ss2000 wrote: I once heard some players in China were forced to use left hand because there are lack of left-handed players. Chen Jing, who played for Taiwan in 1996 Olympic, was a lefthand player, but eat and writes with her right hand.

where did you here that from?

From the Chen Jing chapter in the book Table Tennis Legends:

"When I was seven my parents wanted me to learn dancing or the violin, but my physical education teacher suggested sports instead, table tennis, and the suggestion was accepted.  I was not a lefthander, but he persuaded me to play with my left hand, because lefthanders pose greater problems to their opponents.  I had some difficulties in the beginning, but I did not give up, and later on I saw that lefthanders were indeed much more embarassing."

I would not doubt that China would do something like this, but I have a friend here in the states who plays table tennis with his left-hand, writes with his right-hand, uses chopsticks with his left-hand, and dribbles basketball with his right.  He certainly wasn't forced to do any of this stuff a certain way, and I am still amazed that he can do these things.  I do not think he is totally ambidexterous, but some wierd form of "selective" ambidexterous.  It still wierds me out to this day, as I think he should choose a dominant hand and stick with it.

Grubba, who started playing table tennis as a lefty, would sometimes switch racket hands in the middle of a point.

I came from china when i was a kid, and in my hometown in china people care alot about which hand the children use to hold their chopsticks. They will smack them on their hand if they use left hand. The explaination I got was because when alot of ppl eat dinner together, they sit around a round table so if everyone is right handed, the spacing between hands are good. But if some are lefty and some are right handed, the spacing becomes uneven and looks alittle strange, and elbows tend to hit each other on smaller tables, which the parents will be ashamed if their kids do this when they go to dinner with other ppl.

Do you think this is China is the 50's? Do you think that people who eat dinner together cant afford getting a bigger table with more space? Hahahaha... It's funny how white washed Chinese get when they go abroad. It seems that they actually start to believe the stereotypical myths that permeate a anglosaxon driven society.

It's guys like you who think that  taiwan and hong kong are actually countries. LOL

lifewire wrote: Do you think this is China is the 50's? Do you think that people who eat dinner together cant afford getting a bigger table with more space? Hahahaha... It's funny how white washed Chinese get when they go abroad. It seems that they actually start to believe the stereotypical myths that permeate a anglosaxon driven society. It's guys like you who think that  taiwan and hong kong are actually countries. LOL

I hate to see personal insults of any kind. I have been in the US for 9 years, but that doesn't mean i am white washed in any way. There are goods and bads about being American and Chinese, and I am much more "Chinese" than most of the younger generations in China, in every single way.

You have not a clue who i am nor any knowledge about my political stand point. So keep your mouth shut, it wouldn't cost you a pennie to simply keep it shut. My post was based on whatever I heard when I was a kid, and it's up to you to believe that. But if you have to go personal, i will deal with it the American way and not the Chinese way.

gee, looks like i just wasted another 3 minutes on something stupid.

I wasn't trying to attack you personally. I was talking about Chinese in general.

The reason why I wrote it was because you sounded like another one of those people who say things like. "Oh i heard that in China...... blah blah blah' which really does mislead people into getting a false idea of what China is really like.

On the other hand it makes people who do, angry, because of the mockery you have made of your own country without being sure yourself whether it is true or not

It was 100% sure to me because it's my personal experience. It could be just the tradition of my hometown,  but i am not making this stuff up.

whatever reason it is, I rather have peaceful conversations and avoid debate over politics, since this forum should about TT.