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BEIJING -- No treadmills, no iPods, these elderly Chinese people are putting on a showcase of human dexterity at Beijing’s . Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that few of them exercised seriously before retiring. In China, it’s common for people’s athletic lives to begin in old age. 北京，天坛公园。没有跑步机，没有ipod，锻炼中老年人们显得伸手格外矫健。然而出人意料的是，他们中的大多数都是退休之后才开始锻炼的。而这种现象在中国则是非常常见。 Geng Zhi spent his working years on an assembly line at a car parts facility. “Back then I didn’t exercise at all,” said Geng. “Who would have thought of exercising? If you had enough to eat and a place to live that was enough.” 耿智没退休前，是汽车制造厂的流水线上的工人。“上班的时候我根本不锻炼，”他说，“那个时候有的吃有的住就够了，谁会想到锻炼呢。” 80-year-young “Old Liu” prefers to sweat it out on the ping pong table. Old Liu’s relationship with ping pong has tracked with international affairs: He began playing during “Ping Pong Diplomacy” of the 1970s, a series of international friendly matches between the U.S. and China that signaled a thaw in icy relations. 80岁的老刘则喜欢在乒乓球桌上挥洒汗水。他与乒乓的情节要追溯到一件国际事务了： 20世纪70年代的乒乓外交——中美间举办了一系列友谊赛，从而开启了两国的外交破冰之旅。 | 
