Source: time.com

11-29-2007 17:15

There are 1.3 billion of them, but Westerners don't really know much about the citizens of the Middle Kingdom. For decades, China has existed in the international eye as either a megalomaniacal dictator (Chairman Mao) or a teeming mass of low-paid factory workers (everybody else). Maybe there's a hyperkinetic kung fu star or a nerdy computer whiz to round out the stereotype. But mostly, the Chinese have lived in Western minds as inscrutable, unknowable, incalculable.

Now comes Yao Ming—and all the ill-conceived clichés about those strange Chinese have been shattered like a glass backboard after a monstrous slam dunk. There is no living Chinese in the world today who is as famous as the lantern-jawed National Basketball Association rookie sensation. Striding in at a lanky 2.26 meters—who knew a Chinese could grow so tall?—Yao has single-handedly transformed his countrymen from nameless, faceless millions into mighty men who can jam with the very best. For Americans, Yao's affable demeanor and witty repartee are a welcome antidote to the antics of the NBA's bad boys. And for the Chinese, who are chronically obsessed with their overseas reputation, Yao's maturation from a meek athletic machine to a charismatic basketball personality is nothing less than proof that China finally measures up. Ratings for NBA games broadcast on Chinese TV have never been higher than this year as the nation keeps track of its new favorite team, Yao's Houston Rockets. Once worried that Yao would flub his NBA debut, local newspapers kept coverage of him to a minimum in the beginning of the season lest fans be disappointed; but now Chinese are delighted that their guy has established himself so dominantly. "I am proud that Yao is very talented and can show his skills in the NBA," says Gu Limin, a 24-year-old Shanghai shipping agent and avowed hoops fan. "And I am even more proud that Yao is showing that we Chinese are good, polite people."

The boy who would one day become the future of the NBA was raised in Shanghai, his burgeoning height paralleling the steroidal growth of his city. Yao's parents, both basketball players themselves, lived with their only son in a cramped apartment with doorways so low they had to stoop to enter their home. In the evenings, Yao's mother scavenged extra food from about-to-close stalls to feed her growing child; the ration coupons given to each family were nowhere near enough to feed a boy who was 1.7 meters tall by age nine.

Yao himself didn't harbor any hoop dreams as a child. A shy boy, he was often picked on in schoolyards, never realizing that one swat of his oversized hands could knock down his tormentors. Not particularly drawn to athletics, he retreated into books, poring over military histories and reliving ancient battles in his head. But when Yao was nine years old, the country's sports officials came calling. A boy this large, they said, didn't just belong to his little family. He belonged to China.

So began Yao's basketball career. Sent to one of the thousands of sports schools that make up China's mammoth state-sponsored athletic system, he was forced to endlessly shoot and dribble—even when the unheated court was so chilly that the ball lost its bounce. As a teenager, he was essentially sold to the Shanghai Sharks, the Chinese Basketball Association team in his hometown. By the age of just 21, the two-time league MVP had transformed a middling squad into winners, astounding fans last year during the championship finals when he made every single one of the 21 shots he took—the first such feat in recent memory anywhere in the world.