Zhuang Zedong talked about Rong Guotuan

When it comes to Rong Guotuan, Li Furong and I agree on his views. There is a sympathetic side, an appreciative side, a worried side, a mocking side.... The sympathetic side of our two is that Rong Guotuan is a person who is only two or three years older than the two of us, and in hong Kong, in this strange and drunken flower world, he can't go to school for the sake of his family's life. Poor families forced him to work as a teenager. The owner of a fish market, who saw that Rong Guotuan would play ball, arranged for him to be a coolie in this fishy and rotten place. He wanted to maintain his family's life and play ball, so he had to get up early and work for the capitalists. He was ragged and skinny, and his eyes, often containing tears of grief and indignation, pulled the scooter with his head bowed under the colorful neon lights, and struggled with difficult steps. When he and his parents sometimes borrowed rice from rich relatives and cooked them, they were often blindfolded, which made his heart faintly ache. Once, he participated in a table tennis exhibition tournament organized by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions to celebrate the National Day of the motherland. However, after this reactionary fish boss learned of this incident, he forced him to write a "letter of repentance." He was very angry and thought to himself: What is the sin of patriotism? This is clearly an insult to the motherland. I do my own thing, no faults to regret! However, the result of refusal to repent is unemployment. He looked up at the sky and sighed: Why is society so evil?! Later, with the help of the Progressive Union, he worked in the "Recreation Hall", playing with the members at night and doing other work during the day. But the fatigue of working for the capitalists, malnutrition, and the poverty of life raced him to tuberculosis. Whenever we both saw Rong Guotuan's long, white and bony body, we felt a kind of sourness and depression in our hearts. The two of us have a respectful and admiring side for him: Rong Guotuan is very backbone. After he lost his job, the fish boss asked him to go back to work, and although he was poor and sick, he said, "Don't go!" His words were loud and clear, and his iron bones were tragic. And under such harsh conditions, he insisted on practicing hard and was able to beat two world champions. How can these facts not be admirable? However, what worries people is that although he has returned to the warm embrace of the motherland, his life and medical conditions are much better, but his body is too bad! How can you recover all of a sudden? When he first came back, he was breathless and his legs were weak after running four or five hundred meters, but soon, people gave a thumbs up again, and he insisted on practicing hard, four hundred meters, eight hundred meters, three thousand meters, five thousand meters, and finally he could successfully run the next ten thousand meters! Nevertheless, compared with others, there are still many gaps in physique and quality! As an athlete who wants to climb the peaks of the world, his physical condition is worrying.

Once, after the training, Li Furong and I walked behind, and when we saw the front of the Rongguo tuan tired and unable to walk, Li Furong said to me secretly: "You know what? People want to win the world championship in three years! We both looked at each other for a moment and both "poofed" and laughed. The two of them grimaced in unison, and I said, "Brag! We both thought it was "the hero saw a little bit the same thing", so we laughed out loud.

In early April 1959, the Chinese table tennis team went to Dortmund, West Germany, to participate in the 25th World Table Tennis Championships. Li Furong and I were still too young in our wings, so we stayed at home and practiced hard. The good news of Rong Guotuan's victory of the world championship came, and the crowd rejoiced and people rushed to tell each other. When Li Furong told me this good news, the two of us looked at each other, and we both lowered our heads in our hearts, feeling guilty and ashamed, sorry for Rong Guotuan. I said, "We're too conservative in our thinking, we don't have ambitions and we laugh at people's bragging, we're too unproductive to think about being a world champion." The two of us stood silently, and after a while he said in a cheerful, bright tone: "However, I don't see the world championship as unattainable, what do you think?" I also said confidently, "I think so." The two of us, who laughed at the world champion, were ignited by the world championship, and now it is "the hero who sees the same thing".

Rong Guotuan is China's first table tennis world champion. I respected him, he inspired me; I studied him, and he enriched me.