(WSJ) Basketball's Great Wall of China (Meet the houston Rockets' Yao Ming)

Basketball's Great Wall of China
Meet the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005841

BY GORDON MARINO
Wednesday, November 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

NEW YORK--It took an extraordinary individual to bridge the chasm between the Confucian culture of Chinese basketball and the trash-talking egocentricism of the NBA. But so far in his two-year career with the Houston Rockets, Yao Ming of Shanghai surprised many skeptics by becoming one of the premier centers in professional basketball. Indeed, back in February Yao scored 29 points and pulled down 11 rebounds leading the Rockets past Shaquille O'Neal's Los Angeles Lakers, 102-87.

A minor deity in China, the 24-year-old Yao has been the subject of many books, and not long ago he teamed up with Ric Bucher to tell his own story in English. Recently, I met with the self-effacing NBA all-star when he came to New York to promote "Yao: A Life in Two Worlds" (Miramax).

To prepare myself for Yao's dreamlike size, I tried visualizing a 6-foot-8 friend, but at 7-foot-6 and 300 pounds, Yao looms a cloud-scraping head and shoulders above my ex-basketball-playing buddy. After recovering from his arresting stature and from my own bumbled attempt to greet him in his native Mandarin, I asked Yao to compare American and Chinese attitudes toward sports.

With the occasional aid of his interpreter, Colin Pine, who is always courtside with him, Yao observed: "In America most fans have at one time or another tried to play basketball. In China most people are too busy to have ever shot a basket. And still they come out to cheer wildly for their team."

Yao's mother and father were, however, not among those deprived of basketball experience. Nearly 7 feet tall, Yao's father was recruited in his mid-20s to play for Team China. Yao's mother was also a leading member of the national squad. Still, his parents did not prod their super-sized son to play round ball, because pro basketball players in China do not earn enough to set themselves up financially for life. Worse yet, being able to dunk backward is no substitute for job skills, so retired athletes often have to start at the bottom rung of the career ladder.

Given the ambivalence of his parents, I pressed Yao to recall the origins of his passion for hoops. He responded by pointing to a photo on the dust jacket of his book. In the picture, a beaming 5-year-old Yao is catching a basketball. "That was the day that basketball started for me. My father, who had retired, was with some of his ex-teammates and we started to play catch and to dribble a little." In the end, Yao was placed in one of the schools that concentrated on developing athletes. But, he emphasized, "it was not until I was about 18 that I started to have serious basketball ambitions."

Yao remembers: "Because of my size, I was always on teams with players who were two and three years older. Naturally, I did not do that well and I did not think that I was that good. But when I was finally placed on a team with players my own age, I shined. Then I started to think that I might be able to make the national team and maybe even the NBA."

Reflecting on the differences between Chinese and American basketball, Yao explained: "The American style is more aggressive and individualistic. The Chinese approach to basketball does not allow for anyone to be the main scorer." According to Yao, the system that he was nurtured in left little room for freelancing. "In America you are pushed to go to the basket and try and dunk over your opponent. In China, the emphasis is much more on team work."

The tensions between the Chinese and American approaches to the game surfaced in Yao this summer. In August, he spearheaded the Chinese national team in the Olympics. The squad sputtered and lost its first game to Spain. Afterward, Yao mildly chastised his teammates for being too passive. Chinese sports officials strongly rebuked him for his comments and suggested that "their obedient son" had become corrupted by American individualism. Speaking in distinctly American moral patois, Yao remarked: "I am the team leader and have to take responsibility for my team. I did not mean to pass any judgments. I just wanted to motivate my team to take more risks and play more aggressively."

I asked Yao to compare his life in China with the one he leads in the U.S. He observed: "In China everything was taken care of for me, and every day was planned out. Here I am more on my own." Though he does not warm to the task of talking about his inner life, Yao acknowledges that his two years in the NBA "have made me more open about my emotions both on and off of the court." The language difficulties notwithstanding, Yao has gelled well with his American teammates; nevertheless, the basketball version of the Great Wall of China has a shy streak that cannot make it easy for him to be one of the most famous people on the planet. According to his revealing memoir, Yao has often found succor in the invisible world of cyberspace. And true to his book's word, Yao ended our conversation with a polite handshake and a fast break for the computer.

Mr. Marino, a professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, writes frequently on sports.

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Not a whole heck of a lot of new news here, except that I didn't know that the Chinese Sports Officials (whoever they are) actually strongly rebuked Yao for trying to become more of a vocal and aggressive leader. Also, the fact that he seemed genuinely cowed by their rebuke. I think that Yao having spent the summer back under China's authoritarian thumbs has made Yao regress quite a lot, and it is going to take him several games to get his 'American' back on.

Please let this guy defect to the United States before he has to go back there and spend another whole summer playing dumbass basketball.