Youku video for those in China after the jump.
His name is Xue Di, and according to the Providence Journal, he is a dissident Chinese poet who has been “the league champion at the Rhode Island Table Tennis Association in Manville” for 10 straight years.
How do we start listing the ways in which this is awesome? With his voice, which rises a few octaves when he gets excited? With the fact that this video is entirely about ping pong? Perhaps with the part where he says, “I started playing in this club, 1991… so I had a very good friend say, y’know, ‘You know how to play?’ I said [voice rising], ‘I know a a little.’ He said [voicer really rising], ‘Okay! You wanna come to the club, show up and play?’ I said, [voice cracking while rising], ‘Okay!’ So I came here, I took one of my paddle, [voice back to normal] I kicked his ass right away. He was [voice high again], ‘What! I have no idea you are playing with good player.’”
Pure gold: American invites dissident Chinese poet to play ping pong not knowing the poet is actually really good at it, gets his ass kicked. This could be the modern-day quinquagenarian version of the Bruce Lee story.
