As Tang Zhongqiu knows, there often comes a time in an Asian person’s trip to France when one grows weary of the endless parade of bread and seeks respite in a simple bowl of rice.
This is true of backpackers and businesspeople and, it turns out, Olympic table tennis champions.
So while Tang assumed there would be an uptick in customers at his Chinese restaurant in the 15th arrondissement of Paris after a nearby convention hall was converted into the table tennis arena for the Summer Olympics, he had no idea it would be like this.
For the past two weeks, his narrow restaurant, Yang Xiao Chu, has been transformed into a bustling, unofficial clubhouse for table tennis, a sport followed most fervently and practiced most successfully in China.