Documentary revisits ping-pong days of 1971
‘ ‘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.” - BILL EINREINHOFER, FILM PRODUCER 23 Jun 2025 TIME International BY MINLU ZHANG In 1971 the American table tennis player Glenn Cowan boarded the wrong bus during the world championships in Nagoya, Japan. He missed the U.S. team’s bus and got on the next one, only to find himself on the Chinese team’s bus. On the bus a 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,” the film producer Bill Einreinhofer said. “And their picture was taken and traveled around the world. They started a dialogue between America and China that continues today.” Einreinhofer, a three-time Emmy Award winning producer, documented the period in his new film Your Serve or Mine . The...