Raymond reports that The Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) organized a gathering Tuesday night in the Great Hall of People in Beijing to greet and salute all the Chinese Olympians, and thank them for their great haul of medals in the Olympics.

Click here for lots of photos from the event.

Raymond reports that on Tuesday afternoon in Beijing, Yao Ming and the Chinese men’s basketball national team were invited as honorable guests to tape the first episode of a television series supposedly featuring the Chinese Olympians with various groups of surviving children from the Sichuan earthquake.

The theme of the series is to teach them some important ingredients in life: Teamwork, Persistence, Potential and Life.

Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian were asked to have a tug of war with the kids.

At first, four kids came on stage…….and Yao Ming & Yi Jianlian easily won.

Then 8 kids came on to the stage……and Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian still had no problem and won out the contest.

Then 14 kids came on stage and this time, and finally Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian lost.

The ‘captain’ for the Sichuan earthquake survivors was 9-year-old Lin Hao, who was the cute kid walking next to Yao Ming during the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics.

Click here for more photos from the taping.

Check out all the photos of the welcome party the Rockets and Houston fans threw for Ron Artest! What a turnout! Here’s one of them:

Raymond reports the following, with tons of photos in the forum:

The Chinese Basketball Association held a farewell dinner and party for the head coaches of the men (Jonas Kazlauskas of Lithuania) and women (Tom Maher of Australia) national team Monday evening in Beijing to thank them for their past years effort of leading the men and women national team for great results in the Olympics as their contracts are going to expire. Yao Ming represented the men national team to speak on the occasion and presented a farewell gift to Kazlauskas.