Why Ping-Pong Star
Had to Spend a Week
In a Cucumber Patch
Rowdy Chinese Player Got
A Taste of the Simple Life;
Shades of Mao Zedong
PANTAO, China -- When Chen Qi, a 23-year-old Chinese ping-pong star, lost both a televised match and his temper in March, his coaches drew inspiration from the past.
Harking back to China's Cultural Revolution, they arranged a stint in the countryside to instill in the Olympic hopeful "the quality of trial and adversity." For a week, Mr. Chen clumsily tried to weed cucumbers while hundreds of farmers gathered around to gawk and shout advice. "This is a pilot project. If it works, I'll send the whole team down," declared one of the coaches, Liu Guoliang. "Kids today don't understand hard work."
During the 10 long years of the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, Mao Zedong used similar logic to justify sending an estimated 14 million young people, fallen party officials and others to the villages for re-education through backbreaking labor. The forced movement -- and the millions of deaths -- helps explain why the Cultural Revolution was one of the most scarring episodes in China's history.
RAP VIDEO
? Listen to a rap video by China's national ping pong team.
For many, talk of the Cultural Revolution remains taboo. The Communist Party officially condemned the episode in 1981, but fears too much discussion today about its role could damage its reputation. Schools don't teach about how Mao and other party leaders exhorted hordes of youthful "Red Guards" to destroy temples, harass intellectuals and, often, denounce their parents.
Others in China are nostalgic about the period, which for them is a sixties-style era of camaraderie and sing-alongs. Fashionable yuppies have for years flocked to Cultural Revolution theme restaurants, where service comes with Marxist slogans. Meanwhile, younger Chinese, more familiar with McDonald's and the Internet, find that era's stories of deprivation and persecution unreal.
"When you tell these kids about what happened back then, they just don't even believe it," says Huang Biao, the Chinese national ping-pong team's 43-year-old head coach. He was clutching a pack of cigarettes as he shouted instructions to players, all in their twenties, before a recent match.
The son of a policeman, Mr. Chen has always had a rebellious streak. A muscular fellow with spiky hair and a trident tattoo on his biceps, he joined the junior national team in 1999 and was twice kicked off for rowdy behavior. But his aggressive left-handed play earned him a spot on the national team anyway, and he quickly became a star. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, he and a partner brought home gold in the table-tennis doubles event, part of a team that claimed nearly every top spot that year. He now ranks among the top 10 players in the world.
Ping-pong star Chen Qi toils at Pantao village, south of Beijing, in May.
In China, ping-pong players are major celebrities whose off-court antics are watched as closely as their on-court smash serves. The military-like discipline the national team's coaches try to enforce -- housing players in dormitories and prohibiting them from dating teammates -- hasn't stopped Mr. Chen and his teammates from living life on the edge. In February, one team member was suspended for a year for a bout of late-night drinking. In late July, another teammate was forced to pay a fine and publicly apologize after crashing his Porsche Boxster into a taxi while driving drunk.
The national team players have even made a rap video to cash in on their bad-boy image. "I hit a round of head-on smashes -- three big shots: pow pow pow!" Mr. Chen brags into the microphone. The star's temper most recently got him in trouble in March. After losing the Asian Cup final to a teammate, he flung the ball on the ground and kicked a chair as he walked off court. That display was too much for the image-conscious Chinese team. His coaches fined him, then decided to send him to the countryside for some hard labor.
Mr. Chen's coaches came of age when China's sportsmen led more-spartan lives. Mr. Huang, the head coach, started playing ping-pong as an 8-year-old in 1971, midway through the Cultural Revolution, and he became a junior league champion at 16. Back then, he earned about 100 yuan a month, about $12 at today's rate.
"The biggest difference from when I played is economic," Mr. Huang said. "The salaries are much higher. And there are a lot more temptations." A player's income from salaries, endorsement deals and club play can add up to more than $100,000, a huge amount in China, where the average wage is less than $2,000 a year. The coaches rusticated Mr. Chen "not as a punishment, but so he could see how others live, to see that he has it so good." Mr. Huang says that distinguishes Mr. Chen's experience from that of many in the Cultural Revolution, for whom a stint in the countryside was designed purely as retribution. "Of course, it's important to know the past," he says. "We talk to them about [the Cultural Revolution] and they can't believe it."
The coaches settled on a village called Pantao, near a ping-pong training center about three hours south of Beijing. Village head Wang Jianghai first balked when ping-pong officials contacted him about playing host to the troublesome paddler. The last thing Mr. Wang needed was hordes of celebrity-seeking gawkers disrupting his dominion. "I was worried about his security," Mr. Wang explains. Also, he wondered, "Would he find this place comfortable?" His hosts very much wanted him to be comfortable.
Not that Pantao is a backwater. Signs of China's growing prosperity abound -- motorcycles stirring up clouds on the dusty road, satellite dishes peeking above walls, and lots of cellphones. Nor was the village totally unacquainted with celebrity. In June 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao swung by on a tour to promote the government's efforts to improve rural life.
But Mr. Chen's arrival in Pantao, in May, required even more preparation. The villagers readied one of the best houses in town, a two-story, 14-room home decorated with Greek plaster touches. Wang Zhiquan, deputy party secretary for the village and the home's owner, had a television set moved into the guest bedroom on the ground floor to make sure Mr. Chen would feel at home. Mr. Chen brought with him an MP3 player and his cellphone. "It was strange, he even brought his own quilt," said Mr. Wang's daughter, Wang Xiaoqian. His hosts kept him in air-conditioned comfort. He worked unless he didn't feel like it. Well-wishers in the village advised him to avoid blistering his prized paddle hand. His hosts feted him with home-cooked meals.
So much for hardship. All the pampering demonstrated that Mr. Chen's experience was a far cry from what young people experienced four decades ago. Except in one respect. "He was just like the kids we had during the Cultural Revolution. They didn't know how to do anything when they first came down," Mr. Wang said. "Of course, they were here for two or three years -- not just a week."
For assistance in the field, Mr. Chen just had to turn to the huge crowd that gathered from other nearby villages. Chinese reporters and camera crews tailed him as he stumbled over the difference between a bud and blade of grass. "We had to explain to him how to do everything, even how to water between the plants!" recalls the Pantao chief. For some, Mr. Chen's stint in the sticks was all a bit too lighthearted. "For people over 50 years old, settling in the countryside is punishment and re-education for the youth during the Cultural Revolution, which was very cruel and only used for those who committed crimes," wrote Tang Feng, a disgruntled editor at the Elderly Times newspaper in Tianjin. "But people today have almost forgotten it or just don't want to memorize this history."
Mr. Chen, though, says the experience has left him humbler. "I'd never lived like that before," he says, waving aside an eager autograph seeker after wrapping up a recent practice. "It was good to see that my training is really not as hard as the work they do in the village. Yeah, you could say what I went through was like being sent down to the countryside back then, too."
乒乓明星下乡劳动为哪般
今年3月，23岁的中国国家乒乓球队队员陈杞在一次有电视转播的比赛中负于对手后作出了失态举动。为帮助他改正错误，他的教练们想到了过去的一种做法。
他们像“文化大革命”时期那样，安排这位很有希望打进奥运会的选手到农村去进行一段时间的劳动，“磨练思想品质”。在整整一周的时间内，陈杞在田里笨手笨脚地学著种黄瓜，周围聚拢了上百位围观的农民，他们忍不住大声告诉他应该怎么做。他的教练刘国梁说：这次安排也是一次尝试，如果有效的话，我会让全队都来锻炼一下。现在的年轻人不懂得劳动的艰辛。
这正是毛泽东在“文化大革命”期间的思路。在从1966年开始的十年“文革”期间，当时的中国领导人毛泽东将大约1,400万年轻学生、犯错误的党内干部和其他人士下放到农村，让他们通过艰苦的体力劳动接受贫下中农的再教育。在那场运动中，有数百万人把生命留在了农村。那十年也成为中国历史上最骇人听闻的时期之一。
对很多人来说，“文革”依然是个禁忌话题。中国共产党1981年已作出正式结论，确定“文化大革命”是一场错误的运动。但中共至今仍担心，过多谈论党在“文革”中的历史会有损它的声望。中国的教科书里没有关于毛泽东和中共其他领导人在文革中如何鼓动“红卫兵”砸毁寺庙、批斗知识分子乃至与他们的父母划清界限等种种行为的内容。
但也有一些人很怀念“文革”，对他们来说，“文革”就是六十年代相互之间的亲密同志关系，还有众人一起唱歌、跳舞的集体生活。近年来，一些地方出现了“文革”主题餐厅，追求时髦的“雅皮”人士纷纷光顾此类餐厅，在这里，服务员上菜时会像当年那样先来上一两句马列主义口号。而与此同时，生活在麦当劳和互联网时代的年轻中国人不相信有关那个时代的那些贫困和迫害的故事是真的。
今年43岁的中国国家乒乓球队领队黄彪说，如果你给这些孩子讲那个年代发生的事情，他们根本就不相信。
陈杞的父亲是警察，不过他的身上总是带著点反叛性格。1999年他被选入国家少年队的时候，梳著爆炸式的发型，胳膊上刺著三叉戟图案的纹身，在少年队，他曾两次因行为粗暴被开除。不过，左手握拍的他打法凌厉，在国家队里非常突出，因而很快就成为了明星。在2004年雅典奥运会上，他和队友赢得了乒乓球双打金牌。在那届奥运会上，中国队基本包揽了乒乓球比赛的所有冠军。现在陈杞排在世界前十名。
在中国，很多乒乓球选手都是名人，他们不仅在比赛场上的漂亮扣杀惹人注目，而且在场外的一举一动也备受关注。国家队的教练们希望用军事化的纪律来约束他们──比如，安排队员们住在集体宿舍里，禁止跟队友谈恋爱等等，但这些并不能阻止陈杞和其他队员打擦边球。
2月份时，一位队员因为夜出饮酒而被停赛一年。7月末，另一位队员因为酒后驾驶保时捷(Porsche Boxster)撞上了出租车，而被处以罚款，并公开道歉。
国家队的球员甚至制作了一个Rap视频，利用他们的坏男孩形象捞上一笔。陈杞对著麦克风夸耀道，我迎头一轮暴冲三大板：啪啪啪！这位球星的脾气3月份时给他带来了麻烦。在亚洲杯决赛中输给队友后，他把球拍狠狠扔到地上，并在离场时踢了挡板。这种做法对于一贯注重形象的中国队来说实在是太过分了。他的教练对他进行了罚款，然后决定把他送到农村参加重体力劳动。
陈杞的教练都是从当年的艰苦岁月中走过来的人。领队黄彪从1971年开始打乒乓球，那年他只有8岁，当时正值文化大革命的中间阶段。他在16岁时成为了少年组冠军。那时，他每月的工资约为人民币100元，按目前的汇率计算约合12美元。
黄彪说，现在同我当年打球时最大的不同表现在经济方面。工资提高了很多，诱惑也更多了。球员的工资、代言费和代表俱乐部比赛的收入总计可超过10万美元，在年平均工资不足2,000美元的中国，这是个很大的数目。教练将陈杞发配到农村“不是惩罚，而是让他能看到其他人的生活，让他明白自己的生活已经很好了。”黄彪说，陈杞的经历同许多文革年代的人有很大不同。他说，“当然，了解过去也很重要。我们同他们谈起文化大革命，他们都不相信。”
教练们选择了距北京约有3小时车程，靠近一个乒乓球训练中心的蟠桃村。村支书王海江最初拒绝了乒乓球队希望他们接待陈杞的要求。王海江最不愿见到的事情就是大批追星族打扰村子的安宁。王海江解释说，我担心他的安全。而且，他也恐怕陈杞会觉得住在这里不舒服。
倒不是蟠桃村闭塞。中国不断走向富裕的迹象随处可见──摩托车绝尘而去、卫星电视天线伸出墙头，手机也比比皆是。也不是村里从没来过名人。2005年6月，总理温家宝就曾为推动农村生活水平的提高到该村考察。
但陈杞5月份到蟠桃村却需要更多的准备工作。村民们准备好了镇上最好的一处房子：有著14个房间的两层楼。这栋房子的主人、副支书王志全将电视搬到了客房，好让陈杞有宾至如归的感觉。陈杞随身带著MP3播放器和手机。王志全的女儿王晓倩说，奇怪的是，他连自己的被子也带来了。他的房东给他安装了空调。如果不愿意，他也可以不劳动。村里的热心人告诉他如何不让拿奖牌的手磨上水泡。房东用自家的饭菜招待他。
陈杞经历的苦难就是这些了。所有这些纵容都表明，陈杞的经历同40年前年轻人的真正经历差了很远。只有一点例外。王志全说，他就像文革时期来的那些孩子们一样。刚来时他们也不知道怎么做。当然，他们在这里呆了两三年，而不是一周。
如果在田地里需要帮助，陈杞只需求助于从邻村赶来的大批村民即可。中国的记者和摄影师一直跟著他，他连庄稼和杂草也难以分清。蟠桃村的村支书回忆说，我们要向他解释所有事情，甚至包括如何给作物浇水。
在有些人看来，陈杞在农村的这点劳动带来的只是快乐。天津《老年时报》的编辑唐峰（音）不满地写道，对于50多岁的人来说，文革时期到农村生活对年轻人是一种惩罚和再教育，但现在人们几乎已经忘记、也不愿想起这段历史了。
不过陈杞称，这种经历令他更加谦虚。他说，我以前从未这样生活过。我感到我的训练确实没有村民们的劳动辛苦。的确，你也可以说，我的经历就像是被下放到了农村。
Shai Oster
