As mentioned earlier today (Thursday), Yao went to the Houston Zoo Thursday afternoon as part of his continuing effort to educate young people about the importance of caring for endangered species and animals native to Africa.

Below is a pic of Yao meeting some of the kids.

The first stop was to visit the giraffes where Yao — when looking up to them — said something to the effect like, “Now I know how you guys feel when I enter a room.”

Yao moved on to feed them some lettuce, which they chowed down.

Yao then visited with the kids in front of a rhinoceros, and Yao knew his stuff since he became educated about them when he took his trip to Africa last summer.

This rhinoceros weighs over 3,000 pounds, but Yao knew that they really liked being scratched behind the ear (the softest skin on their body) like Yao is doing here. Yao even asked the kids if they would like to come up and touch the rhinoceros in the same spot, and many of them did.

Later Yao went over to the elephant pen where he did some tricks for Yao, like lifting his foot…

…and stand on its head…

After spending some time with the elephants and the kids, Yao went to a theater in the Zoo to talk to the children about the importance of wildlife preservation, and to watch a trailer for a WildAid film that’s scheduled to be released this Summer that chronicles Yao’s eye-opening trip to Africa last summer.

Later in the evening, Yao made an appearance at Jeremy Lin’s Foundation charity event at Houston’s Minute Maid Park (where the Astros play).

It was a long day for Yao, so after he left, Jeremy and Daryl played a mean game of table tennis.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 12:18 am and is filed under Charity work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.