Double the prejudice, twice the price

Present Chairman of the Table Tennis Association, Lee Bee Hwa, takes on an unexpected move to fire head coach of Singapore’s youth table tennis team – Mr. Xu Xiangdong, stating lame excuse like the overused term, “favoritism” and that he” lacks the ability to unite the team”.

This happened merely three months after the “Liu Guodong Incident”, where he was labelled as “biased” for not attending the match Gao Ning played and only concentrating his effort on the women’s team. No doubt, he is in the wrong. But he brought Singapore a silver medal after a long wait of 48 years. Well, I seriously think that deserves a standing ovation.

However, Mr. Liu Guodong was being fired right after Ms. Lee Bee Hwa became the president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association. This move shocked the public and caused many conflicts between the former head coach and the new president. In the end, both parties did not manage to solve the conflict and left an unhappy ending.

Now, after barely three months, Ms. Lee Bee Hwa yet again fires the head coach of the youth team, Mr. Xu Xiangdong, with the cliché excuse – favoritism. Although Mr. Xu Xiangdong explained that he was putting more of his attention on the son of the former president, a table tennis player, because he received such instructions given to him earlier in the year. However, there was no heed to his explanations at all on the association’s side.

Putting aside doubts on housekeeping as a political motive, Ms. Lee Bee Hwa’s decision to fire Mr. Xu Xiangdong still says a lot about common prejudice and stereotypes placed on Chinese people by some Singaporeans even in today’s society. China has proven itself to be the world no. 1 in table tennis, what right does Ms Lee Bee Hwa have to doubt a Mr Xu Xiangdong’s ability to coach? And perhaps the term, “favoritism” has been a bit overused, Ms Lee?

It was very touching in a sad way when Mr Xu Xiangdong expresses his feelings in Chinese, “After the team won a bronze medal in the Asian Youth Games, I expected the association to express some form of gratitude and congrats, yet what I got was a heartless letter asking me to resign. I feel so sad…so cold.”

Furthermore, Ms Lee’s actions have already unknowingly led to three dire consequences.

Firstly, Mr Liu Guodong and Mr Xu Xiangdong are very renowned and experienced coaches even when compared to other coaches in China. Both have been coaching the Singapore table tennis team for many years, only in different departments. Under the guidance of these two coaches, it is evident that our table tennis team have gave us good results: A silver medal in Olympics in 48 years and a bronze medal in the recent Asian youth games. We were hoping for continued winning of medal year after year as the coaches must have found the solution. But now they are gone, such experienced coaches are hard to find again; local talent is definitely out of the question.

Secondly, these actions have already caught a lot of attention from coaches all over the world. If Ms Lee is to find coaches to replace the two empty posts, I seriously doubt if one would give up the chance to be head coach for a less competitive country, and come all the way to Singapore just to run the risk of ending up in the same state as the two former coaches.

Lastly, this two unexpected moves by Lee Bee Hwa has unknowingly already affected the morale of the table tennis players. After all, it was them who led the team to get a silver Olympic medal in 48 years. Counting the time the coach and players spent together, their frienship have long ago left a deep hole in the soil.

No doubt, who is in the wrong.