If you thought that something as silly as constant foot and ankle injuries leading to early retirement were going to stop former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming from dominating the world, you were dead wrong. Yao, after having spent some time adorably tickling a baby panda, has taken his place in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a legislative advisor. He’s like the Bill Bradley of China, not because he’s a former athlete turned politician but because he makes his peers look freakishly small.
Of the 142 members of the CPPCC, Yao is the youngest at only 31-years old. Responded the 32-year old blogger writing about Yao’s monumental success, “Yeah, but can he make fart noises with his hands? I think not.”
“Yao said the new title shows trust coming from the people in the city. He had said before that once he decides to do something, he will try his best to accomplish it. So we can trust him that he can balance all aspects of his work and study, and do well in this job,” said Yao’s spokesman Zhang Chi.
But Zhang denied that Yao has any ambitions to have a “political career”.
“The responsibilities for a CPPCC member include offering political consultation, and supervision. What Yao wants is to use his influence to do good deeds for society but not to seek a political position,” Zhang said.
(Via China Daily, which needs new space bars for its computers.)
Good deeds like releasing 6 pandas into the wild and donating his personal three-penis wine to an auction benefiting the Special Olympics East Asia. I’m not saying that Yao’s young age and incredible accomplishments make him any better than most American basketball players, but if Yao and Rasheed Wallace both needed a kidney to live and I was the only match, I could probably be won over with a pet baby panda.
