Sighting of Yao Ming at the NBA All Stars in Las Vegas

Its a Yao fan website.

http://www.************.com/blog/

 

happy new year!

 

Lots of red! Both Rockets red and red packets red! Here's to a successful Return of the Yao and a Texas Mavsaw Massacre, a new movie due in April!

 

Thanks for the heads up. I think they cut the video a bit and it is around 7.5 minutes now. Yao interview is around 4:40 mark. It is indeed a quite funny one as the host was asking Josh Howard who's the best team in Texas, no doubt he answered Dallas but then Yao said, "Come on...". Then the host asked him who's the best, you want to know Yao's answer? Check it out yourself.

 

Hey Pal, Kong Hei Fat Choi!

 

Yeah is that really an official nba photo with his name spelled wrong?

 

I believe that's Yao's signature in Chinese..

 

I'm not talking about his signature. I'm talking about his name on the plaque which reads Yoa Ming. So are you saying Yao signs his name in chinese as Yoa?

 

Hey same to you freemaniam! Have a great holiday!

 

all star practice being televised on InHD (298)

Just showed yao sitting and Tmac running plays with the squad

 

Sorry. didn't see that one. My bad.

 

It is such a mistake I went to Vegas in Xmas but not this weekend... NBA all-star, Chinese new year, president day all together..

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070217/chinese_new_year_vegas.html?.v=2

AP
Vegas Turns Red for Chinese New Year
Saturday February 17, 1:37 pm ET
By Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer
Even With NBA in Town, Las Vegas Turns Red for Chinese New Year Celebrations


LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Every January or February there is a surge in action on the baccarat tables and the Las Vegas Strip turns a festive red, decorated with dragons and Chinese characters.
Looking for a lucky start to the year, Chinese tourists make the pilgrimage to the desert for Chinese New Year to put their fates to the test.

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Even this year, with the NBA All-Star game in town and a President's Day holiday falling on the same weekend, casino executives are keeping their eye on the prize -- the hundreds of millions of dollars wagered by Asian players.

"The NBA All-Star game is the first time we've had it here and I'm sure it will be a long time before we have another opportunity," said John Unwin, general manager of Caesars Palace. "This is our 32nd year of doing Chinese New Years. I'd say the Chinese New Year was more important."

The fortunes of large casino operators are increasingly tied to the Chinese consumer and the gambling companies' developments in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau, which became the most lucrative gambling destination in the world last year.

Las Vegas still gets its share of the action. Last year, the amount Strip casinos won off baccarat -- played mostly by Asians -- grew 25 percent to $832 million, second only to blackjack at $986 million, according to Nevada regulators.

A year ago when Chinese New Year was celebrated in January, players wagered $827 million on Strip baccarat tables during the month, losing $90.9 million, more than was lost at either blackjack, craps or roulette.

In contrast, the All-Star game is expected to attract 25,000 visitors and generate $26.7 million in non-gambling economic activity, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

"The first quarter is traditionally the strongest quarter in Las Vegas," said Brad Stone, executive vice president at Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns The Venetian casino resort and is building seven projects in Macau. "Certainly one of the things that fuels that is the Chinese New Year celebration."

The Year of the Pig celebration starting Sunday brings to Las Vegas famous Asian performers, such as Hong Kong pop singer Jacky Cheung, who will perform two sold-out shows at Caesars' 4,000-seat Colosseum. Taiwanese singer A-Mei and Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan came to perform at the Aladdin casino-hotel. Dragon dances are scheduled at properties across the Strip.

The two-week celebration also draws the year's highest rollers, said Caesars Palace vice president of table games, Jimmy Wike. These are players who can bet the maximum of $150,000 per hand, and by casino rules must have deposits or credit lines worth at least $3 million, he said.

"This event caters to the very biggest players in the world," Wike said.

Two years ago, Las Vegas Sands retrofitted The Venetian with a $50 million luxury upgrade called the Paiza Club, an invitation-only, Chinese-themed gambling salon that is similar to its club at the Sands Macao.

For some of the biggest gamblers, chartered jumbo jets, personal limousine service and a 24-hour butler all come with a complimentary suite. Five of them, the 8,000-square-foot Chairman Suites, were designed with the help of a feng shui master.

Jade sculptures, rugs hand-woven in Tibet and silk walls await the exclusive "Chairman" guests, who are not presented a bill for specialty chef cooked meals, except for gratuity purposes.

"There are pillows in those suites that are hundreds and hundreds of dollars," Stone said. "It's not worth putting someone (else) in that room, even if you could charge them $10,000 a night, to expose the room to damage."

Chinese newspapers, Chinese satellite television, and Chinese-speaking staff are made available. Las Vegas Sands caters to its important patrons by flying in its top chefs from China to prepare meals, such as shark's fin or bird's nest soup.

At Strip properties owned by MGM Mirage Inc., such as Bellagio or The Mirage, service staff and executives stuff their jacket pockets with red envelopes with money inside, sometimes as little as $1 or as much as $100, to give to Chinese guests along with the new year's greeting: "gung hei fat choi" (Cantonese for "Congratulations and be prosperous").

"That is just a sign of respect," said MGM Mirage chief executive Terry Lanni. "It's important for you to share, at this time, your wealth with others. Everyone carries this. Because if you walk up and someone gives you one and you don't give them one back, it's an insult."

MGM Mirage's sensitivity to Chinese culture is built into its Las Vegas resorts. Mandalay Bay's hotel towers go directly from the 39th floor to the 60th to avoid unlucky numbers in the 40s and 50s. There are 31 luxury villas at The Mansion in MGM Grand, but the numbers go from one to 34, bypassing unlucky 8, 18 and 28.

"Seven's all right. Eight. You don't want to look at eight. You don't see eights in any of our villas," Lanni said.

Executives believe such measures will ensure free-spending Chinese tourists continue making gambling trips from abroad, despite Macau's growth. Once In Las Vegas, they hope their visitors will gravitate to familiar brands.

Mickey Peng, a 32-year-old fashion company owner from the booming Chinese port of Shenzhen, fits the profile. During the two-week holiday, she'll hit both coasts -- her trip has taken her from Hawaii to Los Angeles to Las Vegas and she's headed to New York.

Peng is a regular gambler in Macau, where she's often played baccarat at the Sands Macao. Here, Peng emerged from The Mansion baccarat room at MGM Grand, where the minimum bet is $100 per hand.

"In Macau, only the casinos are good. I don't see any other things," she said. "Here there are so many shops, many high-end shops. ... We went to the Grand Canyon yesterday. It was very exciting."

Ninety percent of all Chinese visitors to the United States spend some part of their trip in Nevada, said Bruce Bommarito, the vice president of international market development for the Travel Industry Association of America. And while Lanni said the Chinese have a "great propensity to gamble," Bommarito said the average visitor spends more than $5,000 shopping each trip.

"They're tremendous shoppers," Bommarito said. "And I think that's something that people underestimate.

When the number of visitors is calculated from last year, tourism from China is expected to have risen 18 percent from 2005, Bommarito said. In 2005, 405,000 Chinese visited the United States, a 24 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Other U.S. tourism officials are starting to take notice and follow Nevada's lead. The state became the first non-country allowed to directly advertise tour packages in China in 2004 when Bommarito headed the Nevada Commission on Tourism.

Hawaii inked its own tourism deal with China last April.

Casino operators continue to reach out to increasingly wealthy Chinese tourists. Las Vegas Sands opened its first casino in Macau, the first by a Western operator, in May 2004, and plans to open its second, The Venetian Macao, this summer. Wynn Resorts Ltd. opened Wynn Macau last September and the MGM Grand Macau is set to open in the fourth quarter.

In an effort at cross-marketing, Las Vegas Sands is sponsoring the broadcast of the NBA All-Star game live on China Central Television, with some feature interviews taped at its Venetian property.

Peng said when she toured the Strip and noticed Chinese New Year decorations at every hotel-casino, she was surprised.

"Before I came here, I thought people don't know China well," she said. "But when I came here I found so many Chinese people work here, and so many Chinese people are gambling here. China is getting more and more important in the world."

 

Well that's a nice story, but we all know they only do that for the gambling money.

 

A few more pics of Yao

All eyes on Yao

Yao and Nash


McGrady and Ray Allen

 

So that picv is justr all imaginary to you and the NBA lies about his wingspan?

Also did it ever occur to you that perhaps Yao doesn't know how to convert from the metric system to the English system?

For example just the listing you gave that Yao claims don't even match what the Olympics claim which don't even match what China claims, and those are in the same unit.

Regardless that pic in case you are unable to do simple math in your head clearly shows Yao's wingwpan is over 7-6 (2.29m)

 

I don't know what T-mac is doing here: