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October 2003
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"
When it comes to predictions, most basketball anoraks will stop at nothing...Yao Ming, late of the Shanghai Sharks, has become a presence, and could become the most dominant player in history.
"
- Sunday Herald, UK
The Tao of Yao: Review by the East Bay Express
Philosophical Dribblers & Mean Meat
This month's East Bay book news.
BY Anneli Rufus
December 24, 2003
Go ahead and jump:
When Houston Rockets center Yao Ming played his first game against the Miami
Heat, the Heat distributed free fortune cookies to fans. Blunder: Fortune
cookies weren't invented in Yao's native China but in San Francisco. Besides,
fortune cookies "are too small," lamented the 7'5" hoopster as reported in The
Tao of Yao (Frog, $13.95), in which San Francisco's Oliver Chin riffs on a celebrity
whose "impact on American culture and Asians at large deserved more in-depth
examination than the mainstream media were capable of providing." The title's
more than just cute, Chin says. Yao's a yin-yang kinda guy. "The real story that
unfolds is how Yao's actions and insights in his breakthrough rookie season were
grounded in the eternal relevance of Taoism. That's what fans, coaches, and
players have unwittingly responded to. Yao has said that sometimes the hardest
things to do are the easiest to accomplish. So did Lao-tzu more than two
thousand years before. Putting the ball in the basket, defending Shaq , and
being the center of attention for more than a billion people can be tough. But
Yao did it. And there is a wealth of lessons that can be learned from it that
play-by-play announcers aren't paid to explore. Through the prism of Yao Ming
and basketball, readers can ultimately learn a little more about themselves as
they too struggle in the pursuit of finding true meaning in life."
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