Mongolian Ping Pong

Coming Out:

a Believer In Ping Pong Diplomacy 

one Chairman Mao

After watching Mongolian Ping Pong one is filled with a bit of wonderment, the idea that a solitary ping pong ball, something incredibly mundane in my neck of the woods, would provoke a quest for knowledge and an attempt at returning the ping pong ball to it's rightful owners. The main character, Bilike, discovers a ping pong ball floating down the local stream. This small ball of plastic, appears to invoke a quizzical reaction from Bilike and his two friends, Eroguotu and Dawa. They then take the ball to their grandmother, who thanks to the mystical beliefs present in that neck of the world, says it's a magical pearl. The boys tend to disbelieve this statement and take it to their local Buddhist Monastery. This scene is quite comical with the Buddhist monks not having the slightest clue about the small white plastic ball. Since these monks are the highest educated guys on the Mongolian steppe, one assumes ping pong is not a highly exported sport. The breakthrough comes from when one of the boys sees the game of ping pong being played on their newly acquired television. The broadcast is from a Chinese station, thus allowing yours truly to bring in a global connection. Modern China has seemingly always had a love affair with ping pong, as it was Chairman Mao's favorite game it quickly became China's favorite game. Having a dictator (kind of like a parent forcing a kid to play soccer) forcing them to play ping pong, the Chinese found that they were a ping pong powerhouse. In fact they were so cocky that when President Richard Nixon challenged them to a ping pong match, they accepted and in the process opened up trade with the United States, the first time since Mao took over China in 1949. So needless to say ping pong is the national sport of China, and the ping pong ball is the national ball of China (instead of baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet think ping pong, moon cakes and motor scooters). As such the boys attempt to venture the thousands of miles to the capital of China, Beijing. This venture goes horribly wrong forcing the boys to turn for home and get whipped by their worried to death mothers.  So the moral of this movie is, finders keepers.