Memories of Ping Pong--Table Tennis Showdown between Kita Tofu and Yoshiyuki Junnosuke (1945-1945)

Memories of Ping Pong--Table Tennis Showdown between Kita Tofu and Yoshiyuki Junnosuke (1945-1945)

When he was in high school, Kita Tofu was captain of the ping-pong club. The postwar confusion was still thick in the air, club funds were scarce, and there were no uniforms. He proposes, with a straight face, "If we use nudity as the uniform, we can crush our opponents' livers. There is nothing in the rules that prohibits nudity. The idea was to regard the skin itself as a "color," but the skinny members of the club vehemently opposed the idea, and in the end it was scrapped. It was an incident that was a mixture of youthful rebellion and mischievousness, typical of the North, where poverty and inconvenience are turned into laughter.

He was a good table tennis player, winning the third and fourth rounds of the inter-high school tournament, and eventually reaching the top 20. Her straightforward attitude, in which she expressed regret when she lost and a hint of pride when she won, was a source of strength that would later lead to her literary activities.

On the night he stayed at a ryokan in Izu with fellow writer Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, they sat across a ping-pong table from each other and played a game of ping-pong. The two decided to play a game across a ping-pong table, and the result was a victory for Kita. He says a little proudly, "To tell you the truth, I won. Yoshiyuki, however, said, "I was in the worst physical condition at that time. Normally, I would have won for sure. It is a somewhat funny and endearing battle of wills, in which the two men, who are equals in literature, will not budge on anything but ping pong.

The two were both of the war generation, and their youth was overshadowed by the harsh times. Therefore, in the free postwar atmosphere, it was a great pleasure to laugh and compete with their friends. Ping-pong was a game in which one could hit each other with all one's might and not hate the opponent, and in which one could play pranks on each other while putting one's pride on the line. They distanced themselves from the authority of literature and made themselves the object of laughter. This was the "postwar lightness" that their generation had acquired.

North still speaks with confidence. I will never lose at table tennis," he says confidently. More than just a boast, these words reflect his love for a time when he was allowed to compete freely with his peers. They were listening to the sound of ping pong balls bouncing lightly as a continuation of their youth.