By Rebecca Wyatt Thomas, OU Web Writer
Qilin Zhou has been playing table tennis for more than 10 years. He came to Oakland University in fall 2007 to study and this semester, he found out about the regional table tennis tournament at Michigan State University in February and wanted to participate. He missed OU’s qualifying event so he paid his way to the regional contest himself and placed sixth. Zhou was considered an alternate for the national event based on his performance. After two qualifiers dropped out before the national competition, Zhou was called to represent Oakland University and the region in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association’s championship is Rochester, Minn.
Zhou competed against 49 other men in the singles tournament and placed in the middle of the pack. More than 250 athletes from 30 colleges and universities competed for the top table tennis title.
“It was a new experience for me. This was the first time for me to see this type of very formal, very standard game,” said Zhou. “I’m not a professional. I play to exercise my mind, eyesight and to make friends.”
Zhou said he had to adapt to the playing style of the other players and have a good defense. He said he needed to used more chopping and spinning to be successful.
While in Minnesota, Zhou said he met a lot of other players and watched many other table tennis matches.
Zhou is at Oakland University as part of the Guizhou Exchange program between the Guizhou Education Commission and Oakland University. He is studying reading and language arts at OU to further his career as an English as a foreign language teacher in China. He teaches English to 18-23 year old college students.
Zhou began taking English courses at 12 years old, but wanted to immerse himself in the language and came to the United States to communicate directly with others and learn more about the language and enhance his English reading ability.
“I have met a lot of friends here. Every time I speak with them, I learn more about the language. I also enjoy the different cultures and I’m learning a lot from my professors,” Zhou said. He will return to China at the end of August.