Table tennis players in Beijing parks are increasingly older. Young people prefer basketball and other sports.

By JOHN BRANCH

BEIJING - On the far edge of dusk, the cicadas screeched in the eastern shadows of Chaoyang Park. But even the chorus of unseen insects, both a summer soundtrack and a delicacy in these parts, could not drown out the rhythmic metronome that has long kept the pace for free time in China. Ka-donk, ka-dink, ka-donk, ka-dink.
It was a persistent symphony of celluloid balls against rubber-sided paddles and wood tables, and the best time to see and hear it was either early in the morning or late in the day, when all 19 table tennis tables at the park are usually in use.
Players trickle in and out. They carry worn little bags made of plastic or canvas, holding the necessities of their sport - paddles, white or orange balls, netting to string across the table and a jug of homemade tea.
¡°And sometimes biscuits,¡± Ren Weiling, 61, said through an interpreter, as she pulled some from her bag.
On a couple of typical days at the park, most of the players were over 50. Men played men, men played women, women played women. Few kept score.
The players represented the fading cultural link between China and its national sport. Table tennis here is losing some of its cultural significance. Young athletes, especially, seem to be less interested in paddling a small white ball across a net.
Mao Zedong pushed the game as the primary way to show China¡¯s strength through sports. After the International Table Tennis Federation admitted China in 1953, the Communist Party embarked on a long campaign to popularize the old English parlor game, cheap and easy to play, equally suited for crowded cities and tiny villages.
Next year will be the 50th anniversary of China¡¯s first world championship in table tennis, won by Rong Guotuan. Zhuang Zedong followed, with championships in 1961, 1963 and 1965.
¡°We were all quite fascinated by the champion Zhuang Zedong,¡± said Zhao Chongshan, 62. He was zipping returns low across the net.
¡°I was in primary school, and we had a stone table,¡± he remembered. ¡°We all tried to get the table to play during our 10-minute recess.¡±
The Chinese have won 10 men¡¯s world titles since Mr. Zhuang¡¯s time, including four of the last five. They are even more dominant on the women¡¯s side, winning 17 singles titles since 1961, including 14 of the last 15. Their dominance continued at this year¡¯s Olympic Games, where Chinese players swept both the men¡¯s and women¡¯s competitions.
But today, young Chinese have more options. There are movies and computers and countless other sports. Not 15 meters away from the tables here was the other side of the cultural divide.
There was a new basketball court with clear acrylic backboards. There were eight small artificial-turf soccer fields surrounded by chain-link fences. The players, all men, mostly played six on six.
Wang Zheng, 35, rested between games of basketball, talking about table tennis. He plays, but not often. ¡°Since the ¡®90s, it has become just a sport, without any special meaning,¡± he said.
Guo Wei, 30, had some historical perspective on why table tennis is fading in the ever-expanding Chinese culture.
¡°I can remember when I was 3, we had a black-and-white TV with three channels,¡± he said. ¡°And we had Ping-Pong.¡±
From the other side of the sidewalk, a steady bass beat could just be heard , even through the back-and-forth percussion of ka-donks and ka-dinks.
It was the thump, thump, thump of basketballs bouncing on the ground.

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