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. His store — one of the closest Chinese restaurants to the arena, but far enough that you would need to have sought it out — has been practically bursting at the seams with current Olympians, former gold medalists, team staff members, journalists and countless hungry fans.
“I didn’t expect we would get this busy during the Olympics,” Tang said one recent morning, before the lunch rush. “I just look after them as if they were my family members.”