Operation Yao Ming

by Brook Larmer

I don’t have any interest in basketball, but the great thing about this story is that it just becomes another way of telling the story of China. By the time Yao Ming was a star for the Houston Rockets, his mother is this sort of innocent, loyal Mommy, in the kitchen in Houston, making her son lovely Chinese food that he can’t get in the States. But when she was growing up, his mother was a Red Guard and was part of the team that toppled the leadership in the Shanghai Sports Association, putting them through horrible struggle sessions.