What Ping-Pong Taught Me About Life | Pico Iyer | TED

74,629 views ・ 2019-09-19

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:13
Every other night in Japan,
0
13409
2942
00:16
I step out of my apartment,
1
16375
2027
00:18
I climb up a hill for 15 minutes,
2
18426
3504
00:21
and then I head into my local health club,
3
21954
3650
00:25
where three ping-pong tables are set up in a studio.
4
25628
4526
00:30
And space is limited,
5
30178
1975
00:32
so at every table,
6
32177
1712
00:33
one pair of players practices forehands,
7
33913
2930
00:36
another practices backhands,
8
36867
2293
00:39
and every now and then, the balls collide in midair
9
39184
3588
00:42
and everybody says, "Wow!"
10
42796
2079
00:46
Then, choosing lots, we select partners and play doubles.
11
46067
5450
00:51
But I honestly couldn't tell you who's won,
12
51891
2889
00:54
because we change partners every five minutes.
13
54804
3729
00:59
And everybody is trying really hard
14
59097
3485
01:02
to win points,
15
62606
1437
01:04
but nobody is keeping track of who is winning games.
16
64067
4110
01:08
And after an hour or so of furious exertion,
17
68992
4237
01:13
I can honestly tell you
18
73253
1650
01:14
that not knowing who has won
19
74927
2913
01:17
feels like the ultimate victory.
20
77864
2825
01:21
In Japan, it's been said,
21
81800
1914
01:23
they've created a competitive spirit without competition.
22
83738
4579
01:30
Now, all of you know that geopolitics is best followed by watching ping-pong.
23
90178
6334
01:37
(Laughter)
24
97281
1497
01:38
The two strongest powers in the world were fiercest enemies
25
98802
4881
01:43
until, in 1972, an American ping-pong team
26
103707
4684
01:48
was allowed to visit Communist China.
27
108415
3022
01:52
And as soon as the former adversaries
28
112191
2515
01:54
were gathered around some small green tables,
29
114730
3985
01:58
each of them could claim a victory,
30
118739
2605
02:01
and the whole world could breathe more easily.
31
121368
2880
02:05
China's leader, Mao Zedong,
32
125320
2281
02:07
wrote a whole manual on ping-pong,
33
127625
3338
02:10
and he called the sport "a spiritual nuclear weapon."
34
130987
4206
02:16
And it's been said that the only honorary lifelong member
35
136078
3910
02:20
of the US Table Tennis Association
36
140012
2800
02:22
is the then-President Richard Nixon,
37
142836
2849
02:25
who helped to engineer this win-win situation
38
145709
3713
02:29
through ping-pong diplomacy.
39
149446
2405
02:33
But long before that,
40
153318
1453
02:34
really, the history of the modern world
41
154795
2603
02:37
was best told through the bouncing white ball.
42
157422
4160
02:42
"Ping-pong" sounds like a cousin of "sing-song,"
43
162461
3680
02:46
like something Eastern,
44
166165
2098
02:48
but actually, it's believed that it was invented by high-class Brits
45
168287
5216
02:53
during Victorian times,
46
173527
1770
02:55
who started hitting wine corks over walls of books after dinner.
47
175321
5070
03:00
(Laughter)
48
180415
1049
03:01
No exaggeration.
49
181488
1182
03:02
(Laughter)
50
182694
1070
03:03
And by the end of World War I,
51
183788
1962
03:05
the sport was dominated by players from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire:
52
185774
5697
03:11
eight out of nine early world championships
53
191495
3036
03:14
were claimed by Hungary.
54
194555
1685
03:16
And Eastern Europeans grew so adept
55
196844
2858
03:19
at hitting back everything that was hit at them
56
199726
3349
03:23
that they almost brought the whole sport to a standstill.
57
203099
3507
03:27
In one championship match in Prague in 1936,
58
207266
4612
03:31
the first point is said to have lasted two hours and 12 minutes.
59
211902
5736
03:37
The first point!
60
217662
1250
03:38
Longer than a "Mad Max" movie.
61
218936
2749
03:41
And according to one of the players, the umpire had to retire with a sore neck
62
221709
6012
03:47
before the point was concluded.
63
227745
2039
03:49
(Laughter)
64
229808
1017
03:50
That player started hitting the ball back with his left hand
65
230849
3864
03:54
and dictating chess moves between shots.
66
234737
2794
03:57
(Laughter)
67
237555
1025
03:58
Many in the audience started, of course, filing out,
68
238604
3286
04:01
as that single point lasted maybe 12,000 strokes.
69
241914
4789
04:06
And an emergency meeting of the International Table Tennis Association
70
246727
5056
04:11
had to be held then and there,
71
251807
2678
04:14
and soon the rules were changed
72
254509
2155
04:16
so that no game could last longer than 20 minutes.
73
256688
3825
04:20
(Laughter)
74
260537
1785
04:22
Sixteen years later, Japan entered the picture,
75
262970
3415
04:26
when a little-known watchmaker called Hiroji Satoh
76
266409
4389
04:30
showed up at the world championships in Bombay in 1952.
77
270822
5126
04:36
And Satoh was not very big, he wasn't highly rated,
78
276647
4270
04:40
he was wearing spectacles,
79
280941
2412
04:43
but he was armed with a paddle that was not pimpled,
80
283377
4842
04:48
as other paddles were,
81
288243
1700
04:49
but covered by a thick spongy rubber foam.
82
289967
4015
04:54
And thanks to this silencing secret weapon,
83
294853
4252
04:59
the little-known Satoh won a gold medal.
84
299129
3285
05:02
One million people came out into the streets of Tokyo
85
302954
4120
05:07
to greet him upon his return,
86
307098
2409
05:09
and really, Japan's postwar resurgence was set into motion.
87
309531
4753
05:16
What I learned, though, at my regular games in Japan,
88
316072
5158
05:21
is more what could be called the inner sport of global domination,
89
321254
6063
05:27
sometimes known as life.
90
327341
2238
05:30
We never play singles in our club,
91
330850
3142
05:34
only doubles,
92
334016
1347
05:35
and because, as I say, we change partners every five minutes,
93
335387
4552
05:39
if you do happen to lose, you're very likely to win
94
339963
3652
05:43
six minutes later.
95
343639
1301
05:45
We also play best-of-two sets,
96
345789
2952
05:48
so often, there's no loser at all.
97
348765
2833
05:52
Ping-pong diplomacy.
98
352026
2248
05:54
And I always remember that as a boy growing up in England,
99
354298
3293
05:57
I was taught that the point of a game was to win.
100
357615
3420
06:02
But in Japan, I'm encouraged to believe that, really, the point of a game
101
362067
5356
06:07
is to make as many people as possible around you feel that they are winners.
102
367447
5716
06:13
So you're not careening up and down as an individual might,
103
373187
3345
06:16
but you're part of a regular, steady chorus.
104
376556
3638
06:21
The most skillful players in our club
105
381306
3952
06:25
deploy their skills to turn a 9-1 lead for their team
106
385282
4555
06:29
into a 9-9 game in which everybody is intensely involved.
107
389861
5076
06:34
And my friend who hits these high, looping lobs
108
394961
4501
06:39
that smaller players flail at and miss --
109
399486
3957
06:43
well, he wins a lot of points, but I think he's thought of as a loser.
110
403467
4136
06:48
In Japan, a game of ping-pong is really like an act of love.
111
408641
5599
06:54
You're learning how to play with somebody,
112
414264
2342
06:56
rather than against her.
113
416630
1887
06:59
And I'll confess,
114
419343
1150
07:00
at first, this seemed to me to take all the fun out of the sport.
115
420517
4794
07:05
I couldn't exult after a tremendous upset victory against our strongest players,
116
425335
5222
07:10
because six minutes later, with a new partner,
117
430581
2491
07:13
I was falling behind again.
118
433096
1770
07:15
On the other hand, I never felt disconsolate.
119
435914
3780
07:20
And when I flew away from Japan and started playing singles again
120
440476
4185
07:24
with my English archrival,
121
444685
3102
07:27
I noticed that after every defeat, I was really brokenhearted.
122
447811
5055
07:33
But after every victory, I couldn't sleep either,
123
453953
3271
07:37
because I knew there was only one way to go,
124
457248
2423
07:39
and that was down.
125
459695
1791
07:43
Now, if I were trying to do business in Japan,
126
463398
3746
07:47
this would lead to endless frustration.
127
467168
2801
07:51
In Japan, unlike elsewhere,
128
471136
2175
07:53
if the score is still level after four hours,
129
473335
3476
07:56
a baseball game ends in a tie,
130
476835
3642
08:00
and because the league standings are based on winning percentage,
131
480501
4644
08:05
a team with quite a few ties can finish ahead
132
485169
3309
08:08
of a team with more victories.
133
488502
2262
08:12
One of the first times an American was ever brought over to Japan
134
492000
3833
08:15
to lead a professional Japanese baseball team,
135
495857
3507
08:19
Bobby Valentine, in 1995,
136
499388
2694
08:22
he took this really mediocre squad,
137
502106
2603
08:24
he lead them to a stunning second-place finish,
138
504733
3311
08:28
and he was instantly fired.
139
508068
2458
08:30
Why?
140
510550
1151
08:31
"Well," said the team spokesman,
141
511725
2181
08:33
"because of his emphasis on winning."
142
513930
2660
08:37
(Laughter)
143
517185
1008
08:38
Official Japan can feel quite a lot like that point
144
518217
3271
08:41
that was said to last two hours and 12 minutes,
145
521512
3739
08:45
and playing not to lose
146
525275
2258
08:47
can take all the imagination, the daring, the excitement, out of things.
147
527557
5365
08:54
At the same time, playing ping-pong in Japan
148
534444
3803
08:58
reminds me why choirs regularly enjoy more fun
149
538271
5079
09:03
than soloists.
150
543374
1595
09:05
In a choir, your only job is to play your small part perfectly,
151
545866
5754
09:11
to hit your notes with feeling,
152
551644
2763
09:14
and by so doing, to help to create a beautiful harmony
153
554431
4104
09:18
that's much greater than the sum of its parts.
154
558559
3284
09:23
Yes, every choir does need a conductor,
155
563190
2963
09:26
but I think a choir releases you from a child's simple sense of either-ors.
156
566177
6698
09:33
You come to see that the opposite of winning isn't losing --
157
573858
3706
09:38
it's failing to see the larger picture.
158
578440
2862
09:43
As my life goes on,
159
583753
2944
09:46
I'm really startled to see that no event
160
586721
4136
09:50
can properly be assessed for years after it has unfolded.
161
590881
4960
09:57
I once lost everything I owned in the world,
162
597282
3764
10:01
every last thing, in a wildfire.
163
601070
2920
10:05
But in time, I came to see that it was that seeming loss
164
605275
4618
10:09
that allowed me to live on the earth more gently,
165
609917
3935
10:13
to write without notes,
166
613876
2430
10:16
and actually, to move to Japan
167
616330
2629
10:18
and the inner health club known as the ping-pong table.
168
618983
3190
10:23
Conversely, I once stumbled into the perfect job,
169
623427
4571
10:28
and I came to see that seeming happiness
170
628022
3032
10:31
can stand in the way of true joy
171
631078
3126
10:34
even more than misery does.
172
634228
2167
10:37
Playing doubles in Japan really relieves me of all my anxiety,
173
637825
5373
10:43
and at the end of an evening,
174
643222
1612
10:44
I notice everybody is filing out in a more or less equal state of delight.
175
644858
6363
10:52
I'm reminded every night
176
652497
2180
10:54
that not getting ahead isn't the same thing as falling behind
177
654701
5800
11:00
any more than not being lively is the same thing as being dead.
178
660525
4350
11:06
And I've come to understand why it is
179
666216
2436
11:08
that Chinese universities are said to offer degrees in ping-pong,
180
668676
5571
11:14
and why researchers have found that ping-pong
181
674271
2960
11:17
can actually help a little with mild mental disorders
182
677255
3785
11:21
and even autism.
183
681064
1595
11:24
But as I watch the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo,
184
684205
4690
11:28
I'm going to be keenly aware
185
688919
2620
11:31
that it won't be possible to tell who's won or who's lost
186
691563
4214
11:35
for a very long time.
187
695801
2158
11:39
You remember that point I mentioned
188
699650
2330
11:42
that was said to last for two hours and 12 minutes?
189
702004
2884
11:45
Well, one of the players from that game ended up, six years later,
190
705689
4745
11:50
in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau.
191
710458
4118
11:55
But he walked out alive.
192
715944
1880
11:59
Why?
193
719145
1410
12:00
Simply because a guard in the gas chamber
194
720579
3130
12:03
recognized him from his ping-pong playing days.
195
723733
3163
12:08
Had he been the winner of that epic match?
196
728326
3071
12:11
It hardly mattered.
197
731421
1318
12:12
As you recall, many people had filed out before even the first point was concluded.
198
732763
5800
12:19
The only thing that saved him
199
739437
2505
12:21
was the fact that he took part.
200
741966
2121
12:25
The best way to win any game,
201
745464
2369
12:27
Japan tells me every other night,
202
747857
2794
12:30
is never, never to think about the score.
203
750675
5195
12:37
Thank you.
204
757365
1151
12:38
(Applause)
205
758540
3446
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7