Table Tennis

Every community center in Beijing has a table tennis table with willing opponents: an excellent way to meet locals, but humiliating when your conqueror is a generation or two older than you. Beijing now boasts a table tennis bar, W Restaurant and Bar (tel. 010/6595-8039) at Nan San Li Tun Lu 120, opened by Swedish table tennis ace Jan-Ove Waldner whose cardboard effigy stands outside. There are also plans to open an English-speaking academy at Peking University in September 2006; for now you can contact the club at tel. 010/6261-1188.