‘Ping-pong diplomats’ win friends

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32967, 13 July 1972, Page 9

‘Ping-pong diplomats’ win friends

(From

DAVID BARBER,

N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent)

SINGAPORE.

New Zealand will discover what “ping-pong diplomacy” is all about when the Chinese table tennis team arrives at the end of this week. Apart from their table tennis ability, which is of the highest order, the team’s visit to Singapore has shown its members to be superlative diplomats who might well have studied Dale Carnegie as well as the thoughts of Chairman Mao. They have won many friends in Singapore, demonstrating both in the stadium and on their tours of the island, that in the words of their leader, Cien Yuan-kao, they came “in a spirit of friendship first, and competition second.” SPORTSMANSHIP SHOWN The sportsmanship shown by the seven men and four women players during their exhibition games and friendly matches against Singapore teams has endeared them to Singapore’s Chinese sports fans. The world championship veteran, Ou Sheng-lien, aged 29, set the tone in a match against a Singapore player With the score at 20-20, a return from the Singaporean missed the table by a fraction, but the Chinese insisted to the umpire that it had clipped the edge, giving his opponent the point. At other times, the Chinese players have won applause by taking a cloth away from a Singapore umpire to wipe down the table between

games, and crossing the stadium to take after-match cups of water to their opponents.

Every game has begun with a smiling exchange of souvenir badges between players, and the Chinese have always been the first to shake hands with their opponents and all the Singaporean umpires and scorers at the end of each match.

Members of the party have charmed the crowds which have flocked to see them on their sight-seeing tours by smilingly exchanging greetings, signing autographs and posing for photographs.

The stars of the Chinese team are the third-ranking i national woman, Cheng Yu- i shan, a tall teacher, aged 28, and the veteran, Ciou Lan- ; sun, aged 33, a chemical , worker who is the nation’s i No. 3 men’s singles player. But tiny Li Ho-nan, described as one of China’s brightest women hopes, has attracted a lot of attention with her powerful play, and Ou Sheng-lien is a great crowd-pleaser, whose occasional stunt of tossing the ball 15ft in the air to serve always draws a roar of applause. .

Chen Chin-tang offers a touch of individualism among ; the close-cropped, red-shirted 1 players, when he occasionallyadopts a low crouch, with;: one knee almost on the ground, to serve. Yu Ciin-chia, a diminutives student of Canton College J has an attractive gamin-like; quality that might make her: popular in New Zealand. The Chinese have not been; featured as “personalities” in] the Singapore newspapers be-: cause the team is surrounded by a strict security guard J and individual interviews! have been ruled out.

The tour is being kept at a low key by order of the Government of Singapore, ■ which does not want to risk an upsurge of chauvinism among its Chinese people. | who make up 75 per cent of ithe Republic’s population of ’2.lm. I The only hint of chauvinism was on the first night, ’when a capacity crowd of !7000. most of them Chinese, | stopped an exhibition match ! between two of the Chinese ! and demanded that the scores (be called in Mandarin as well |as English. Both languages have been used since.