The Ping-Pong Queen of Chinatown by Andrew Yang

Author:Andrew Yang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

“THE GAME OF PING-PONG IS, AT ITS HEART, A conversation,” Cassie narrates, over a shot of her walking down the street, jacket zipped up against the cold. “I say ‘top spin,’ and you say ‘slice.’ We go on like that, exchanging ideas, switching our words to keep each other guessing.”

The camera follows Cassie into the community center and downstairs into the basement, where she sheds her sweats, blows on her hands, and unzips the Mandate of Heaven from its carrying case.

“The conversation has rules. If I say ‘loop,’ and you say ‘push,’ then unless you’ve got something clever planned, you’re in trouble. The trick is who can string together words into sentences, force the opponent into a dead end, then end the conversation with a period or an exclamation point. That’s where the artistry of the game lies.”

The music comes in, and there’s a series of fast-paced clips to illustrate Cassie’s point—rallies shot from an overhead angle where it’s clear that Cassie is pinning her opponent (me) to one side of the table before rocketing a kill shot to the other side; or applying a sequence of devastating spin until the opponent (me, in a different shirt) helplessly hits the ball into the net.

Cut to black.

“The game of Ping-Pong is, at its heart, a conversation.”

An exterior shot of Golden Promises. Then an interior shot of Cassie’s mom, looking wistfully at the front door, as if wondering when Cassie will come home. Then Cassie and her mom, sitting across from each other at the table.

“The conversation has rules. If I say how I feel, and you say the wrong thing back, then we’re in trouble.”

Cassie and her mom begin speaking to each other in Cantonese. Gaspard and I have added subtitles, using a translator app and a healthy dose of creative license.

“I need you to do more around the shop. We’re struggling. Can’t you see that?”

“It’s your fault. We were doing fine before. We never should have moved into this bigger space.”

“That’s over now. If you keep spending time playing games, then we could lose our livelihood. Don’t you understand?”

“You should have taken better care of us. It’s not fair.”

“What do you know about fairness?”

As the emotions rise, the sounds of a Ping-Pong rally slowly build. Squeaking rubber soles, the thwack of the paddle against the ball, the smaller echo of the ball hitting the table. The overlaid sound builds and builds until it overwhelms the voices. Near the end, the original audio is buried altogether, and it’s just lips moving wordlessly, close-ups of eyes and clenched hands and teeth.

Finally, at the end, we kill the Ping-Pong effects and cut the real conversation audio back in. Ten seconds of loud, glorious Cantonese. Then, the clip ends.

At our last film club meeting, Gaspard and I debated what to do about the movie. After we realized the problems with the plot, it was tempting to call the whole thing off. In the end, we decided to at least edit the footage together and take stock of where we were.

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