The embedded ten-minute video of the China Daily interview with Yao Ming is in Mandarin with English subtitles.
For those who don’t know who Yao Ming is, he was born in Shanghai, China in 1980. When he was twenty-two, Yao Ming came to the US.
Today he plays for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association and is currently the tallest player in the NBA at 2.29 meters or 7 feet 6 inches.
Before Yao Ming came to the US, he played for the Shanghai Sharks as a teen then played on their senior team for five years in the Chinese Basketball Association.
Watching the China Daily interview revealed another side to this gentle giant. A brief abridged transcript of the interview is provided.
The People Daily interview took place in July 2010 shortly before a charity game held in Beijing. The reporter conducting the interview is Yu Yilei
Yu Yilei – Your charity game will be held in Beijing. What idea do you want to convey through it?
Yao Ming – The main purpose of the game is to help kids in Sichuan and other remote areas to rebuild their schools. In addition, we want to tell the public that people like us, who live in big cities, have the responsibility and obligation to help others.
It (the charity) was actually Steve Nash’s idea. Nash had a friend who was an entrepreneur in China, and he’d been concerned about China’s education in its remote areas. It was an early time, the beginning of 2007.
I said I needed to think it over, because I didn’t have any experience in terms of charity (In fact, Charity as we know it in America and/or the West was new to the Chinese).
The man who provided the information about education in remote areas of China shocked “us” deeply.
A foreigner knew more about China than I did. It feels… It makes me blush. (He then mentions that charity is just getting started in China and there hasn’t yet been time to develop regulations to supervise and protect it.)
Yu Yilei – How to you insure the regulation of the Yao Foundation?
Yao Ming – I think information transparency is most important. There is a professional management team and accountants. You can also find out very clearly on our website what each donation has been used for.
Note: In 2004, Business Week said, Yao’s four-year contract with the Rockets was worth $18 million, and he earned an estimated $15 million a year in longer-term deals with top-tier brands Pepsi, Reebok, Gatorade, and McDonalds.…Some executives believe Yao has the potential to gross $300 million in his first 10 years in the league. Yao Ming earned 51 million U.S. Dollars (357 million yuan) in 2008 alone.
Yao Ming goes on to talk about his son and how China and America have influenced him.
Discover more about Charity and Philanthropy Sprouting in China
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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