Gossima: The Culture of Ping Pong

Ping! London Map

 

Ping! London

 

• 4 weeks

• 100 tables

• 4,000 bats

• 10,000 balls

On July 23, ping pong tables will pop up across London in parks, train stations, squares and shopping centers for Ping! The London Ping Pong Project. The tables are open for anyone to play on. In addition to free play, there are a host of programmed activities, such as a literary ping pong quiz at the British Library, Round the World at the Natural History Museum, Whiff Waff at the Geoffrye Museum, and Sing ‘n’ Ping at the Victoria Embankment Gardens, among many other tournaments and events. You can also host your own event. Check out pinglondon.com for more details. Ping! London is produced by Sing London, the arts organization that last year in London produced, along with Luck Jerram, Play Me, I'm Yours.

Come Along, Ping Pong

This weekend, Come Along, Ping Pong invites anyone in London to play on tables designed by artists and designers especially for the Barbican art gallery. The event is produced in collaboration with Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.  The Workinng Men's Club hold both racy and refined weekly events including ping pong. Come Along, Ping Pong is part of the art events of Do Something Different and East.

Happy Chinese New Year!

A huge Chinese New Year celebration took place last weekend at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Li Ning, a leading Chinese sporting goods apparel company, sponsored the event, which included ping pong.

Amy Winehouse is Addicted to Table Tennis

Amy Winehouse at the Bowery Ballroom, 2007

photo by Daniel Arnold
 

According to the Mirror, Amy Winehouse, the British singer and songwriter, is addicted to table tennis. "The diva has bought a table for her Barnet home and is throwing ping pong parties. She barely leaves the house."

Hopefully table tennis is the rehab Amy Winehouse needs. We can only hope.

The Origins of Ping Pong

In the 1880's, British soldiers played a game in India and possibly Africa involving a cork ball and the lids of cigar boxes. In Victorian England, a popular after-dinner entertainment among the upper classes was to play indoor tennis with every day objects: a line of books on the dining table which would act as the net; the ball was a champagne bottle cork, a knot of string or a cloth covered rubber ball; and cigar box lids were used as paddles.

The Popular Sport

“Table Tennis- That the pastime of hitting a tiny ball to and fro across a net upon a table has become popular there can be no doubt. Whether it be called, with half its devotees, Ping-Pong, or Table Tennis with the remainder, it is a game that evidently has attractions for a great many people....” The Times, December 30, 1901.