When was the last time you played ping pong?

I commented yesterday on Poland’s preoccupation with TV airing of the ping pong elimination rounds during of the 1996 Summer Olympics. I may have been blind to the nuance of that programming decision: today in the IHT (here) one can read about China’s current ping pong diplomacy with Hong Kong. Perhaps airing ping pong matches between China and other countries had political import 8 years ago; perhaps it spoke to alignments between Poland and the mainland Chinese government ? Let’s not forget about the political motivation behind Olympic TV favoritism.

Ping pong diplomacy is itself an odd concept, at least to those of us who cannot fathom the sending of teams across state lines to coax support for strategic governmental action. We’ll send political candidates to kiss babies and eat Wisconsin cheese, but ping pong teams -- that’s just too out of our league. Though we did engage in ping pong diplomacy with China some years back, I think one has to write this off as an odd moment in American history. I don’t think people even have ping pong tables in their garages anymore, as they did in “Leave it to Beaver” days. Ping pong definitely seems to be one of those sports (along with perhaps badminton or archery) that has failed to catch the American imagination. We prefer watching burly men piling in heaps in pursuit of a ball that isn’t even round in shape (see, I DO understand football!). None of this clicking of a little ball against a table surface. How wimpy is that.