新书介绍：乒乓外交
Kai Chen's Book Review on "Ping Pong Diplomacy" by Nick Griffin
"Ping Pong Diplomacy" Amazon book link:
http://www.amazon.com/Ping-Pong-Diplomacy-Secret-History-Changed/dp/1451642776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389817824&sr=8-1&keywords=ping+pong+diplomacy
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5MkFSC2Xfk
"One in a Billion" Amazon book link:
http://www.amazon.com/One-In-Billion-Journey-Freedom/dp/1425985025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389965738&sr=8-1&keywords=One+in+a+billion%2C+Kai+chen
Kai Chen's Email to Nick Griffin
Dear Nick: 4/15/14
I just finished reading your book "Ping Pong Diplomacy". It took me back decades to those brutal, struggling and unforgettable years. I am glad that my experience as a former pro-athlete in China, my book "One in a Billion - Journey toward Freedom" and "My Way" (the Youtube program of NTDTV, by Fiona Zhao, the producer) all contributed to your accurate recount of the important historical moments and events in China and in the world at the time. I am truly grateful to you for returning history to its original form, not by political propaganda, but by a person's conscience and drive to seek truth. I thank you.
Your book is a fascinating read, since I have experienced all "sports as political tool" in China. Still many facts astonished me:
I now realized when I was forced back to Beijing from Guangzhou Military
District in 1971, I was indeed with the Ping Pong team players on the same plane from the World Championships in Japan. I now
remember Xi Enting, Liang Geliang and some women players with me on the same
plane. They were signing autographs for some fans. The tourists looked like they were either from
Japanese or Hong Kong. When you interviewed me over the phone, I
couldn't remember the players' names. NSAC General Secretary Song Zhong invited me to
the Oriental Hotel to persuade me back to Beijing, after I escaped from Beijing. The talk lasted more than
one hour. I wonder why he spent so much time with me. Did I have any choice?
As I read through the book, I learned that Zhuang Zedong died in 2013. Though I didn't have personal relationship with him, I pitied him for his life choices. When he was the head of NSAC, he came to talk with us once. The August 1st Basketball team was at a pre-game banquet in a Beijing hotel. I forgot against which third world team we would play (either North Korea or Egypt) the next day. Zhuang came to reiterate the official political line to us - Friendship First, meaning we could not win by too many points. I could still see him in a very awkward manner when he talked as we towered above him. The last time I heard about him was a few years ago, when he took his Japanese wife touring Shenzhen where an old friend of mine who became a sports bureaucrat in Shenzhen met him. The friend also spoke of him with a deep pity. Zhuang indeed was a tragic figure in a political and morally perverse episode in Chinese history. He was abused by many and an abuser to many. In the end, he had no idea what truly happened to him. When I wrote my book/my memoir (One in a Billion - Journey toward Freedom), I indeed was motivated to recount that part of history in some memorable and accurate fashion. I realized if I didn't recount that part of history, the truth would be lost for no one had the courage and mindset to do so. Most Chinese refuse to write memoirs even today due to their mindset, for reasons of fear of offending someone and the authority, therefore suffering the consequences. Thus many episodes in the Chinese history, especially in China's sports history, are either missing or distorted by official/governmental propaganda. True history is written and recorded by conscientious individuals like you and me, not by collectives and the authority by government. I am satisfied that you wrote this book with your conscience and the best of your ability as a writer.
Keep in touch and please accept my sincere gratefulness. Kai Chen
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Dear Kai Chen
Forgive my late reply. My publisher has been mailing me around the East
Coast and now over to England. I don't like writing longer emails on my
telephone so I was waiting until I was plugged back in to a proper computer.
I really just wanted to thank you once again. Although I had spoken to
many of the table tennis players before I first contacted you, our conversation
was the first time I could feel the full effect of what those years must truly
have been like. You paint the full portrait while I had been trying to piece
together a puzzle. There are so many memoirs waiting to be written in China. I
really hope that one day the story of Chinese table tennis is told from an
insider's point of view, from someone who witnessed all the extraordinary ups
and downs of the 1960s and 1970s. I think it would be well read in China,
All best to you and to Fiona Zhao for doing such wonderful work in 'My
Way',
Best
Nicholas
