put one of em up on the roof? Turns out the State
Department man is talking about a Chinese photographer whos vying for a favorable
positionin fact, any position at all. But, no, he doesnt want to go crawling around on the
roof.
And then, when I wasnt even looking, out comes President Nixon. Of course
everyone stares. For a moment I felt like I was an extra in a movie.
He nods, he waves our waytoward the crowdand approaches the roped-in
Chinese. He smiles, greets each member of the Team in turn, his hands moving like his face,
his voicespontaneous, controlled.
In the course of your contest, he says formally, there will be winners and losers.
But there is one big winner and thats more important than who wins a match. The big
winner is Friendship between the people of the U.S. and the Peoples Republic of China.
Yes, I thought, Friendship First, Competition Second. It was clear the Chinese liked
the tone. They couldnt agree more.
Then it was time for the President (who had earlier greeted Mr. Steenhoven) to show
his appreciation to the uniformed American Team. Wasnt it? Already the rumor had been
passed down the line regarding our players: An aide had said to Nixon, I think you ought to
recognize them. As for the other rumorwho could believe it? That the President said he
only wanted to shake 10 hands. Why, there were 13 Chinese players, not counting Chuang!
President Nixon welcoming the Chinese to the Rose Garden

245

President Nixon on the run
Then, unbelievably, Nixon was starting to walk right by us! Pat Hildebrand, however,
had planned ahead, had positioned herself just behind the ropes, and when the President
approachedwell, Ill let Pat, whod risked a snub, tell you what happened when both she and
Barbara asked:
Mr. President, may I have your autograph, please?
He immediately came over to where we were standingBarbara, Olga, and I
and I handed him my pen. Barbara got her folder autographed from him, and Olga
asked if he didnt want to meet the Team that went to China.[He] said he wasnt
aware that they were here.
Then he asked me what I held in my hand. I told him a miniature paddle with a
mirror. He autographed this for me and shook hands and chatted a little more with a
few of the players.
246
President Nixon shaking hands

with Barbara Kaminsky
President Nixon signing Pat Hildebrands miniature paddle

247
President Nixon makes time for a few minutes of small talk with U.S. Team members
Was there time for one more quick autograph? Fuarnado thought fast. Reached for his
wallet, and, sure enough, there was a ready check there. With an engaging smile, he got the
President to sign it.
No, said one of the players later, I didnt try to shake the Presidents hand. I had
about as much interest in him as he had in me.
Said another, Couldnt we take away that USTTA membership Steenhoven gave
him?
Rufford felt he had to right the balance. When we were in Peking meeting Premier
Chou, the Chinese Team was elsewhere. Here Americans are elsewhere.
Now, though, the U.S. Team was given a brief tour of the White House. This is the
China Room, says our guide, where all the porcelain used by most of the Presidents is
displayed. Washingtons china was made in China.
Bernie snickers, so Jack explains to him that china does not necessarily mean it has
to come from China.
Four of the six American interpreters, in view of the bombing of Haiphong, publicly
boycotted this meeting with the President. At first, I heard, the members of the U.S.-China
Relations Committee were very angry at the interpreters for their boycott. Presumably they
werent expected to be controversial. Theyd all seemed reasonable and mild-mannered
enough, not too far left, except maybe that Perry Link who was a founder of the Committee of
Concerned Asian Scholars.
248
Though they didnt want their image tarred with a brush, privately these U.S.-China
Relations people (some of whom were connected with War/Peace Studies) were sympathetic
to the boycotting interpreters. But publicly they were afraid the Chinese would be put in an
embarrassing positionthat the question would be thrust at them, Why arent you Chinese
equally revolutionary?
But the New York Times reported that there was no suggestion that the raids demanded
any response from China in the form of moral or material support. Clearly, as Premier Chou was
saying in Peking, it had been demonstrated by the warm welcome given the Chinese time and again
on their U.S. trip that the American people themselves were opposed to the bombing.
So now the Committee thought that while Nixon and Steenhoven, along with
Committee Chair Alexander Eckstein, Stover and
Gilmore, were all smiling, everything was coming
up roses. And the Committees credibility with
the Chinese had been advanced because they had
hired these interpreters.
Some USTTA officials, however, were
irate. They thought that everybody ought to keep
his/her mouth shut and do what he was told. That
way nobody would be embarrassedneither the
Chinese not the Americans. But of course
Americans will not keep their mouths shut.
Not even Chinese Americanslike that
nice Mrs. Edwards, who (some nerve she had
criticizing the President) was called onto the
carpet. If you know things, you have to sort
them out. If you dont know, she said wistfully,
you can really be enthusiastic about them.
Which got us to talking about Presidents.
After all, I might be one. What qualities do you
think a leader should have? I asked her.
Alexander Eckstein
A leader, replied Mrs. Edwards, must
be young in spirit. Must know and apply his party lines well. Must create an image like Mao
Tse-tungin the way he walks, in his kindness with children, in his humility with the workers,
in sharing his life with others. Above all, he must make each man or woman feel important.
That night, after wed returned from the White House, Bob Kaminsky, though he
didnt come, was invited to the dinner he hadnt previously been welcomed at. Perhaps
Graham or someone was feeling sorry for Barbara, since by now it was common knowledge
that, somewhere, somehow, in the security net that had enmeshed us all, shed still been
victimized$70 had been stolen from her purse.
After drinks and dinner, it was time for some amateur entertainment. Merrily, merrily,
merrily President Steenhoven was leading most of our Group. D-J would be singing Love Me
Tender. And there were other songsSomeones in the kitchen with Dinah, for example. A
vigorous Afro-American dance troupe also entertained, which, for a while, the Chinese took an
interest in. (Later in New York, our next stop on the Tour, the Chinese would go to see the Alvin
Ailey dancers.) What do you think of Negroes with hair out like that? a Chinese questions an
American. And, on getting back a non-committal answer, says, I think its ugly.
249
Chapter Six
April 19th. At 5 minutes to the appointed hour next morning, the Chinese appeared en
masse, some 30 of them at the elevator. They get strength from that group, from being
anonymous, said an interpreter. Each is a microcosm of the whole. You dont live for
yourself, you live for China. And if, in practice, youre wrong, everybody will tell you.
Everyone gets together in self-study sessions, and the advice comes from the heart. Its very
deep. If it werent, they couldnt stand up like that, they couldnt be Champions.
When we arrive in New York, theres my wife Sally and D-Js wife Linda waiting to
greet us. The Chinese file by. They recognize the Champions wife. Dal-Joon Lee! they say
and smile. (Like earlier, D-J had said, Chang Hsieh-lin! and Chang had said, Dal-Joon
Lee! Then Lee had continued playfully, Chang coach Dal-Joon? and Chang had laughed
and shook his head and said, Dal-Joon coach Chang.
But not everyone filing by was smiling. One of our players was saying privately that if
he didnt play in New York he was quitting the Team. When immediately in New York it was
time to see His Honor, the Mayor, someone quickly suggested, Why not take the two U.S.
Champions along with the Chinese? But D-J in shirt and tie and sporting a big red flower in
his jacket lapel was told he couldnt go because he wasnt dressed properlythat is, in
uniform.
Chinese and U.S. Teams greeted by New York Mayor John Lindsay
250
Later, it was, No, my

wife couldnt go to the U.N.
Reception, nor could half a
dozen others, including the
Champions wife, Pat
Hildebrands husband, and, in
a couple of instances, a
players girlfriend. They
could get on the bus and take
a walking tour of the U.N.,
but that was it. Except that
when Miless good friend
Mary Detsch (later to be his
wife), Linda Lee, and Sally
got to the U.N., they werent
going to be allowed in, even
Mary
Linda
Sally
for the tour, without a badge,
so Dick got one for Mary, DJ got one for the Champions wife, andI saw so many Class A and Class B players mingling
in the lobby that I confess my pride insisted I get a badge for Sally. Id won the USTTA
Electionwas the President-Elect, Steenhovens successor. That ought to be worth
something. So in we wentand now were determined to stay.
Of course I understood my Presidents position. He wanted to hold firm to the number
of invitations hed asked for or that been allotted him. It had been the same in Michigan, in
Maryland, and now here. He, like anyone else, more than anyone else, under the strain of the
trip, needed something firm to hold on to. One never knew, in all this negotiated secrecy, what
would happen next. I have nothing to sell but my integrity, hed said.
I understood and wanted to be cooperative. But I was not Chinese, I was American,
and that meant I thought independently. I felt it really wasnt reasonable that our wives
couldnt join us at the Reception. I might have been learning something about American
history, might even be living it, but about what best governed people, I was like a very early
Patrick Henry who could not yet say, Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!
The walking tour of the U.N. began. Into the Economic and Social Council, then into
the North Delegate Lounge where, said the guide, diplomats spend their minutes or hours.
Probably the only place in the country you can be served a drink on Election Day. (The
exception makes the rule. Dick and Mary had recently been trying to figure out possible
meanings for that intriguing line.)
The theme is the struggle of man for peace and progress throughout the agesthe
guide was pointing out a Belgian mural made of only one thread, a work of art, unique.
Now into the General Assembly. Yes, No, Abstentionthese were possible. If
committees could not agree, there could be extraordinary meetings at any time. Question:
What do they discuss around here? Answer: Who should the moon belong to? Answer
begets another Answer: To America because a flag is onI suddenly saw President Nixons
lapel. Question: What about Mars and Venus?The guide shrugged, went on.
The list of the 132 countries did not appear to be up to date. Wheres Qatar?
someone asked. (It, too, might have been in outer space.)
251
Our UN Ambassador,
George Brathwaite,
speaking before playing
an exhibition match
against Hu Wei-hsin in
the horseshoe-shaped
Council Chambers
Chinas Hu Wei-hsin leaping to entertain the crowd in an exhibition match with George Brathwaite
252
Now into the West Foyer, past an encased Peruvian ceremonial mantle meant to hold a
dead king together forever (though, If ever there was some air in there, the whole thing would
disintegrate). Here sits a gift from The Republic of Chinathe age-old Dialogues of Confucius.
The Security Councilthis is where each month amid so many observers and
negotiators theres a new President. Here there was talk of a Cease Fire, and an Economic
Sanction that would soon isolate a too stubborn country. In building the peace today we build
it tomorrowand above these words the bird of resurrection, the Phoenix, amid workers and
green-growing things.
Finally, it was time to enter the Reception Room, go past Steenhoven and Harrison.
They questioned for a moment our admittance (This ladyGraham was speaking of my
wifeis not with the party), but he didnt pursue trying to bar her.
There were more than enough seats for the forthcoming $10-$50 a ticket Exhibition at
the Trusteeship Council Chambers, and plenty of elbow room for the Reception the U.N. was
hosting afterwards. Our U.N. representative, George Brathwaite, would address the gathering
in the horseshoe-shaped Chambers, and would also play one of the scheduled exhibition
matches there.
Marty Reisman and a woman friend were having a drink, and I saw Stefan Kanfer
hed written the table tennis article in the Times magazine
section a couple of weeks beforeand there were others
there I recognized.
Drinks went round, conversations were started
(Sally, I remember, was talking about her home state,
South Carolina, and how it was the first state to secede
from the Union), then abruptly, before the party had much
gotten underway, President Steenhoven insisted we go
back to the hotel and have the first Group meeting of its
kind any of us had ever gone to. He had been embarrassed,
he said, our Association had been embarrassed, by the
presence of so many uninvited guests.
To leave the pleasant party after the hassle shed
been subjected to just to attend itthis did not sit well
with my wife. At first she was disappointed. Very soon she
was angry.
It began to come out on the U.S. Team bus on our
Marty Reisman
way back to the hotel. How all these months shed worked
as unpaid secretary for me and the USTTA, and how now she was being humiliated and
embarrassed by having to sneak in the back door just to have a lousy drink. By damn, she
said, her voice beginning to rise to a near scream, while Tim was gone, I spent hours and
hours answering the phone. I was very patient. I answered all those reporters silly questions
over and over again. I spent a whole afternoon sorting out pictures the newspaper suddenly
wanted. I havent gone anyplace on the Tour. Ive worked hard and never thought about
myself. But, by damn, now Im going to. What am I doing it all for? And soon she was
crying. And the more she cried, the more it all came out. What am I doing it all for?
Something Dolores Steenhoven must have asked herself many a time. Only this
Presidents wife was watched out for, recognized, included at the official dinners and
receptions in her home area.
253
Sally, what are you doing? I remember uncomfortably saying after her first venting
sentence in the bus. But it had to come out, and I kept quiet, and when shed finally finished
and was crying, many of the players on the bus applauded. In their hearts, they too felt they
were too often being ignored, taken for grantedtaken.
When we got back to our Biltmore Hotel we went directly upstairs to Steenhovens
suite for the meeting. Graham, I remember, though hed been on the bus, appeared very
lighthearted.
But things started getting serious at the meeting. Some people from the China
Committee came. I didnt want to let them in, but they said Harrison had invited them. Ruf
(who was fronting for Steenhoven?) hoped their presence might put a hamper-lid on the dirty
laundry that those upset might want to scatter about? Committeeman Gilmore reminded
everyone of the money that was being spent for the food waiting for us downstairs. A majority
of our players were hungry and wanted to postpone the meeting until theyd had their fill.
What do you say, Jack? You know the temperature of the Teamthe Committee leaders,
like Graham, wanted to lower that temperature, so addressed not Steenhoven, whod called
the meeting, but Howard.
Jack was one of the last to reluctantly give in. I dont have any answers to any
questions now, he said. I cant talk to people when theyre emotional.
But Sally, who so loved food and drink, would not be seduced any more. I want to go
home! she pleaded. I want to go home!
To tell the truth, I still didnt fully comprehend her hurt. I was surprised. Shes always
the voice of reason, a steadying influence on meand I wanted to talk and have the players,
each one, speak out.
But when never mind who actually took my wifes arm and began pulling her away
from the elevator to go to dinner, and she, near hysteria it seemed, looked at me so, and yelled
again, I want to go home! I grabbed her away and began talking wildly and pushing buttons.
Once in our room we hurriedly packed, quickly checked out of the hotelonly, I found out
later, Id left my toilet kit, and then I remembered my three best shirts were still there being
laundered.
The meeting was held, I learned the next day. And if Id have been there with a tape
recorder and hadnt erased any of what Id heard, I could, if I thought it fair and right, tell you
more. But heres something.
D-J was not happy. The National Champion for five years, he had not been helped
much by the USTTAhad not been offered, as it were, a friendly drink of scotch from one of
the bottles on the table across from him. Once on this Tour he was told, Get off the Team if
you want to be with your wife!
Pat Hildebrands husband Bob was in a hotel room alone. Pat had quit her job because
naturally she was going to take this opportunity of a lifetime to play against the Chinese with
all her heart. And, sure, her husband supported her. So shouldnt she support him now? Were
they to be divided by the USTTA? Not even be provided with a hotel room they could share?
Color-prejudice reared its ugly head.
Roberts, was he, or was he not, going to California? Earlier, hed been told he was.
Still, it was undecided. And why was his name left off the Program? Hes disgusteddoesnt
want to play tomorrow. He doesnt want to have to beg, to be a hanger-on.
Alice Green, Columbia University student, wanted to know about priorities. Who was
being taken where? Why? Was everyone going on the whole two-week Tour? Obviously not.
254
What then was the principle? Boggan, for instance. Why was he going for two weeks? To
write an article in Topics? How important was that? Couldnt almost anybody do that? Or was
it because he was the President-Elect? And so ought to be in on high-level discussions, and
learn from the experience? Or was it because hed gone to China? But there were others, like
Errol and Jairie, who were much closer to the Chinese, and they werent going the whole
route. Shouldnt the actual players get priority above everyone else?
Such things were surely thought, if not said.
Nobody, it seemed, knew the answers to questions that should have been asked and
answeredclearly for allmonths ago.
Team members, began President Steenhoven, should abide by the standards of
the Tour. Everybody gets on Steenhoven because he has a standard. If we dont adhere to
standards, we have utter chaos. I didnt make all the decisions, but Im perfectly willing to
take responsibility for them. The USTTA Executive Committee gave two people, Harrison
and myself, the responsibility of arranging the Tour. Now because of our budget we cant
allow
Barbara Kaminsky broke in. Couldnt we maybe have done a better job without the
China Committee? How much money have they raised? What did we need them for? Were
they interested in trying to promote the Sport? Were we? Shouldnt we have made some
money for the USTTA out of all this? Had there been any thought, really, from the beginning
of making any money for the USTTA?
But what now was the use of talking? Things werent what we had hoped they would
be. What, maybe, we had dreamed them to be. It seemed that even the President had ignored
us.
Perhaps almost everyone was feeling anonymous. No volunteer seemed to be getting
the recognition he deserved. Ive fought for Table Tennis every step of the way, said
Graham. And they dont know me. They dont know Steenhoven. Chuang takes my hand
when Im introduced. He introduces me.
Later, Jose Yglesias and I discussed Saul Bellows novella Seize the Day, and a Tommy
Wilhelm-like character Jose had been talking to on this trip. A poor lost soul. A little boy-man.
I didnt recognize the portraiture, didnt see the person that way. But was it possible that many
in our Group on this trip were occasionally lost, would be glad to get homefrom the
President on down? And might the stalwart Chinese, in their ever-smiling togetherness, also
sometimes feel lost?
April 20th. Next day, out at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, vendors are reported
selling Paddle Power Love Necklaces inscribed with the word Peace and a set of crossed
ping-pong paddles with American and Chinese flagsfor only $2.50.
Why were the Chinese playing on a Thursday afternoon 40 miles outside New York
City? Well, one story I heard was that the China Committee didnt think it could sell enough
tickets to cover the rental expense at (the only other place under serious consideration by the
people who mattered) Madison Square Garden. Another story had to do with possible
demonstrations, with security problems.
Still another consideration (was it?) involved the Host Committee, the Long Island
TTA. Were they not experienced, reliable workers? Could they not be counted on at a
moments notice to do whatever was wanted? And surely County Executive Ralph Caso would
cooperate to the fullestafter all, hed been an Army sergeant in China during World War II.
255
liseum
Nassau Co
Ralph Caso, Nassau County Executive
Dave Cox,
LITTA President
256
L-R: Dick Miles, Tim Boggan, and Jose Yglesias
257
So, yes, it was all set thenDave Cox and Co., angry at not being informed until the
last minute (like Bob Kaminsky and Co., angry at not being informed until the last minute) and
thinking that a lot more people deserved to see the matches than were actually going to see
them, agreed to help out. In the long run, it had to be good for Table Tennis, didnt it?
Wow, 7,000 showed up in the
heavy rain, including Huang Hua,
Chinas representative to the U.N.
Which sure wasnt badconsidering
how many might have stayed home
and watched the matches on TV.
Miles, whod helped ABC Wide
World of Sports with the announcing
in Detroit, handled the NET telecast
here and did a very good job. (The
Great Style, Dick had said on and
off the air, the artistic approach to
the Game, is that of the power hitter.
As opposed to the modern spinner.
Miles and Boggan on NET telecast
The Chinese are the last of the
bluebloods of great hitters.)
One of those
interviewed by Dick
was Errol Resek, who
won the only match for
our side. For some
reason, the Chinese
decided not to play
Errols friend Chiu
against him and instead
put in Chen Pao-ching.
That 1st game we were
all rooting like crazy.
Keep the ball in play,
Errol! Keep the ball in
play! And to his credit
he wasnt missing any
of those short, spinny
Errol on his way to upsetting Chen Pao-ching
servesreturning
them high, yes, but not missing them.
Chen is marvelously deceptive. His returns have a high or low degree of
sophisticationas the occasion demands. He and the rest of the Chinese are complicitors in
promoting the Sport. Half a dozen times a point, Chen returns Errols smashes, builds up the
Americans confidence. And Errol, given a chance at deuce that 1st game, doesnt muff it
smacks the ball outta sight, then goes on to take the 2nd game and the match.
I never played better in my life, he says on being congratulated. Only Jairies
snapshot could remind him of his sore finger.
258
April 21st. Our last day in New York. Into the busses and down 42nd St. All About
Sex of All NationsGirl on a Chain Gang (non-stop every day). Chiu and Errol are going
over a book called Daily English Conversation. (Who are your friends? Who are
you?What is this?) A bridge of communication brings talk of George Washingtonthe
George Washington Bridge. Errol tries to explain theres so much traffic going over it, it just
had to have another level.
We get off a block from Reismans Table Tennis Club, go into Public School 75. It has a
unique Open Corridor programa coming together of children and adults from classrooms into an
area where there is a connecting link of activities. Not surprisingly I read on a poster something
appropriate for the occasion: There is a Chinese proverb: I do and I understand.Young
children learn through the active use of their bodiesrather than as passive receivers of
information. Chang Hsieh-lin is surprised; he thought the students would be in uniform.
In and out of classrooms. Row, row,
row your boat signals a poster.Super
Heroesthose in a class are so listed.Look
into the kaleidoscope. Try to copy the
design.Read about the Chinese ping-pong
teamnewspaper clippings have been pasted
up. There are drawings of little men at table
tennissome not even watching what theyre
doing.One boy stands in front of a globe.
Where is China? Where is the U.S.? He
doesnt know.A book is opened to
Dragons.The Chinese are surprised to see
animals in some of the roomsa guinea pig, a
From Music Across Our Country, Ed. Max T. Krone, 1959 snake.Collages appear. Said one teacher, We
tried to make collages so that if you cut them in
half, both sides would be equal.
Sign an autograph for me? says a small boy wistfully. I sign. Are you on the pingpong team? Too late. Yeah, sure, I say. And he responds, Some of the people here dont
look like Chinese people.
In a 5th grade class our visitors ask an Asian-looking boy, What does your father do? The
boy answers in Chinese, He works. Says a visitor, You speak good Chinese, my friend.
Another youngster, in glasses, with pad and pencil, follows the entourage around.
Hes a reporteras serious, as persistent, as any to be found. Question: How does this
school compare to schools in China? Answer: In China everyone sits in order. Question:
Do you think the open classroom is a good idea? Answer: It has its good points in that
everyone can express his own interests.
Excuse me, says the boy and hurriedly goes off toward a classroom. Did you get
the story? asks a friend.
Yes, thank you.
Up on a wall a sign says, We are all messy rooms sometimes, out of order, and we
hide it. And thats because we need faith, love, peaceeach other.
The Chinese play a short exhibitionwith the principal, and with some student
volunteers. (Roberts up there, says a kid in the audience. That f____in bitch. He can get
up there any time he wants.)
259
I hope
that some day
some of the
children in this
room will be
Champions and
can go to
China, says the
principal,
accepting a
bamboo scroll
from his visitors.
Theyre very
lovely kids here,
adds a teacher.
What hurts is
that someone
like Nixon has to
sanction it first
before the
Chinese can
come here. Mr.
Shin, an
interpreter, goes
out with an
armful of big, red
paper flowers.
From the
school we go to
Pier 83 where
we take the
Circle Line 35
miles around
Manhattan.
Sports
Illustrated, our
host for the boat
ride and
luncheon, makes
Chuang and Dick at the Statue of Liberty
a big hit by
giving away, at
Miless suggestion, several large cartons of Frisbees.
The Statue of Liberty has to be a stop. From this level a narrow spiral stairway 12
stories high leads to the crown. This is the only access for those wishing to make the
exhausting climb. Steenhoven begins the ascentand after a time so do I. But of course, like
everyone else, we only go so far.
260
On leaving star-shaped
Fort Wood on Liberty Island,
we stop for a moment at the
Chase Manhattan Bank. There
an official walks and talks with
Chuang, finally asks him if he
plays the Gamethen, being
informed, compliments him by
saying, I hope we do as well in
banking as your team does in
table tennis.
That night there was a
very fine reception put on by the
Chinese Mission. Pete Seeger
was there, and Shirley McLaine,
and others who were important
but not necessarily in the public
eye.
Photo by Jairie Resek
Errol and actress Shirley McLaine at the Chinese Mission Reception
261

Chuang showing his expertise at card tricks
Chapter Seven
April 22. On our way West, towards the Mississippi, Chuang is doing card tricks,
dealing out Scarne poker handsfull houses that raise you up out of your seat; and a straight
flush to himself (no, he doesnt play poker for money).
Tired of that trick, Chuang asks Capt. Howard to pick a card. No, dont show it to
him. Then he picks one. Takes both cards face down behind his back and manipulates them
therelike Houdini handcuffing himself. Brings his hand out in front of himdeceptively, as if
hes suddenly a shakehands player going to block a shotand fingers over to Jack his
(Chuangs) own card while he looks at Jacks card hes got palmed there in his hand (which
Jack of course cant see). Then he takes his own card from Jack, puts it behind his back again
(the other hand is still back there supposedly holding Jacks card) and, bringing them both out
again, announces Jacks card. Again he does the trick and Jack is mystified.
D-J has been watching. He has a trick or two of his own. He picks out the 7H and 8D.
Chuang immediately reaches for a pad of paper and writes down the 7D and 8H. He knows
that one.
Again Chuang takes the deck. Sorts out the heart suit from the A up to the K. Then
shuffles these 13 cards, plays with them, it may be sorts them into a different order. Then he
262
Shih Ping-lin and Angelita Rosal: a loving twosome
Photo by Mark Ratner
Peter Pradit
D-J Lee defeats Chin Yin-liang
From Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Commemoration, 2002
Connie and Wendy score a

big 18, 20 win over
Lin Hsin-ying/Shih Ping-lin
263

Lim Ming Chui (R) is on his toes
against Ho Tsu-pin
No, Dells not showing an Achilles Heel
Roberts looks to be holding his own with Li Fu-jung
264
holds this abbreviated deck face down in his hand. (What small hands he has.) The top card he
shows is the A. The second card he slips face down under the deck. The third card he turns up
is the 2. The fourth card he slips face down under the deck. The fifth card he turns up is the 3.
And so on he goes, every other one, up to the K and out. Looks easy, does it? Sweeris tries.
No, he cant do it. Howard tries. No, he cant do it. Sweeris tries again. Nope.
How bring that very special logic, order, harmony to the 13 cards? I go back to my
seat and practice. Practice. Yes! 7-10-6-K-5-9-4-J-3-8-2-Q-A! I hold them out, proud of
myself. And now, as I write, they flash in my eye, like stars, or red, unnumbered flowers. They
fan my Imagination, and I see the yin of Chuangs sometimes effeminate face change into the
eyes of Lin Hui-ching, and I think it is all a humorous, simple thing, this serious world, and
that there are no mysteries, no secrets, between us. Yet, puzzling, the eyes tell me, too, there is
much that is deepdeep and wearying.
And then the fan dropsand we are in Memphis.
As jets scream overhead, and young mini-skirted Southern
hospitality hostesses smile, the man who is giving the welcome speech
here at the National Guard hangar says that, Only through
communication among people can we arrive at understandingand a
world of peace. Whereupon the Chairman of the Board of Holiday
Inns promptly greets the Chinese with a few well-chosen words.
Were going to have a
Holiday Inn in every city in
the world, he says, and I
hope we can soon have
one in your great country.
Now, after being bused
past (Ping-Pong Games a
Trojan Horse) a few
unenthusiastic protestors (McIntire was required to
confine his picketing to Democratic Road), we
arrive at one of the 16 Holiday Inns where well be
staying.
That afternoon, the crowd at the Mid-South
Coliseum was the dullest, quietist bunch. The Host
Committee had promised to fill the house, but only
about 2,000 showed. The people seemed lost in all
that empty space. Maybe the Game requires some
kind of nervous empathy? If so, the Booker T.
Washington H.S. band just didnt generate it.
Of course we all wondered why wed come to
Memphis. In the whole city there were only 3
registered USTTA players. It seemed like the
spectators here, especially in the beginning, just
didnt know what they were supposed to feel
watching the matches between the two countries.
The March of the Volunteers. The Star-Spangled
From Memphis Press-Scimitar, Apr. 22, 1972
Banner. The red-blue play. What did it all mean?
Dr. Carl McIntire
265
Roberts lost to Li Fu-jung; Lim Ming Chui to Ho Tsu-pin. Angelita Rosal, though, the
audience certainly kept their eye on. They felt something when they watched her. She was
wearing an Indian headband and little bells on her pigtails. The way she moved to smack in
forehands was impressive.
And though Wendy was bothered, really mixed-up, she said, by her opponents antispin returns, she and Connie got a laugh out of winning the doubles, and Connie beat Miss
Yang in straight games in the singles to get as big a hand as the crowd could give her.
As for our men, Peter Pradit was pushing aggressively well. He would be playing even
better in Los Angeles, and I felt that if, for a couple of months, he could have a succession of
on-the-road matches like these, hed very quickly improve. We should practice pushing like
Peter, said Dell, so the ball goes deep and slidesso itll drop short.so itll go from side
to side.
It was Dell who, echoing his play in Detroit, caused something of a stir here. With the
Mens tie tied at 2-all (Lee had won, and so had the doubles pair of Erwin Klein and Roberts),
Dell went out to the court thinking there was no way he could take that last match. But
moving, lobbing, countering, he plays better in spots that Ive ever seen him play; he beats Hu
Wei-hsin, 23-21, 27-25.
I practiced with Li Fu-jung for an hour, Dell tells us. He gave me some tips. I stand
on my heels too much. I spin too much to the forehand cornerwhen the ball is angled at me,
Ive just got to hit it. I let the ball get back too far. Against the loop I cant let the ball get off
the table.
Later, in the Recovery Room on the 19th floor of our Inn (as if recovering there from
the shock of our 5-5 tie with the Chinese), we looked out the window, tried to guess which
direction we faced. We had come into Memphis with a 22 and 4 record; now, suddenly, we
were 27 and 9, the odds against us only 3-1. (It helped our heads, did it, to reverse our wins
and losses?) We could hardly wait to see The Commercial Appeal.Yep, the paper would say
it all: American team turns in its best performance against the Communist Chinese.
That night,
accompanied by a
Coast Guard boat,
we floated down the
Mississippi. The
Memphis Queen,
our 600-passenger
riverboat, was flying
two flagsthe
American and the
Confederate.
Electronic soul
music blasted our
tiers. Up, up, up
how escape the
hundreds of packedtogether people? We
stumbled out onto a
deck, clutching
The Memphis Queen - its 600 passengers a security nightmare
266
drink tickets, to look at islands in the stream. Were we

with the current? Against the current? As night came
on, where was the North Star? Our visitors always
seemed interested in placing themselves. Now they were
as confused as we were.
But then, as if by magic, a beam of light appeared,
spotlighting the edges of the islands. No, its not the North
Star, but the ever-whirling helicopter above us. Jose, my
writer friend, says, If there was a jackrabbit there, he must
have been the most scared rabbit ever.
Downstairs, there
is dancing to the
electronic blare. Rory,
the American
interpreter from
Georgetown, who was
brought up in Taiwan,
says that the Chinese
just dont understand
this kind of dancing.
For them, everything
has to have a meaning.
Someone is
talking to one of the
Chinese. Mrs.
Edwards is acting as
interpreter. Drinking
Chinese liquors the
in thing. Ask him
Photo by Ken Fell. From the
where I can buy some
Washington Post, Apr. 19, 1972
more. Responds Mrs.
Interpreter Perry Link
Edwards, Dont ask
themtheyre sportsmen. Why dont you get it in
Ottawa or Hong Kong?
A guest says, Tell this boy (meaning Hu WeiInterpreter Rory Hayden
hsin) that my father fought in World War II to save his
country. The interpreter translates, This mans father fought in China in World War II.
I never translate, says Perry Link, until I hear the whole thing. If I dont like it, I
wont translate it. A good translator thinks about the meaning, about the feeling behind the
words. He cant be too scholarly.
Later, I asked Perry about the qualities of an ideal leaderwhat he ought to have.
Well, he has to be flexible, says Perry. Has to be able to change his assessment, bring it into
focus. And he ought not to have a bureaucratic style, ought to be much more man-to-man
personal, human. He should not be bossy, but ought to criticize freely. Most of all, he ought to
have a single, forming intelligenceand find out whats going on. Perhaps a man whos
unsympathetic and skeptical has the best chance of getting at truth.
267
April 23rd. Next morning we are all brought together for the best breakfast of our trip:
broccoli, rice gruel, fried cabbage, sweet and sour pork, red snapper. And to see, first, Chuang
receive a teakwood and zebrawood special gift paddle, made by L.H. Bartley of Nashville,
and, second, to see a color movie on Memphis.
Says a Chamber of Commerce man by way of introduction. To sell a favorable image
of our city is important. Its a job in Public Relations. What we do competitively for Memphis
as an area is being done in other cities (Detroit gets a mention).
Ole man river, laughin, ever laughin, says the voice of a black man. And to hymnal
music, the waves of the Old South sweep down the River.Beale Street: Why theyve never
written a song about the Cotton Carnival will never be known.St. Joseph Aspirin for
Childrenrows and rows of them are being bottled.St. Judes Hospital and men in masks.
The cuts are quick. But the man who made the movie knows his connections.I accept this
award in the name of the gorgeous and melodramatic music.The movie ends with W.C.
Handy and his famous Memphis line, Id rather be here than anyplace I know.
Im sorry, says the Chinese interpreter across from me, I cant stay.
Out we go to visit the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works
which I learned was insured by Home Insurance, the company our
U.S. Team Captain to the 1969 Worlds, John Read, works for.
Here we saw the worlds 4th largest rotating cranemotionless.
Still, I was told that, when it wanted to, it could pick up, in a
vertical position, a 150-foot-long, 12,000-ton vessel.
But it cant pick up a toothpick, said the young Oscar
Werner look-alike intellectual, Mr. Lou Ta-peng. The hand is
the most significant thing. It can hold a toothpick; or it can make
this thing.
John Read, U.S. Team Captain
Now to the Soybean Plant on Presidents Islandwhich
to the 1969 Munich Worlds
feeds on 3,000 acres of beans a day. I think I read in a book
once, said one of our players, that you can live on $8 worth of soybeans a year.
Out to the farm. I mean THE FARMthe west one with mod-nude bathroom art and
the polo ponies. Some of the Chinese, I understand, would have liked to ride the horses
somewhere over the 1,000 acres, but Chuang was afraid they might get hurt.
Time for lunch, and Frisbee flinging. Being right-handed, I wondered, Why can I
catch with my left hand better than my right? It puzzled me until someone made me realize all
the time Id spent in my boyhood playing baseball. Id forgotten about that.
Lin Hui-ching flings a frisbee

with the best of them
268
Cyril Lederman - you cant fault him on form
Photo by Fred Griffith. From the Memphis Commerical Appeal
Sheng Min-chih making a good catch
Whereas with my soon-to-be Presidential predecessor it was different. Graham said he

used to be a marble hustler. As were walking down from the stables, he told me about his first
jobpicking up horse-droppings and selling them for sixpence. When his father found out he
was selling them to a neighbor, he was furious. Afterwards, Graham sold them only to his
father.
Now we were subjected to some horrible electronic puppet show that seemed to
scream and punch at the quiet countrysideso that the only line I remember was that of a
witch shrieking ironically, Isnt it just horrible the way evil always wins in the end. But most
of the Chinese liked the show (after all, they couldnt understand the words), liked the
manipulation of the strings.
Anyway, it was fun throwing Frisbees with Jose. And sort of picnicking. I remember
Id gone to get two of the Chinese girls drinks. When I came back, the one who spoke English
said, The dog sniffed at your food. Which, as it happened, I didnt care about. However, it
prompted some discussion of waste. Last year, in that Peking Holiday Inn, as it were, Id
ordered cold beer, and a big quart bottle came and I didnt finish it. The next day I ordered
another cold beer and didnt finish that one either. The two unfinished warm beers were not
taken away; instead, they stayed in my room until I left Peking.
However, I didnt tell Miss Shen thatfor it was she who was telling me a story. About a
jade carver who has a piece of jade with a black spot on it And how the carver felt very strongly he
must make use of this spot. In other words, she said, everything in the Universe has a purpose. That
which is given must be taken for what it is, on its own terms. And utilized.
It was like the story Perry Link told me. About the man in Outer Mongolia who had a
farm, a horse. One day the horse ran away. Thats all right, said the farmer. It might turn
out to be a good thing. Point of the story? One is supposed to think the best of whatever
269
happens. Americans want everything perfect, Perry had saidand, if it isnt, then someone
has to be answerable.
Time to leave THE FARMChuang had given the word. He presented to his hosts a
silk embroidery of the Peoples Park in Peking. Thank you very much, said Mrs. West. Its
very beautiful. My husband and I would like to go to Peking.
A quick stop on
the way back at the
Stax Record
Company. All to be
herded pointlessly
into the Presidents
office. I plopped into
the Executive Chair,
swiveled round
toHear No Evil,
See No Evil, Speak
No Evil. The
warning came from
three fat-bellied
statues. Chuang,
next to me, was
humming (could I
Doing justice to Home on the Range at the Stax Record Company
have heard
correctly?) a song
from Chaplins City
Lights! (Miles had
said earlier,
Wouldnt it be great
to take them to a
Chaplin movie?)
Then in to watch a
real live recording
the Soul Children
were at work.
From Music Round the Town, Ed. Max T. Krone, 1959
Someone thought it
would be fun for us to record our Chinese-American number.
Home on the what?No, man, I never heard of it. Exposure to a sample crooning
just about blew their minds. But Jim Stewart, the bearded president who looked exactly like
Woody Allenhe had Woodys both worldly-wise (Play it again, Sam) and innocent look
was game. So for the first time: Where never is heard And all, for a moment, were soul
children.
But afterwards, though we each received 4 free records (the music from Shaftthat
was the sole one I remembersome players grumbled, Why did we come here?
Aw, everyones lookin to exploit the Chinese, said a disgusted American. But Lim
Ming Chui, whod emigrated from Hong Kong and was doubling as an interpreter, said, At
least the Chinese will bring some records home, and thatll be an exchange of culture.
270
Certainly one long-awaited exchange, albeit a

very one-sided one, came about that afternoon when
the Chinese, in between shooting hoops at the
University of Tennessee Medical School gym, finally
agreed to give us some specific coaching.
Howard, of course, being in a position of
responsibility, had been trying hard to care for his flock,
but often it was difficult. Sometimes he found he just
couldnt care for them all. Also, he was trying to define
things for himself. The words we use, hed said,
what do they mean? How do we communicate?
Topspin, hed said to Dell. What do you mean by
that? Does it suggest a roll, a loop?
Well, then, to begin.
The Chinese clean their paddles with water and
sometimes soap. They change their rubber every 6
months for pips out, every 2 months for inverted. Most
Chinese are changing to inverted rackets because more
technology is possible.
With the serve, the idea is to carry the ball on
your racket.
To return a serve well, you must watch the ball,
Yang Chun getting a shot off
not the hand, for, in any number of countries, coaches
are very good at teaching hand deception. The Chinese have a short, chop-block shot (Li Fujung, for example, is very good at it) with which they can vary the spin. The motion is always
the same, but the ball may have topspin or chop or no spin at all. Sometimes they can block a
shot almost as hard
as a slam.
You must try to
figure out how
strong your
opponents wrist is.
If its strong, youll
understand youll
need a more
forceful return.
After the ball leaves
the servers paddle,
ask yourself, How
does it bounce?
This will indicate
what kind of spin is
on it. Topspin
bounces a bit higher.
Backspin bounces
back toward the net.
Americans in strategy session with Interpreter Lou Ta-peng.
271
A fast, hard serve is mainly elbow.

A spin serve is, naturally, wrist. Americans are too stiff-wristed.
Try to serve so a second bounce is possible on your opponents side of the table. But,
remember, if you want to trap your opponent with a short serve, make sure he knows you can
serve long.
If you cant find a good opponent to practice with, spend time on your service. Look
for your opponents good points. Maybe you can learn something. Remember, 80% of all the
points are finished before the 5th ball. The serve is a stroke. If youre not practicing it, youre
not practicing a stroke.
To return short, spinny serves, try to push the ball low and angle it with sidespin.
Before hitting a drive, try to relax the forearm. The forehand stroke should not be long.
The Chinese do not start the stroke until the ball is on their side of the table. The stress is on
an extremely fast reaction. They dont anticipate until the ball is on their side. Likely the ball
will be blocked back and, should it hit the net, they dont want to get caught in mid-air starting
a stroke.
There is talk of our bad habit of hitting baby shots. Americans play too safe. Theyve
got to practice
hitting the ball as
hard as they can for
5 minutes.
Strategy is a
matter of who
attacks first. Once
the Europeans get
to spinning, the
Chinese are in
trouble. So theyre
taught to attack
quickly.
Session
over.
What we
learn from the
American players,
says Chuang, is
their desire to learn.
When we see them
improve we are
very happy.
Chuang tells
a reporter another
of his endless
number of parables.
There is a certain
temperature that is
From China Reconstructs, 1972
necessary for an
Why the Chinese are #1
272
egg to hatch, he says. But there is no temperature that will make a stone turn into an egg. It
is something internal to the egg that makes it turn into a chicken.
So?
So the improvement in technique by the American player has to be due to his own
efforts not something outside.
Chang, the Peking Opera-exhibitionist, the so-called Magic Chopper, ceiling-lobber
extraordinaire, was talking for a moment about his small son. He plays with a little paddle,
says Chang. How does he do? asks one of our players. He breaks lights, says Chang
smiling.
Which reminded me. Since I have two boys, age 10 and 8, who have been playing in
tournaments since they were 6, and since the Chinese like children, I asked Chuang the
following question. What if kids have bad strokes when they begin? Are they apt to keep
them for life?
He answered with an analogy. Trees that grow wild, he said, grow every which
waybut trees in a garden are pruned and trimmed and cut just right. If you dont correct a
fault, it grows bigger, it spreads.
If a player has been playing a long time with the wrong strokes, can his game still be
saved?
Perhaps, said Chuang. But you would have to damage the tree. And even if the tree
survives, it wont flourish.
Then he adds, as if for once he really wants to talk. Playing ping-pong has lots of
contradictions. Its dangerous to be a winner. You can be deceived. Though ping-pong is a
highly competitive sport, there is no real victory or defeat. There is always both. Just as there
is no life without death, so there is no death without life. The whole world is unified like this.
Chuang takes a break for an autograph. Oh, thank you, says the woman. You have
such nice handwriting. You ought to be a teacher.
She asks Chuang if he likes the way the American girls look. (Earlier Liang had
wondered aloud to Jairie why American girls had to wear something different every day.)
Every group, every country, has its own customs and I completely respect those customs, he
said.
That night at the Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital, Mrs. James B. Cartwright (to the
exasperation of the interpreterstheyd had to work up a long translation) was stressing the
interesting American phenomenon of Volunteer Service. Volunteers care about others. They
get a happy feeling by helping others. This is the only hospital in the country operated by a
womens club.We women want to make Memphis a better place to live.We want peopleto-people understanding.
As if readied by this speech, we began our tour of the place. Along one of the walls,
West German table tennis balls are arranged to say, HI. Up we go, past the to-be-wheeledaround desk, now immobile, of Lucys Library, past Snoopys Fun House and a little fellow
born with a hare lip, past Henry Fonda with a Polaroid staring down at a volunteer watcher of
a two-month-old whos got pneumonia and is in an oxygen tent, past the lines, If a child lives
with security, he learns to have faith, and a little one with an esophagus that isnt large
enough.
On to the Bunny Room, where a volunteer mother says, The children look forward
to going to surgery because they get a present. And where a sign reads, Parent, please wait
outside the Bunny Room while your child picks his toy.
273
From the National Council for Community Services to International Visitors (COSERVE), July, 1972, 4
Dr. Chuang offers the ping-pong ball as a present?
Chuang offers a Double Happiness ball for the toy room. Very good, says the
woman in charge. We will place this in a case for observation study only.
On leaving, Chuang and Steenhoven sign the Snoopy Fence. Finally, were out of the
place. As were boarding the bus, a young man, his hands shaking, gives Chuang a St.
Christopher medal.
274
Angie and Graham use their travel time to LA wisely
Photos by Don Gunn
Above & below: Chinese team being

welcomed in LA
275
Pat Brown, ex-Governor

of California
Chapter Eight
April 24th. We did have a safe, restful journey out to L.A. And, once there, down we
went into The Sea is Redthats what the band at the West Imperial Terminal was playing
. And there were more than the usual banners and flags. Long Live the Friendship Between
the U.S. and Chinese People!
You have saved the best for last, said a welcoming speaker (perhaps Edmund G.
Pat Brown, ex-Governor of California). We have the most beautiful state in the Union.
Ever since the days of 49, the Chinese have played an important part in our history. It must
be so, because there wasnt a single dissenter, not apparently in Chinatown or anywhere else.
More frisbees given out. These sport E Pluribus Unumand an eagle with a red,
white, and blue frisbee in either claw.
But theres no time here in L.A. for frisbee flicking. Instead, were going to the
movies. Well, sort of.
All out at Universal Studios the entertainment center of the world.
Is Alfred Hitchcock really
here?
Yeah, over there in the line.
Geez, I might be in the middle of
a mystery and not even know it.
Standing there, too, were Edgar
Bergen, Jackie Cooper, George
Peppard, and Vincent Price.
Into the cafeteria, past the
papered faces of stars and their slowlyto-be-forgotten pictures: It Cant
Happen HereThe Ugly
AmericanSaboteurA Double
Life. To sit down in what looks like a
directors chairto eat, to listen to
some more silly welcoming speeches.
Then up and out to take a ride on
the Glamour Train. 428 acres here
quite a lot. 750,000 propsall labeled,
Alfred Hitchcock
cross-referenced, photographed, and
available at a moments notice.
Past the Printing and Refurbishing Dept. that can make new things look like old and
old things look like new. Past great walls that are not walls, and the faade of a house that
was used in a pretend Hitchcock movie. Plaster of Paris buildingsthe home of Marcus
Welby, and the turn-of-the-century Chinese restaurant one of his patients grandfathers might
have gone to. Shanghai Dining says the sign; the Chinese laugh.
Theres a riverboat used 20 years ago in The Mississippi Gambler. We saw the real
thing! someone yells out. Theres man-made Park Lake, the whole Pacific Ocean for
McHales Navy. And whats this! A moving periscope and rushing across the water at usa
torpedo! Swoosh! It explodes a spray that can only drench us in surprise. But not the
photographerstheyve been forewarned and quick jump out to shoot the startled Chinese.
276
Here you can view a white sand-like

substance become snow that will never melt.
Or visit a South Seas island. Or suddenly
see a gorilla swinging by as if on a trolley
line, or vine.
Passports ready? Behind these
portable forests can be hidden what youre
not permitted to see. This little town, these
shopswe need only change the signs and
youre in any European country you please.
Next, a machine that makes waves a
foot and a half high. On a deserted ridge,
the Psycho house.
Do they shoot night scenes during
the daytime? one of our players asks.
The guide says, Both. Does he
mean they shoot night scenes at night too?
Or daytime scenes during the night? Or
both? But thoughts are interrupted by the
noise of thunder, and it starts to rainto
pour! Down a nearby hill comes a flash
flood right at us!
Wow! someone says. They can
make anything happen! The Chinese are
quite taken with the illusion.
As our ride comes to an end, and we
Ferocious gorilla
are about to look out over the San Fernando
Valley, Jose and I cant be sure if the houses
on a cliff above us are real or not.
Now in to see Old Ironsides, Raymond Burr. But hes up from his chair, is not acting,
is directing. In a car are actors. Behind the car is a flickering screenL.A.s Chinatown, alive
in neon night. Quickly the car itself is in Chinatown. Burr, who lived in China as a boy, greets
his visitors. Ive enjoyed you on TV very much, he says.
Over to the animal actors stage. A rat is let looseand swings down close to where
the players are. But no need for securityhe moves on. Now the trainers explaining that the
birds are trying to take over the world. He wants to demonstrate they intend to kill everyone.
He asks for a volunteer. Who? Hu Wei-hsin is pressed into service. Stands waiting. He is asked
to put a collar round his neckso the bird will know Hu to kill. The bird, 100 yards away,
waits for the signal, then flies at Hu like something from far back in the crags. The Chinese
stands his groundand then the bird is upon him.
Another bird comes out. Hello, he says. Hello. Then, opening his wings, he poses
as a patriotic eagle.
Then a dogs on stage. Will he do what hes supposed to do? We never punish them,
says the trainer; we give them something they like to eat. O.K., says the trainer, wave at
everybody, Charlie. The dog waves.
Its Goodbye to the animal act.
277
The Frankenstein monster

suddenly appearsin graveyard green
and clamps. In his high forehead there is
a bullet hole and a red line trickling
down. Howard puts his hand on Carl
Stovers shoulder and howls,
Frankenstein Meets the Chinese!
Now for an American equivalent
of Peking Operathe Horse Opera.
Lots of comedy-stalking down the short
street of the Silver Slipper Saloon. Stunt
men show how they make their living
by doubling, doubling over. At the end,
all lie deadas if it were Shakespeare.
We move far away from the
carnage.
At the Pauley Pavilion, there are
8,000 live spectators. But again nary a
demonstrationexcept maybe in the
Blues locker room where theres more
than a little discussion about whos
Ho Tsu-Pin and friend
going to play. Steenhoven, Howard,
Sweeris work it out.
Graham and Jack are disgusted by the money-hungry, match-grabbing attitude of the
what-can-I-get-out-of-all-this? players. Get away from me! I dont want to talk to you!
someone says to Lee. D-J thought, first, a $100, then, o.k., $75 a day compensation was about
right for giving up his daily managerial job at Danny Veghs emporium and the prospective
$900 worth of exhibitions hed miss out on. (Last I heard he hadnt got paid a cent.) Roberts?
You may not have known it, but hed been working overtime, relinquishing for this Tour not
one but two jobs. Bukiet had certain lessons to give. In short, American players, if not the
USTTA, did indeed want to cash in somewhere, somehow.
At this last stop, the Chinese are to take 7 of the 10 matches. But of course it doesnt
help their average any. From 22 and 4 weve improved to 34 and 12. The way were suddenly
cutting them down suggests to an imaginative few that were we to play long enough.
Li Fu-jung, smiling, doesnt seem to be trying very hardhe loses 2-0 to hometown
hero Erwin Klein. Hu Wei-hsin also drops his match to Pradit. In a Friendship doubles
pairing, Robbie and Liang with his 20-feet-back badminton returns stage an exhibition match
that brings down the house.
Judy wins, is playing much better than in Detroit. But the best womens match is the
one Patty loses after being up 20-17 in the 3rd. At the end, she fails to return two serves of a
kind that werent forthcoming earlier in the match.
Never mind. As we head for the Pawley Pavilion exit, it appears weve achieved a great
victoryand maybe we have. Angelita Rosal has certainly scored with our visitors. I dont care
what anybody says about them, she says. Theyre the most lovable people Ive ever met. I think
everybody on the American Teamat least the girlsfell in love with one or two of them.
Which is surely as good a way as any to have seen our guests, right?
278
From Ping-Ping Diplomacy Commemoration, 2002
LA Pauley Pavilion Courts

Peter Pradit defeats Hu Wei-hsin
Erwin Klein defeats Li Fu-jung
279
Photo by Don Gunn
Arms upraised, it would appear that the U.S. has scored a triumphant victory over the Chinese
Apr. 25th. This morning the formal two-week Tour is over, and four of us are leaving
the Beverly Hilton Hotel to go to the airportErwin, Patty, Jose, and me. We jump into a cab
and by chance get one of those proverbial N.Y. driversthe kind you see in movieswhos
come West and who in his spare time is a professional student of sorts, an art student.
We havent driven two minutes, are just trying to come out of an avenue leading to the
hotel when he stops the cab, matter-of-factly opens the door, and gets out. Everyones
messed up, he says. Have to get out and direct the traffic. He walks over to the car
momentarily stopped ahead of us. This way, lady, he says and bows. This way and guides
her past the snarl.
On getting back into the cab, he cant stop talkingespecially when he finds out were
part of the professional ping-pong Group touring with the Chinese.
For one compulsive moment his head is into strategy. Do you do any switch-hitting?
he asks. You could really throw your opponent off that way.
No, I say. Most of the time the balls coming too fast for that.
How about balls? he says. Did the Chinese bring their own balls?
Yeah, I answer, thinking of those gift boxes of Double Happiness.
They dont trust our balls? he says.
Yeah, I say, maybe not. I want to let it go at that. Only he wont stop talking.
What kind of pallets do you use? he asks.
I wasnt sure Id heard him right. I look over at Erwin and, sure enough, Erwins
looking at me through his dark glassesas if to say, Is this guy for real?
The what? I say.
The pallets, he says. There must be lots of differences in the pallets.
Oh, yeah, I say, palliating him, Differences there are; but quite a few similarities
too.
280
Although the U.S.-China

Friendship Matches have come
to an end, the Chinese will
continue their stay for several
days. Theyll be able to relax, but
security wont be lax. Having fun
at Marineland, Li Fu-jung
doesnt have any trouble feeding
a dolphin. But Mal Anderson
tells me that when Lin Hui-ching
was ready to feed the killer
whale, he reared up and so
startled her that she jumped
back. Then, though she still
wanted to feed him, when he
came again she was timid and
deliberately stepped back. At
which point, said Mal, the
handler urgently told the
interpreter, Tell her he knows
shes teasing himbut if she
doesnt feed him, she will get
VERY wet! Then she fed him.
Rather than get

drenched, she fed him
Li Fu-jungs not squeamish
281
The Womens World

Champion continued to draw the
photographers attention. At
Disneyland we see Lin having a
chat with Pinocchio.
Though the Chinese did
go on to stage an exhibition,
mostly among themselves, at
Stanford University, they
continued taking it easy. In a
fitting finale to our visitors twoweek stay, glasses were raised at
the Robert Mondavi Winery in
Napa, California, in mutual
Friendship, while Cheng Minchih played Home on the
Range on her accordion.

Pinocchio tells Lin hed make a good doubles partner for her
Left: As all prepare to fly

home, Chuang Tse-tung offers
a toast to clear skies
Right: Cheng Min-chih plays

an old favorite:
282
To order copies of History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volumes I, II, III and IV,
send $35 per book to: Tim Boggan, 12 Lake Avenue, Merrick, NY 11566
Top: Delegation Heads Chuang Tse-tung and Graham Steenhoven

at Chrysler Plant in Detroit engaging in a
Friendship First, Competition Second match.
Bottom: U.S. President Richard Nixon (center) chatting with
USTTA President Graham Steenhoven after Grahams return from China.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is on right.

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History of U.S.

The Ping-Pong Diplomacy Years: ...please, write the truth

The Ping-Pong Diplomacy Years: ...please, write the truth

by Tim Boggan, USATT Historian

This book is for Tom Dulack and Dick Miles

I want to acknowledge how much I appreciate Larry Hodgess

PRINTED BY: The Outer Office, Lime Kiln Road, Fulton, MD

From 1971 Worlds No. 1 Bulletin

Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium

Harrisonfrom Wilmington, Delaware, a 40-year-old Dupont

unimaginative USTTA Vice-Presidents) I was still much

Each home room had a special

U.S. Champion D-J Lee

From The Asia Magazine, June 20, 1971

Naturally each improvident member of the Mens Team,

From the Mie, Japan

self-preoccupied person, he preferred puzzling moral

Dortmund, Germany, was generally regarded, even

From Chinese Delegation to 71 Worlds Portfolio of Photos

Courts in Los Angeles, also quickly became a press

the run between Meetings. Irv Wasserman, who its rumored

Theres England playing Vietnam. Just crowned

Against Miss Bergeret,

I am very disappointed, says Alex. I have never seen a

Hungarys 1953 World Singles Champion Ferenc Sido

From New York Sunday News, May 23, 1971

Jubilee Cup Runner-up Tim Boggan

Boggan (far left), behind Jubilee Cup Winner Laci Stipek

Japans Koji Goto awarding Tim Boggan

From Chinese Delegation to 71

From the Report of the 1971 Nagoya Worlds

In the 5th match, Klampar plays horribly against

From Chinese Delegation to 71 Worlds Portfolio of Photos

Bengtsson (R) defeats Chuang Tse-tung

snagging the liner not quite over his head. The

Spectators are gathering round. A number of people are speaking definitively as to

Now Stipancic, who always looks arrogant, and/

1970 Yugoslav National Champion

used. But, oh, these guys looked

In the 2nd game, Hsis

clambered up, floppy hat

hotel at 10:30 a.m. in the morning

Photo by Mal Anderson

run away because he didnt think he could go

Photo courtesy of Marty Reisman

Could ones imagination picture something like this?

From the Report of the 1971 Nagoya Worlds

Party Time, L-R: Olga, Connie, Lin Hui-ching, and Wendy

Premier Chou En-Lai (L)

From Chinas Table Tennis, 1983

Arriving in Nara, John said he had a strange experience.

there, then more bread, then

Harrison, I knew, had committed himself to a leading Philadelphia paperand cleverly,

From the Mie, Japan Friendship Games Program

L-R: Gus, Jean, and Roger Kennedy

An earlier comment of Tannehills (he was sitting

In the middle of dinner I was called to the

But he was very much worried about Cowan and

Victoria City and Hong Kong Harbor.

Chinas 1971 Afro-Asian Champion Cheng Huai-ying

John Tannehill, at Sumchun Customs House,

It was a beautiful sunlit,

American players taking tea at the Sumchun Customs House

Was it fun? one of us asked.

Photo: Rufford Harrison

Guest House grounds