Shanghai Daily news

Former table tennis world champion Xu Yinsheng (right) and Cao Yanhua watch a student make a figurine out of pingpong balls at the Shanghai Children’ s Palace. (Photo: Shanghai Daily)

Tong Zhen and his 50 students at the puppet-making club in Shanghai Children's Palace have a big task on hand.
They are supposed to finish 150 pingpong figurines to usher in the World Table Tennis Championship in the city at the end of next month.
The club, usually taking the form of a part-time interest group, has worked flat out on the figurines for the past month.
By yesterday, with exactly 50 days to go before the tournament starts, they have finished more than one-third of the job.
"All the miniatures are made out of table-tennis balls, literally," said Tong. "We remodel the balls, or cut celluloid strips from them, and make them into different parts of the figurines.
"Even the glue we use to stick the arms and bodies together is extracted from melted celluloid."
Most of the figurines are modeled on different moves in table tennis, like serves and strokes.
Organizers of the blue-ribbon tournament will give the delicately made souvenirs to visiting international paddlers and officials during the tournament, from April 30 to May 6.
The championship, which has been previously held in China twice, returns with all the world's elite paddlers in contention for honors in five categories: men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles.
The gift of figurines could give the players some inspiration before battling it out at the table.