Yao returned to Houston from China a couple of days ago for a check-up on his foot. It’s unknown how long he’ll stay in Houston since his charity gala scheduled for this coming Saturday has been moved to March 28th. The reasons for the postponement are unknown, but I’m guessing the upcoming Rockets’ “Tux & Tennies” charity event scheduled during the All-Star break two weeks after Yao’s event made it necessary to spread things out a bit.

in the meantime, Raymond has translated one of the best interviews of Yao spoken in Chinese. The interview was recorded about 12 days ago but was recently released. If you understand Mandarin, you should definitely check out the video.

If you don’t understand the language, you can read Raymond’s translation here, who worked very hard on it because of the length of the interview.

In the interview, Yao talks about the following:

* What the 2010 Shanghai EXPO means to him.
* His injuries and the earliest possible timeframe for his return to the court
* The prospects of Chinese basketball in the post-Yao era
* His plan for the Shanghai MAXXIS Sharks
* The changes he went through the past 10 years
* What money means to him

ANOTHER interview of Yao is also available. Click here for the video or here for Raymond’s translation and more photos from the interview session. The interview was recorded on January 7th, but aired January 23rd in China on Yang Lan’s One-on-One show. Part 2 airs January 30th.

Overall, if you’re a Yao fan and you understand Mandarin, you couldn’t find better interviews of Yao to watch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen video interviews of Yao that are this long and detailed. If you don’t understand Mandarin, Raymond’s translations are excellent.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 10:08 am and is filed under *Interviews with Yao. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.