Anybody else a little distrbed that Yao Ming's favorite restaurant is Burger King. I know we all said "bulk up Yao!" but Yao, drop the Whopper man.
She was given all the access she needed. He had a translator with him at all times and can speak english so the language barrier was not the problem. It was a poorly produced program with some interesting points at times. The "I'm just a rookie" was the most meaningful thing Yao said all season and I mean that in a good way. You could really tell by his voice how much pressure he was under. And that was shot very early in the season. December 14th to be exact. She was at the game vs the Clippers. I even remember seeing a post here about it back then. I know for a fact that Lisa Ling and crew were not in town very long. They could have easily come back and gotten more interviews with Yao if they felt like they didn't get enough. So between that and a trip to China they've had 6 months to put the story together. They dropped the ball if you ask me. I saw her on MSNBC promoting the special and she talked about all this access she was given. Aside from riding in the car with Yao she got as much access as anyone from the Houston media would be allowed: games and practice. Or at least that's what it seemed like from the video they showed.
I saw the Ultimate Explorer premiere with Lisa and Ming. I still have it on my Tivo and will transfer it to tape for my mother-in-law, a huge fan (got jersey, hat, all the newspaper clippings, went to game, got the poster, bobble head, duck) AND she's over 70! Anyway, it's not too bad. You got to remember that it was not A YAO MING Show but the 1st show for Lisa and the Ultimate Explorer series. They sent almost the whole hour on Ming and China. It's a NATIONAL GEO show, REMEMBER THAT! The background info on Ming and where he grow up is their specialty. The live intereview is just extras. I think they spend enough live air time with Ming. It's something you don't see anywhere else. The backseat time and the "night club" stuff was very cool. The english is very good from Ming. He is a quite learner. Overall, it's not a bad show. For those of you who wanted wall to wall live Ming coverage then it's surely a disappointment. It's was good for me through.
yeah, the show was definitely poorly produced. i thought the whole childhood of lisa ling was unnecessary. would have liked to see some coverage of china's junior teams and potential prospects instead. also thought her interview questions lacked originality. couldn't she come up with something better than do you think there's another yao ming in china? she doesn't know enough about basketball to be doing that show on yao.
It was funny when Lisa asked Yao "uh...do you think there's a lot of pressure on you?". Duh! She had 2 years to come up with that question? Yao just politely rolled his eyes and smiled. What a guy. Can you imagine answering the same dumb questions over and over again every day? I don't know how he does it without going "Ryan Leaf" on some of these boobs from the media.
dumb reporter: what is it you enjoyed doing most this season? yao: sleep dumb reporter 2: how do escape from all the pressure you're under? yao: sleep dumb reporter 3: what do you think is the best way to prepare for a game? yao: go to bed. also the whole childhood experience of lisa ling was unnecessary, if she was trying to talk about the asian american experience, she did a poor job relating it to other asian american's experiences cause there is a lot more to it than that bs she was talking about. funny thing about her is she probably knows less chinese than colin pine. she was even saying ni hao. i bet those are the only words she knows. cough banana cough just playin'
that was a pretty cool show indeed. lisa ling : yao come out to a nightclub with us. I'll do all the drinking and you can do all the rubbing & touching. yao ming : nightclub? are we talking about nightclub? where all the gurls shake them booties? my mom's gonna kill me.
Lisa is a very cute girl. I wish Yao didn't have to play on his national team. I think he could use some time off.
Horribly done. I completely agree with it being poorly produced. 2 years for that? The host was so annoying and it felt like the show was 50% about her. 2 years and she couldn't come up with any better questions? I really don't want to know anything about her. I wanted to hear about the Yaoster. Yao does seem to be under immense pressure and the part where he talks about being a rookie and not being Shaq or MJ is very telling. I was glad to learn more about Yao, but the show should have been much better. I wonder if she felt funny having to have this white dude interpet between her and Yao when she's chinese. I bet she wishes she learned as a kid growing up.
The footage taken at Shanghai and Beijing are interesting. But Lisa is annoying, especially the part where she feels lucky that she didn't grow up in the small alley way at China like Yao did, and claim that if she did, she would have all the will power to fight her way outa there. That's a poor prospective to tell a story about changes in China.
What kills me is the fact that this show had a lot of potential. An hour about Yao is sweet and 2 years in preparation I expected it to be great. They could have really done a lot to educate people more about China, but the show didn't really do a good job of that either. I think Lisa just came across as annoying. i wish they could have had some one to represent americans better than her. Lisa just seemed to be someone that didn't know what's up. Yeah, she's pretty good looking, but I'm sure they could've found someone good looking that could've done a way better job.
At least it was better than Mark Bermans "interview" a few weeks ago. Of course, that's not saying much. Lisa should move to MTV and stay away from sports and world issues...
