What is amazing about Yao is that someone that tall and goofy can even play basketball at all. I was watching
some basketball highlights at Windows Scoreboard tonight, and at the end they go through the top 5 moves
of the last few games from around the NBA. And there are, as you’d expect, some stellar moves. Vince Carter spinning in the air, twisting from one side
of the basket to the other. Steve Nash dishing it to his teammates for windmill jams. That kind of thing. Of course, the number one
move was Yao Ming: he gets the ball low in the post, near the baseline, gets fouled and throws it up with his back facing the basket,
and miracle of miracles, it goes in. So the basket counts and one.

Of course it wasn’t at all spectacular. If you’ve watched Michael Jordan play you know that this is a special genre of Jordan moves:
the ones where he get fouled and just puts it up so that the foul is made in the act of shooting. But the difference is that those moves
are elegant, beautiful and involve that masterful agility for which he is known. So this Yao “move” is nothing special, and I doubt it
even deserves to be called a highlight. And compared to the other moves, where you see people flying high above the rim, dunking rebounds and
getting some major hang time, Yao’s move seems positively pedestrian.

But he is Yao Ming. And this is China.

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This guy had it all going for him: the Cat in the Hat hat and the Sichuan earthquake relief T-shirt…but could not, for the life of him, get 500rmb tickets. Last night, talking to scalpers, it seemed the going price for most events is 1000+ for most tickets, regardless of what the face value is. My friend managed to get a track and field ticket for 500rmb, which is a minor miracle. They wanted over a 1000 but there was only one (most people are selling in groups of two or three, adjacent seats) so let it go for 500. The ease with which we got it this one after spending a fruitless half hour going through the scalpers market made me somewhat suspicious. I guess tomorrow we will know if it all worked out or not.

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