The son had, surpassed the father now, that the father is, aging, and less agile, but they loved, this, game that they'd shared together, just the same…translated…
The group of us, already, retired or about to retire, once every week in the evenings, we'd gathered together, for two hours for the badminton tournaments, we'd continued this habit for years on end already.
Even to our age, some had sustained injuries, or needed the back braces, the knee braces, we still hadn't lost our passions for badminton yet. And, we all feel that we are, quite excellent in playing, although, we only played the double games, but, the games would get really competitive at times. When the summer got too hot, we'd sweated, all over the pavement, and we'd had to, mop up the floors to continue to play.
Of the group, Tsao was, the most, faithful of all of us, he'd always gone early to the court to warm up completely, ready to get on the court at any moment, but this week, he was, running, half and hour, late. Turned out, that his son who works in Australia had come back to Taiwan for a vacation, he'd waited for his son, to come with. And of course, we'd, naturally, welcomed this, brand new, younger, player into the bunch.
Tsao and his son paired up, and, took turns in the doubles game with the rest of us, I'd imagined, that we wouldn't be too far apart, having the years of experiences that we'd, accumulated, but, we were, wrong. The young man was more than skillful, the fly ball, the volleys, the spikes, he was, excellent in all of these, and we'd started, having to, run around the court, trying to, chase the shuttlecock around, and, comparing to his son, we'd lacked the speed in moving around, and, didn't have enough force in the spikes, and, finally, it'd, dawned on us all, that we're, old.
a video of the father and son in a friendly, match, off of YouTube
After a few rounds, we'd, switched up. Tsao teamed up with me, wanted to, challenge his, son. Before the tournament, Tsao whispered to me, "my son only uses brute force to play, but he couldn't, play well close to the nets, let's, give him the volleys then.", easy to say, but, we're not, that trained in the volleys either, and, we'd still, missed more than we were able to, hit. And, we'd, hit the cock to fly higher, and, the young lad, he'd not, gone easy on his father one bit, spiked him.
The final five minutes, everybody else is drained, we'd, become, wiped out, called it, quits. But Tsao seemed to have some more games in him, and felt upset over how he'd, lost out, continued to play with his own son, his son spiked the cock, his father, received it. And surely, he'd caught a few, then, missed, more. But, he'd not looked, disappointed at all.
illustration from UDN.com
The young man won all of his hits through the night, and, the rest of us can only sigh, that the years finally, caught up with us, that badminton is now, a sport for the, young. Other than for Tsao. He'd trained his son to play so well, from the start, when he'd just, begun playing to now, beating his father, I'm sure, only Tsao will know, how sweet it'd felt, to lose to, his own, son.
So, this is, how this father-son pair, established their rapport through the sport, they both enjoyed playing the games, and, winning or losing does not matter to them, the most important thing was that they shared the time of playing the games together.
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