Last night my wife made Buffalo wings, chow mien and margaritas for dinner. That  won’t sound very  impressive to any of you living outside of Korea or a few other parts of Asia, but those who do know how rare such foods can be.

As I was carrying the margaritas to the table (the food was already there) one of the glasses slipped out of my hand and shattered on another glass already on the table. I got down  on my hands and knees —  sizing the food up from all angles. Splinters of glass were everywhere. The food was  inedible. I completely ruined dinner.

We went to a local galbi restaurant and tried to take out minds off of what happened it was hard. The food was good, but  it wasn’t  homemade Buffalo wings. The drink was good too, and believe me, I was doing my best to put my mind in another place. That helped a little, but not as much as what was on the TV screen at the restaurant.

I’ve mentioned it before, and one or two people agreed, but perhaps the greatest charm of the Olympics is having that one-night-stand with a sport you know nothing about and probably wouldn’t even come across in the four years surrounding the games.

I’ve played a fair amount of ping-pong. One of my Uncles has a table, so I’ve even played it recently. I could take it or leave it. I like it better than Frisbee, I guess (which my Uncle also likes). But when I watch ping-pong I don’t feel like I’m watching anything resembling the game I’ve played. This stands in contrast to something like baseball, in which I know the people playing it are doing so at a much higher level than I ever did, but I still recognize it as something I’ve played. Even when I’m watching judo or weightlifting I realize the people I’m seeing are the best in the world at their craft, but it still resembles something I did in high school P.E. class.

It helped that the match we were watching was Japan versus Korea. Koreans can and will get excited about anything versus Japan — tiddlywinks, free-trade, rocks in the ocean, tallest buildings and ping-pong. We walked in the restaurant and the match, which was a female team round robin fight to move onto the semifinals, was already 1 set to 1.

It was quite riveting. One of the women Kim Kyung-ah, is supposedly one of the best female players in the world. Her partner was a fresh faced younger girl named Park Mi-yeong. After winning the first set 11-6 the Japanese players Fukuoka and Hirano took the next two, also by an 11-6 score. The Koreans won the fourth 11-6, and it all came down to a final set.

The people in the restaurant were getting more excited with each point. At the table next to us were two guys (brothers I presume), each with Vietnamese wives. The men were yelling and smashing their fists on the table while the woman calmly clapped. At one point  a guy in pajamas walked in (this isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility in Korea for some reason) from a nearby hospital and ordered a bottle of soju. Even he was transfixed.

The Koreans won 11-9 to win the match. I won’t attempt to describe the action. It looked more like regular tennis than table tennis.

I later found out the match was just one of three, and that in team table tennis you have a team of three and play three games, each rotating a member out of the mix. So in fact the Koreans had won 3-0. Whatever. I probably won’t watch it again until 2012, or maybe even 2016.

But on a night I mindlessly ruined dinner, the match diverted us just long enough that it softened the blow when we returned to our apartment and the ugly reminder in the sink.