Here is the thing. Do you guys feel Yao is too crafty??? I mean, he never wants to criticize/insult anyone, not even after he's harshly insulted by them. Before and after he proved himself to be this good, there are tons of people keep insulting him, some of these are dumb and jealous, and some are just plain racists. Whenever Yao is asked to comment about them, he never say anything bad back. He could be the model for the Martin Luther King/Gandhi/Jesus's teaching, and the prime example for the famous/notorious book "how to win friends and influence people". If that's truely his personality, I admire him for being intrinsicly meek and personable. People in our cowboy culture must learn from him. However, if he's hiding his real emotion, and being diplomatic and fake, I would call that crafty. I hope he's expressing his true feelings, which is unbelievable graceful. However, if he's being crafty, that's not something we should cheer about.
Even us noname netters can not say whatever we want in the public forum, not mentioning the famous public figures. Barkley might be an exception. Being crafty is not something that everybody can easily learn; look at Steve's or MJ's early years inverview skills. What I am trying to say is crafty really a lot of it comes naturally out of a person's personality and individual characteristics. It is really hard to separate things apart.
I think Bill Walton said it best when he said that people think that Yao has a lot to learn from us, when the truth is we have a lot to learn from him. He's not trashy he's classy. Adrian
How about a little on both? What's wrong w/ being diplomatic in required situations, it's not necessarily fake, maybe just avoiding unnecessary conflicts. I don't believe there is a truly intrinsicly meek or whatever.. kind of person. People have emotions. But some people are not easily offended especailly if you have confidence. I think Yao is one of them. And I do think Yao doesn't really care about that Shaq's statement because he doesn't even know the severity of it since he is new to racism.
I agree that he is probably had both craftiness and meekness(probably more of meekness than craftiness). People have emotions so you have to have some meekness to be able to consistently not getting back at others who offended you. He is also being diplomatic and don't want to offended anyone. I think his culture which stress humility and respect have something to do with it also. By these alone, we do have something to learn from them.
Hes a crafty son of a gun. I see him after the interviews, hes always rubbing his hands and has that "heheheh...I am gonna get you back" look. Maybe you guys aren't seeing what me and Jamalccc are seeing.
Didn't Dream call out Malone and the refs calling them the devil or something like that. Dream was a bad ass, but not nearly the politician Ming is.
Crafty, classy, diplomatic, humorous, easy going, lovable,strong minded and intellectual...these are the elements of his god gifted personality. Without his unique personality, Yao Ming has less chance to survive and be successful both in China; its government, and US; its I want result now society.
