By Han Xiao
From Nov/Dec 1999 USA Table Tennis Magazine
Editor's Note - 12-year-old Han, the U.S.'s top-rated Under 14 player at 2208, recently returned from a summer of training in China.

Most serious table tennis players know that junior training in China is more difficult than junior training in the United States. To see all the differences between junior camps in the U.S. and China, a visit to junior camps in both countries is necessary. I have been fortunate to do so.

The second difference is the attitude of the players. Players in the U.S., myself included, tend to goof off because of low competition, especially when they're already at the top of their age group. It's not because they don't like playing anymore; it's because juniors at the top sometimes don't feel the need to practice hard because there's few who can match their skill level at that point. The Chinese juniors have plenty of competition. If they can't keep up with the other players, the coaches drop them from the team and find a replacement. The coaches have unbelievable expectations of them, because everyone on the team has won a junior title in a district, city, or province championship at some point in time. Coaches feel that these juniors should either maintain a spot at the top, or be replaced. In a country where literally everybody loves to play the sport, finding someone to replace a poor player isn't very difficult.

The third major difference is one that favors the U.S. Juniors in the U.S. tend to keep education as their first priority. In China, juniors either drop school or attend minimally once they make a fairly good team. This means that most of them receive poor grades, and if they don't make it in table tennis later on, they are stuck with little education and an uncertain future. However, there are certain people who are good students despite attending school only once a week. A friend I made on my China visit was a 12-year-old. He attends school once a week, and received 100% for math and 96% for language on his final exam. So it can be done! In the U.S., many juniors do the same thing: top five for their age group in table tennis, straight-A student in school. But either way, it isn't easy trying to excel in both.

The last difference I will address in this article is another that favors the U.S. Here is something to think about. A junior in the U.S. commonly plays 10-20 tournaments a year easily. In China, the best juniors play 5-10 tournaments per year, and the worst ... well, they're happy if the coach lets them play just one tournament per year. Public tournaments are extremely rare. All the tournaments are club championships, province championships, international tournament trials, city championships, national championships ... you actually have to be good to have fun. If our average 2000 player went into one of those province tournaments he would not have a lot of fun. It would probably be something like, "Wang defeats Smith at 3 and 4." Of course, not very many children get to play in province championships. So, there's a chance that our character, Mr. Smith, perhaps a 2000 player, will defeat a 15-year-old that has the skill level of a 2400 player. This is purely because children in China don't get enough tournament experience. Meanwhile, if Mr. Smith played a top U.S. tournament-experienced junior like Sunny Li ... I'll hold that thought for a while in case I get bored and need to imagine something totally ridiculous.

The point is that junior training in China has its pros and cons, just like anything else. Sure, you get better strokes and quicken the pace of your game, but your mental skills don't really improve all that much. A seasoned Chinese junior is just as likely to lose at deuce to Mr. Smith as a new 10-year-old rising star in the U.S.

If juniors want to improve their table tennis, China is a pretty good place to go despite the huge cost of airplane tickets. However, if juniors want to skip school by training in China, it's a lot better just to try that here in the U.S. After all, is it worth it to train 8 hours a day for the sake of skipping school? If you're trying to play better table tennis as well as skip school, maybe that is a good idea....