The Ping Pong tournaments being held at caf B at Malden High School. Picture taken by reporter Man Nguyen.
On April 27th, the Ping Pong Club had an intergenerational tournament in the Malden High School cafeteria from 6pm to 8pm, brought to you by the combined efforts of the Malden Reads and Chinese Culture Connection. It’s part of the Community N Unity Celebration at Malden High School. People of all ages, young and old, came to participate in the tournament. Zi Yu won first place, Zhengyang Xu won second place, and the international sophomore student from the Pope John High School, Deric Yeung won third.
Mei Hung, one of the organizers of this event is from the Chinese Culture Connection program, collaborated alongside many people from both the local high school community and with the Yong Yong restaurant. Her hope was to get both the younger and the older generations to interact with each other and learn from one another, and she believes that, “playing ping pong is a healthy lifestyle,” since it’s an “exercise and a fun game.” She said that, “[they] do not do this to benefit [them], but to help the public. To unite, to bring people together is [their] ultimate goal.” The audience truly enjoyed the ping pong tournament. Tom Ip, one of the spectators of the event, enjoyed the event, especially when the elders, “who [knew how to play] play [came] down to teach [them] the techniques every Wednesday nights.”
The contestants who participated in the tournament came from all over Malden and from different schools in the Greater Boston Area. Many of the contestants like Zhengyang Xu entered the competition due to seeing a flyer, and she went to represent Northeastern University. She was very confident in her abilities, despite not having played ping pong for a very long time. Both Leo Gao and Deric Yeung, international sophomore students from Pope John High School, joined the tournament to reconnect with themselves.
Without the support and permission of the Malden High School Principal Edward Lombardi, who is “a fantastic supporter,” they wouldn’t have been able to hold the tournament. Despite having initial troubles with organizing people in order to help set up due to busy schedules, Hung was able to find a lot of students throughout the school to assist for the event. Officers and members from the Ping Pong club were all, “very helpful” in offering their services to assist in organizing the tournament as well, along with other senior non-members of club who helped set up and referee for the game. The Yong Yong restaurant provided the delicious food for everyone to eat during the tournament.
Hung commented that “when people are happy, [their] effort is worthwhile.” The annual Chinese connection Thanksgiving Ping Pong tournament is coming out on November 11th so watch out for that! For more information please contact Chinese Connection at info@chineseconnection.org.
