For the past 20 or so days, Ning Yuzhen, 69, has spent three hours every day playing ball games in front of a residential apartment building at Zhichun Dongli Community in Haidian District.
"It is because of SARS that I learnt playing these new games. It is because of such games that I make new friends," she said.
Ning says she once thought it was a pity that she could not go to the Summer Palace after the condition of SARS in Beijing became severe. "My daughter is a doctor and she needs to work overtime every day. So I have to stay at home looking after my granddaughter." She says her husband spent nearly 200 yuan to buy two badminton racquets and a pair of Taiji balls.
She says there are several other people from her community who regularly join her. "How funny that we all live in the same building but we did not know each other before."
Dong Ruiqiao, 61, recalls she refused Ning's first invitation to play Taiji ball, for she did not know how to play. "Ning then brought the badminton. I told her that I could not play well but she told me that she did not know how to play at all." Now Dong plays ball games for two hours a day, sometimes even missing the evening news program on TV.
"I have long been thinking what I can do for the society to fight SARS. I can do nothing directly, but I can encourage more people to like sports and do more exercises frequently. So fewer people will so easily succumb to SARS."
(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2003)
