I first played table tennis regularly when I was an exchange student in Shanghai. Since I was in China I decided to imitate the Chinese students around me, who all used the penhold grip. When I went back to England I didn't play table tennis regularly, and soon forgot most of what I had learned, but when I started playing table tennis again recently, I naturally stayed with the penhold grip. In Japan, penhold players always play with a special racquette that makes it very easy to wrap your finger around the handle. I got so used to this kind of penhold racquette that I forgot what Chinese penhold players used.
A few days ago, however, I was given a Chinese penhold racquette by a colleague who bought the racquette in China but didn't like it so much. It's actually very similar to a shakehand racquette, but slightly easier to grip. The bonus is that it's symmetric and therefore easy to flip around, so we can put different kinds of rubber on each side.
