"You're so old you're still going to play, why don't you die?" Take the spot! ”
In April 2022, Singapore's Chinese table tennis world champion Yu Mengyu revealed in an online interview that she had received "death threats" from extreme fans, which was the above passage. At the same time, South Korean Chinese player Tian Zhixi and German Chinese player Shan Xiaona also revealed some of their experiences of being excluded in the local area.
Although everyone seems to be laughing and recalling these past events, only they can understand the bitterness and bitterness of them. And many fans have only seen the achievements made by the members of the "overseas corps" of Chinese table tennis after going abroad, and how many people know the hardships and difficulties?
Screenshot of the interview
As we all know, the foundation of Chinese table tennis is very strong, but the national team only has a limited number of places; even if you enter the national team, it is very difficult to qualify for the World Table Tennis Championships and the Olympic Games.
It is precisely because the competition is so fierce, so many athletes choose to naturalize abroad after seeing no hope, and because they have laid a good foundation in China, it is easy to become the main force in other teams with inferior levels and qualify for the World Series, like Yu Mengyu also won the world championship, Shan Xiaona also won the Olympic silver medal, which can be said to be the top representative of the "Overseas Corps".
But even so, for local athletes and fans, they are "outsiders" after all, so even if they win honors for their country, they will still be pointed out, which is almost inevitable.
Tian Zhixi
For example, Tian Zhixi's Korean table tennis has a clear rule, no matter how good the results of Chinese naturalized players, can only account for a fixed proportion of the national team, like the South Korean national team in the past two years, there are athletes who have ranked first in the results, but have been brushed down because of their Chinese identity.
According to Tian Zhixi's recollection, after she arrived in South Korea, she felt the local xenophobia, and she said bluntly: Fortunately, at that time, she did not understand Korean very well, and if she did not understand it, she had a lot less trouble.
Until now, the Korean media still added words such as "naturalization" in front of the report on Tian Zhixi and others, and she has become accustomed to this matter, and now she can only make her teammates have no prejudice against themselves. These two words are already a luxury for Chinese players such as Tian Zhixi.
In 2010, Yu Mengyu won the world championship with his teammates
Like Tian Zhixi, Yu Mengyu's life in Singapore is not good. On the one hand, as a table tennis player, she has to work hard to achieve good results to support her family and prove herself; on the other hand, if she has good results, she will inevitably squeeze the resources of local players, so it attracts the "death threat" mentioned at the beginning of this article.
At that time, Yu Mengyu had just undergone shoulder injury surgery, and as a result, he lost several games, so he was scolded - at that time, Yu Mengyu felt very uncomfortable, and then for many years he stopped reading his private messages, which indeed left a shadow!
Compared with the above two juniors, Shan Xiaona feels that her life is more uncomfortable, because as she said, Yu Mengyu and Tian Zhixi may not be recognized as Chinese in Asian countries such as Singapore and South Korea; but they are different in Europe, and germans know at a glance that you are from Asia and China, so the pressure is naturally greater.
Shan Xiaona
According to Shan Xiaona, she once met a teammate of the club who asked her face-to-face: "Why does the German Table Tennis Association use Chinese?" How will German athletes develop in this way? Others said, "We can play if you're not there, and now we're taking our place... Blocked our way! How long are you ready to play? ”
I have to say that these Germans are indeed straightforward, and the teammates who look down and don't look up actually make sharp questions face to face, although the tone is not as serious as the "death threat" received by Yu Mengyu, but this is all acquaintances after all, so it makes her feel more embarrassed.
When Tian Zhixi said that she felt that she was "not human on both sides" in China and South Korea, Yu Mengyu and Shan Xiaona both nodded in agreement, and she was also very confused about it: she knew that she had "played table tennis and never done anything else", why was she treated like this? Maybe everyone knows the answer, but in the end they can only respond to everything with a helpless smile.
Because nothing can be changed.