This was originally posted on blogger. I flick my wrist and strike the ball with a satisfying tut. Score,I think, but jìaolìan, my coach, doesn’t agree. Búdùi he says. Wrong. He shows me the stroke one more time.
Just about everything in ping pong can be put into the duì (correct) or búdùi (incorrect) classification. My coach is a math teacher at a bǔxíbān, a cram school, which maybe means he’s especially familiar with what’s wrong and right. My footwork is búdùi (if you’re moving right, you should move the left foot first). My posture is búdùi, I’m standing too upright. My hand grips the racket completely búdùi-ly. “The fundamentals of ping pong are very important,” my coach unhelpfully adds, and he sends another ball my way.
There are moments, precious few, when I hit the ball in a non-objectible manner. “OK,” he says. OK is a special loan-word in Taiwanese Mandarin – in American English it might translate as, “well done!” or “fantastic!!” or “you’re a star student!!!” In Chinese, they don’t waste the breath.
My coach hits the ball back with startling precision. I put all the force I can muster on some of the “OK” balls but my coach sweeps his hand back exactly right so I can do it all again. 
In my fourth group lesson I notice my coach playing with his left hand.
“Coach, you’re not a leftie, are you??” 
“I can do both,” he says nonchalantly. He explains later, “I’m right-handed, but I realized my form on my right-hand was often búdùi, so I trained with my coach on the left,” like what he did was the most sensical thing in the world. “The fundamentals of ping pong are very important.”