Stroll by Hing Hay Park on most any day and you’ll probably see a pair of ping-pong players thwacking the ball back and forth on the communal tables. The same is true inside the International District Community Center.
The best part? Anyone can join.
For the ping-pongers, the sometimes thrice-daily game is a source of vitality, community, and remembrance of home. Some players here speak English, some speak other languages — but language knows no barriers at the ping-pong tables, and a welcoming spirit prevails, wherein players will immediately hop in to teach the rules of the game to anyone who comes by wanting to learn.
For many of the Chinese retirees who can be found sending balls whizzing back and forth in Hing Hay Park, ping-pong is a major form of physical activity. Many come back once, twice, or three times a day to catch a game.
Historically, ping-pong has been a Chinese national obsession. It’s a sport so powerful, it has the ability to heal international relations. During the Cold War, China and the U.S. smoothed over their relationship with ping-pong diplomacy — friendly interactions between the American and Chinese ping-pong teams.
In 1971, after a chance encounter at the World Table Tennis Championships in Japan, the Chinese team invited the U.S. table tennis players to visit China. This invitation was a strategic move by China to break its international isolation and by the U.S. to engage with China during the Cold War. The visit marked the start of improved U.S.-China relations, eventually leading to President Nixon’s historic 1972 visit and the normalization of diplomatic ties. One of Nixon’s most quoted lines from his presidency even reads “Have you ever played ping-pong?”
The CID has a couple different crews who enjoy the game on a regular basis: There is the Hing Hay Crew, mostly local Chinese immigrants, and then the indoor crew, who play at the International District Community Center.
The rules of ping-pong are simple. In ping-pong, players serve the ball so it bounces once on their side before crossing the net. Points are scored when a player misses the ball or hits it out of bounds. Unlike tennis, ping-pong is a simple point by point game. The first player to get to eleven wins and you must win by two.
While the ping-pongers are open to teach whoever stumbles across the park, who gets to use the courts first is dictated by a system of respect: It’s all pick up games, and the most senior ping-pongers get first pick of the two tables. Other than that, it’s free for all.
Susan Lee Woo, a member of the volunteer-run community group Seattle Chinatown Block Watch, is a familiar face at Hing Hay Park, and she introduced me to some of the park’s essential characters.
Woo helps pick up the balls for seniors playing, as a gesture of respect. “I pick up the balls for the older senior players by standing in back of them,” she said. “When they fly into the streets, passersby are wonderful at retrieving them for us!”
The Hing Hay-ers
Albert is from Hong Kong, and worked in accounting there for 20 years, but has since transitioned to spending most of his time on the less taxing (literally) pastime of ping-pong.
Nathan (nicknamed “The Number One”) is a Philippines native. He recently retired from working at Seattle City Light. He doesn’t speak Cantonese, but that’s no barrier to him making an effort to talk to anyone in the ping-pong community. It’s his enthusiasm and obvious love for the sport that the older generation recognizes, and they’ve given him the nickname “The Master.”
Nathan says he didn’t grow up playing ping-pong, but it’s become a fun way for him to express himself.
Charles drives down from Northgate every day just to play in Hing Hay Park. He’s a retired professional ping-pong player, and played in New York. He thinks ping-pong is better here. Unlike in New York, there’s no waiting around, and you can always count on a pickup game.
Lynn Howe, from Beijing, has won the local ping-pong competition sponsored by InterIm CDA several years in a row. These competitions are free in the summers, and anyone regardless of skill or age can join. More information can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/pingpongpopup/.
Woo says the park also brings in tourists.
“When visitors observe the game, the Chinese ping-pong players welcome and encourage them to play by lending their paddles without hesitation,” Woo said.
My own experience proved her right. I got to play Uncle Chen Pei, another regular at the park’s open tables.
Even on a chilly rainy Thursday, Pei taught me the basic swings and lent me one of his very own paddles. With his help, I was playing a decent game within minutes.
And while I was a complete stranger and we didn’t share any sort of life experience, Pei’s simple smiles and kindness were incredibly genuine. We didn’t have much in common, or a method of communication, besides the simple act of hitting a small round ball. But it was in this simplicity that we found a common ground for fun.
A couple of streets over is the International District Community Center. It’s the other hub for ping-pong, and provides ping-pong every day for select hour increments depending on age. Jake, a Seattle native, is a regular at the afternoon session. One day, he popped into the community center during his lunch break — and never stopped coming back.
Jake has learned Cantonese over the years little by little, and can now speak with native speakers about anything ping-pong related.
When I visited the IDCC, Jake introduced me to a woman named Ming who immediately invited me to join her game.
Like with Pei, there was something of a language barrier between us. But it didn’t matter. Ming took 45 minutes out of her day to teach me the ways of the game, in the same way that Pei had with slightly different ping-pong moves. Ming showed me how to grip the racket and serve, and I’m proud to say I now have a better grasp of it. At least a little.
After a while of playing, another player came to me and offered advice. He was a professional, Jake said, and spoke even less English than Ming. Still, he hopped right in to help me.
This wasn’t an unusual event.
“And he doesn’t speak English, but he has been pivotal in my learning the game,” said Jake. He says the community uses WeChat to talk and translate. A Chinese version of WhatsApp, it allows for communication between the ping-pongers. All the players have it, Jake said.
Jake also showed me one of the Community Center’s claims to fame: a portrait of all the locals lovingly done in detail by another community center member.
Hing Hay Park isn’t the only place where people play table tennis. There’s pocket parks all across the city, including one of Westlake and Occidental Square. The Seattle Parks Department maintains the ping-pong tables, keeping the spaces clean and tidy, and sometimes even provides equipment.
We can all take a lesson from the Hing Hay ping-pongers — a reminder that no matter how old you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what language you speak, we all just wanna have a little bit of fun. And what’s more universal than that!
