If you haven’t heard, NBA Houston Rockets’ basketball player Yao Ming injured his left foot, as report in “China Holds Breath for Yao“:
“Amid pollution, traffic and human rights concerns, Beijing is facing a new Olympic threat: Yao Ming’s left foot. Chinese basketball fans, bloggers and multinational corporations Wednesday all expressed their condolences to Mr. Yao, the 27-year-old, 7 ft. 6 in. superstar center, who announced Tuesday in the U.S. that a stress fracture in his foot would prevent him from finishing the season with the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets. While doctors say he requires only about four months of recovery, Mr. Yao’s ability to perform in China’s vaunted Olympics this August is in question. The Chinese national basketball team wasn’t expected to win a medal at the Games, but hopes were high that Mr. Yao, China’s most famous athlete, would be the public face of the nation’s Olympic pageant. The Xinmin Evening News, a Shanghai daily, ran the headline “National Treasure Injured,” using a Chinese phrase usually reserved for pandas, China’s beloved national animal.”
As you may or may not know, Yao Ming is probably China’s most well known Chinese athlete in America, if not the world. Yao has been a boom for the NBA as the NBA has tried to attract literally hundreds of millions of mainland Chinese as fans of the American sport. Yao endorses and is the pitchman for Reebok International, Coca-Cola Co. and Visa International Inc. Let’s hope for Yao’s quick recovery. If you don’t know much about Yao Ming, there is a pretty good documentary that I’ve seen on him following Yao in his first year in the NBA titled, “The Year of the Yao.” On a side note, do any of you know of an Asian American swho plays for the NBA, or for college basketball (as March Madness is coming up soon…)
About John
I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
