Global EditionASIA 中文双语Français
Culture
Home / Culture / Film and TV

Documentary revisits ping-pong days of 1971

By MINLU ZHANG in New York | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2025-05-02 10:35
Share
Share - WeChat
Bill Einreinhofer (third from left), a three-time Emmy award-winner, and his team: Ziheng Wang (second from left), Daniel Hernandez-Alonzo (center), Evgenia Vlasova (third from right) and Theresa Loong (second from right) pose for a photo during the premiere of Your Serve or Mine, a documentary about the history and legacy of Ping-Pong Diplomacy between China and the United States, at the New York Film Academy Theatre on Wednesday. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

In April 1971, American ping-pong player Glenn Cowan boarded the wrong bus during the world championships in Nagoya, Japan. He missed the US team's bus and got on the next one, only to find himself on the Chinese team's bus.

At that time, US-China relations had been hostile for decades. On board the bus, Chinese player Zhuang Zedong saw the unfamiliar American, stepped forward and introduced himself.

"They didn't speak each other's languages, but somehow they were able to communicate because they tried. And their picture was taken and traveled around the world. They started a dialogue between America and China that continues today," film producer Bill Einreinhofer told China Daily.

Einreinhofer, a three-time Emmy Award-winning producer, documented the period of history in his new film Your Serve or Mine. The encounter led to what became known as Ping-Pong Diplomacy.

The group of nine US table tennis players embarked on a milestone journey to China, helping break the ice between Beijing and Washington and laying the groundwork for the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy "was the starting point for a back-channel way that two countries with profound differences could find some way to communicate, some way to talk outside of the glare of the media," Einreinhofer said.

The documentary is now streaming on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the US. The New York Film Academy (NYFA) hosted a premiere for the film on Wednesday.

"The underlying message of the film is that, in fact, even if we are coming from very different cultures and very different places, there are some similarities," Einreinhofer said.

1 2 Next   >>|
Most Popular
Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US