Gossima: The Culture of Ping Pong

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.

Missouri Winter Games 2010

If you live in the the Springfield, Missouri area or are planing on traveling to Missouri this coming Saturday, March 6, make sure to check out the Missouri Winter Games 2010 Open.

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.

Backyard Ping Pong in Portland, Oregon

My incredibly talented friend, Melinda Matson, custom built this beautiful     ping pong table for her backyard garden.

Keith Richard's New Hobby, Ping Pong

Table Tennis is an excellent way to stay healthy and to quit smoking. According to Asian News International, Table Tennis is keeping Keith Richard away from booze and fags. The Rolling Stones guitarist joked, that after all these years, table tennis is the only thing he puts down his drink for. "Now, there's a bat in my hand instead of a brandy."

My Birthday and Yi Yong Fan

On my birthday this year, in early August, I had the incredible opportunity of meeting Yi Yong Fan and practicing at his table tennis club, the Washington Table Tennis Center (WTTC), for a few hours. 

Yi Yong Fan is the number one table tennis player in the United States. His highest ranking international was number 20. Originally from Shandong, China, Yi Yong Fan traveled the world with the Chinese National Team and was the Chinese Junior National Champion at age 16. At the 1991 National Championships he placed third in all of China. Yi Yong Fan left China in 1992 to coach the Kuwait national team. He played professionally in Europe for from 1994 to 1998 and in 1998, he moved to the United States and taught kids in an after school program in Portland, Oregon. The following year, he relocated to Seattle, Washington where he ran a table tennis club at the Bitter Lake Community Center in North Seattle before opening the Washington Table Tennis Center in May 2005.

Public Ping Pong Tables in Barcelona

Joe Rogers at the Olympic Village in Barcelona

Photo by Kate Callahan

Many international cities throughout the world have public spaces with ping pong tables. The Chinese, especially, are good at creating public spaces for playing ping pong. In Barcelona, you can find people throughout the city playing ping pong; the city has around 40 green spaces equipped with public tables. The one pictured above is from the Olympic Village on Montjuïc Hill. The Olympic Stadium on Montjuic Hill was built in 1929 with the intention of hosting an opposition, anti-fascist Olympics in protest to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Because of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the oppositional Olympics were never realized.