total spurs homer
09-27-2004, 03:12 PM
Yao tells what it's like living in two different worlds and reveals some of himself and why he wrote this book. Also a clip of his Today Show appearance. The MSNBC article/excerpt is pretty long(too long for here Kori?) so I'll post a few bits from it and the link so you can read the rest. Again, it's hard not to like the guy when he comes across as he does in just this small part of the book.(written with Ric Bucher)
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090546/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090546/)
"Yao Ming is one of the tallest players in the NBA today, but not much is known about the 7-foot-6 Chinese center for the Houston Rockets. With his memoir, "Yao: A Life in Two Worlds," Ming reveals himself as a thoughtful, opinionated young man who has bridged the gap between two very different cultures while living the American dream. He was invited on the "Today" show to discuss the book. Here's an excerpt."
My name is Yao Ming. That’s what everybody calls me, but in America the right way would be to say Ming Yao, because Yao is my family name. My dad is also a Yao — Yao Zhi Yuan — but not my mom. Usually in the United States, when two people get married, the woman takes her husband’s last name. They did that in China many years ago, but now they don’t because the government has said that women should be equal to men. My mom’s name is Fang Feng Di.
If you’re reading this book, I would guess it’s because you want to learn more about me. But I hope you can learn a lot more from it than that. Not many people have tried to do what I am doing, to be part of America and China at the same time. At least not many have tried to do it with so many people watching. One reason is that nobody was allowed to try before. Maybe that’s the biggest change of all. Maybe that’s an important lesson, too — that, with time, everything is possible.
In English, a name can mean something else — for example, first names like “Summer” or “Jack” or last names like “Rice” or “Bell.” It’s the same in Chinese. My first name, Ming, means “light.” To write it, you use two Chinese characters. The first character means “the sun,” and the second one means “the moon.” The two names together mean light all the time, day and night.
My last name, Yao, doesn’t mean anything in itself. It’s just a last name, like Jones. But the two characters that are used to write it, when looked at separately, do mean something. The first character means “woman.” The second character means many, many, many — like a billion, only more. So that means more than Wilt Chamberlain, right?
If you know me, you know that’s a joke.
...I finally decided to write this book because I saw the importance of my telling my story rather than having others tell it. You should know that not everybody helped me. Some people wanted to help only because of what they could get from doing so, and when they couldn’t get anything, they tried to stop me. I don’t know everything about those situations — some things I didn’t want to know — so the people who helped me will tell you those parts of the story. I say “the” story, not “my” story. This is why, I think, it’s OK for me to write a book. I don’t think of it as being just about me. It’s really about the people who helped me and how the world has changed to allow a player from China to be a number-one draft pick in the NBA. It’s also a chance to tell the rest of the world something about my country and its people. Collective honor, the honor of the entire country, is very important in China.
That’s what I hope people will see in my work in the NBA. I also can send a message home about how a person can think of his country and still act as an individual out in the world.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090546/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090546/)
"Yao Ming is one of the tallest players in the NBA today, but not much is known about the 7-foot-6 Chinese center for the Houston Rockets. With his memoir, "Yao: A Life in Two Worlds," Ming reveals himself as a thoughtful, opinionated young man who has bridged the gap between two very different cultures while living the American dream. He was invited on the "Today" show to discuss the book. Here's an excerpt."
My name is Yao Ming. That’s what everybody calls me, but in America the right way would be to say Ming Yao, because Yao is my family name. My dad is also a Yao — Yao Zhi Yuan — but not my mom. Usually in the United States, when two people get married, the woman takes her husband’s last name. They did that in China many years ago, but now they don’t because the government has said that women should be equal to men. My mom’s name is Fang Feng Di.
If you’re reading this book, I would guess it’s because you want to learn more about me. But I hope you can learn a lot more from it than that. Not many people have tried to do what I am doing, to be part of America and China at the same time. At least not many have tried to do it with so many people watching. One reason is that nobody was allowed to try before. Maybe that’s the biggest change of all. Maybe that’s an important lesson, too — that, with time, everything is possible.
In English, a name can mean something else — for example, first names like “Summer” or “Jack” or last names like “Rice” or “Bell.” It’s the same in Chinese. My first name, Ming, means “light.” To write it, you use two Chinese characters. The first character means “the sun,” and the second one means “the moon.” The two names together mean light all the time, day and night.
My last name, Yao, doesn’t mean anything in itself. It’s just a last name, like Jones. But the two characters that are used to write it, when looked at separately, do mean something. The first character means “woman.” The second character means many, many, many — like a billion, only more. So that means more than Wilt Chamberlain, right?
If you know me, you know that’s a joke.
...I finally decided to write this book because I saw the importance of my telling my story rather than having others tell it. You should know that not everybody helped me. Some people wanted to help only because of what they could get from doing so, and when they couldn’t get anything, they tried to stop me. I don’t know everything about those situations — some things I didn’t want to know — so the people who helped me will tell you those parts of the story. I say “the” story, not “my” story. This is why, I think, it’s OK for me to write a book. I don’t think of it as being just about me. It’s really about the people who helped me and how the world has changed to allow a player from China to be a number-one draft pick in the NBA. It’s also a chance to tell the rest of the world something about my country and its people. Collective honor, the honor of the entire country, is very important in China.
That’s what I hope people will see in my work in the NBA. I also can send a message home about how a person can think of his country and still act as an individual out in the world.