Ping Pong Nation
This weekend (I spend every weekend at Helen's house) I had nothing to do, so I set out on her bike. Man, if I'd been seen on this thing in my hometown, that'd be the end of me. This beach-cruiser style bike had not one but two baskets. People still stared, but I think it was more because of the fact that I was doing something so everydayish and routine as riding a beat up beach cruiser in the bike lane along with the masses. You don't see many foreigners doing that, much less foreigners in general. Here, adults riding bikes to work is a normal as driving a car. It's just as popular, and most times quicker. In this picture the row of bikes extends about 100 feet, and bike lots like this are all over the city. After about an hour of riding I found a park. Not your usual park. A ping pong park. The guy that I am playing in this picture spoke little English, so after talking in Chinese for a few minutes, he suggested we play. Even my shots that flew far wide of the table, he returned just to keep it interesting. Eventually, I told him I'd had enough embarrassment, and we ended the slaughter. Afterwards, I met his friend John (English name). John spoke a fair amount of English (all Chinese take English starting in 1st grade) but had a little trouble controlling his saliva and I received an unexpected gift at certain points in the conversation when he reached words ending in the letter "s". He suggested we play as a team against two teenage girls who were more on my playing level. The games went well enough, and John and I actually won most of the time. The girls, who play there every weekend, said they would call me next weekend to play. Now if only I could practice in the meantime.