Even though many Chinese do not play table tennis, just as a majority of Barbadians do not play road tennis, the respective games are sources of national pride both in China and Barbados. This was among the insights that came to light in the sixth Forum in the series of webinars organised by students and youth from the Association for Barbados-China Friendship and the Zhejiang International Studies University in Hangzhou, China. In contrast to table tennis, which is played worldwide, road tennis is a niche sport, little known beyond the shores of Barbados. The contributors to the forum made suggestions for making the sport better known abroad, including more intensive use of social media, and introducing road tennis in schools abroad, as a sport which requires minimal expenditure in the way of equipment and facilities.
The Forum audience learned that road tennis got its start in the 1930s, when inventive Barbadians, lacking the facilities for lawn and table tennis, began to improvise by using the public roads as “courts”, with a discarded wooden plank for a net and crude home-made paddles. The Barbados Road Tennis Association was established in 1970, and it set the standard for the size of the playing area, the height of the “net” and the dimensions of the paddles. Over the years road tennis has survived, in contrast to other improvised versions of sports, such as road football and road cricket. It was suggested that the reason is that only two persons are needed for a road tennis game, as opposed to football and cricket, which are team sports.
Table tennis, which is nowadays identified with China, has its origins in Europe, and came to China only in 1904. The game was known in France in the 12th century, though several other European countries claim to have invented it. In the UK in the 19th century it was played by the upper class; it was popularised when it crossed the Atlantic to America, where it became known as ping pong. China’s opening up to Western countries was famously facilitated by “Ping Pong Diplomacy”, with friendly matches between American and Chinese players, in 1971.
Contributors to the Forum saw great potential for spreading road tennis internationally as a window into Barbadian culture, given its origins in the necessity of making do with very limited resources. Because the game requires little by way of space or equipment, it may well gain popularity in urban environments and poor neighbourhoods in Caribbean countries and beyond the region. The Forum generally agreed that such diffusion of road tennis abroad could be a meaningful contribution to building friendships with other countries. Admittedly, road tennis is nowhere near to the level of popularity among countries to qualify as an Olympic sport, but the sharing of culture and the building of friendships among players and fans of road tennis is far more important.
R. DeLisle Worrell, Ph D
President, ABCF
The ABCF mission is to build a deeper understanding between the Chinese people and Barbadians and Caribbean people from all walks of life. The association’s focus is on personal experiences, people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and exchanges of ideas, and the facilitation of travel, business and study. From the outset we aim to learn from and build on the experiences of the Caribbean and China, and to develop mutual understandings and support that will be to the benefit of both sides.
