The Ping heard Round the World

If you have ever seen the movie Forest Gump, you will undoubtedly remember that Forest was a member of the team that went to China to play ping pong.

While Forest was not actually part of the US team there was a US team that went to play ping pong in China in 1971.

The trip was setup by President Nixon and was called "ping pong diplomacy" by the media corps. In fact now that trip is said to have started the road to the relationship that China and the US have today.

No US citizen had visited China since 1949. In fact China was on the list of countries where US citizens were not allowed to travel. So in 1971 a group of US citizens became the first in over 20 years to travel to China to play ping pong. Members of that team in 1971 can clearly remember US Embassy officials taking a pen and crossing China off the list of countries where travel wasn't allowed.

Well, a group of aging ping pong players from the US and China are going to meet at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace to have a rematch and commemorate the event that occurred in 1971.

Amazing to think that a game of ping pong could lead to the start of relations between two countries.

Yow know...maybe there is hope for this world after all.