If you didn’t know, Tracy McGrady is now playing in the Chinese Basketball Association. It’s not going well for his new team, the Qingdao Double Star Eagles. They are winless in the new season. Coincidentally, they played Yao Ming’s winless (0-3) Shanghai Sharks Sunday afternoon in Shanghai.

Surprisingly, there are still lots of McGrady fans in China from his days playing with Yao in Houston. Many of them showed up at the game to pay homage.

On top of that, millions of basketball fans in China were looking forward to watching on TV Yao and McGrady meet up, hopefully on the court for all to see. But unfortunately it didn’t happen. The only solace was McGrady pointing to Yao up in the stands.

Yao and McGrady were scheduled to have dinner the night before, but it had to be postponed since Qingdao’s head coach arranged for a team meeting that conflicted with it.

But they were able to meet up Sunday evening after the game. No really good photos are available other than the one below with Yao, McGrady and other guys on The Bund after dinner.

Although McGrady played well (23 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks), Qingdao lost their 4th game in a row, and are 0-4 on the season.

Fortunately for Yao, his Shanghai MAXXIS Sharks played their best game of the season, snapped their own winless streak, and now have a 1-3 record.

For more photos and coverage of the game and the events around it, click here.

If you hadn’t heard, Tracy McGrady has taken his talents to China since his career in the NBA is basically over. Specifically, McGrady signed with the Qingdao Double Star Eagles in the Chinese Basketball Association.

He received an incredible welcome at the Qingdao airport about 10 days ago (see photo below). You never know in China if ‘fans’ like this are paid by a sponsor (Adidas in this case) to create a good photo-op and publicity for their brand. But regardless, it’s amazing that an athlete way past his prime can get this kind of turnout and adulation in China.

Click here for more photos of the greeting McGrady received at the airport.

He was then picked up by a Rolls Royce and taken to a 5-star hotel (part of his contract demands), where he was welcomed by traditional Chinese lion dancers.

Click here for more photos of the welcome that McGrady received at the hotel.

The next day, the chairman of the Quingdao Double Star Group held a welcome reception for McGrady, and gave him new pairs of special shoes produced by their company, one of the biggest low-cost athletic shoe companies in China.

Click here for more photos of McGrady at the reception.

McGrady’s stay in the hotel didn’t last long, though, since he decided to move to another 5-star hotel, the Quingdao Haitian Hotel, which is closer to the new stadium (pictured below).

McGrady soon practiced with his teammates for the first time.

Click here for more photos of McGrady working out, and at the practice.

Some reporters mentioned that McGrady was much slower than he used to be, had lost much of his lift in his jump shots, and even missed an uncontested dunk with no players around him.

McGrady’s services don’t come cheap to Qingdao, though. Here are some of the details of his contract:

- In addition to the team paying for his 5-star hotel as his residence, he will be paid between US $800,000 to $1 million for one year, and the team will have an option to sign him after the first year.

- If the team makes the playoffs, he can’t leave. He has to continue playing.

- To prevent J.R. Smith-like incidents from happening, he will be penalized $10k for skipping a practice and $50k for skipping a game without legitimate reasons

- On road trips, he has to stay in the same hotel with his teammates that the team has arranged for them.

- He will receive an allowance for a couple of round-trip tickets to the U.S. to see his family, or his family wants to visit him in China on certain Chinese holidays.

A few days ago Yao played a ton of golf at the 2012 Mission Hills World Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament held October 19-21st in Haikou, Hainan Island. Click here for a map of the location.

There were tons of photos taken of Yao at the tournament. The day before the tournament started, Yao met Michael Phelps at the practice range.

Yao also got some golf tips from China’s #1 golfer, Zhang Lianwei.

Yao also got some special treatment by getting a golf cart with the top removed since Yao is too tall to fit underneath the roof of a conventional cart. Below Yao’s wife Ye Li is driving the cart.

The next day, the tournament started and Yao met actor Ryan Reynolds.

Yao continued to play a couple of more days of golf at the tournament. Here are a couple of photos of Yao in action on the second and third day of the tournament, respectively.

Click here for more photos of Yao in action on the golf course.

American pro golfer Matt Kuchar and actor Andy Garcia won the pro-am team competition.

Thanks go to Raymond in the forum for posting these photos. More details from Raymond about Yao at the tournament start here.

On Sunday, Yao attended an NBA exhibition game in Shanghai between the Clippers and Heat. Yao greeted some of the players, like LeBron James…

…Shane Battier…

…and NBA legend Bill Russell…

At halftime, Yao was surprised with a gift from graffiti artist David Garibaldi, who painted an oil painting of Yao in the arena during the game. Garibaldi placed fourth in the “America’s Got Talent” show.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the game.

Finally, at the beginning of the 4th quarter when both teams started playing their backups, the full capacity crowd of 18,000 chanted in unison Yao Ming’s name, pleading for him to come on to the court and play. In Yao’s typical understated style, he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled to the fans.

As you probably know, the NBA was in China last week and this weekend as the Clippers and Heat played an exhibition game in Beijing last Thursday, and played another game in Shanghai on Sunday.

Before Sunday’s game in a press conference with NBA commissioner David Stern and Yao Ming, Stern announced the NBA will be supporting Yao’s bi-annual Foundation charity game in China starting the summer of 2013. [Note: this story has been updated to reflect a bi-annual game, not an annual one as previously reported].

This is great news since a game wasn’t played this summer because of the conflict with the Olympic games in London, and Yao’s career-ending injuries and retirement impacted plans for a game in 2011.

The NBA also announced they have agreed to help players and coaches in the Chinese Basketball Association for the next 3 years.

This past summer, the NBA announced it will work in China with the Yao Ming Foundation on a broad and comprehensive partnership to further basketball participation, develop youth basketball, promote cultural exchange and conduct social responsibility programs in China. In addition, Yao will collaborate with the league to launch basketball and social development programs for Chinese youth through NBA Cares and the Yao Foundation for communities in need.

If you’re interested, here’s the video of the press conference where Stern and Yao talk about the benefits of the NBA working with Yao and basketball in China. Here are more photos from the press conference.

On Tuesday night, the UCLA men’s basketball team played Yao’s Shanghai Sharks on the last stop of their tour of China over the past week.

Before the game, Yao was introduced to the crowd.

The top sportsbook reviews probably didn’t have odds on the game because it was an exhibition game, but UCLA won 92-63 in a game that was closer than what the final score indicates.

The Sharks played without key starters, and were able to hang close into the fourth quarter before UCLA made defensive stops to pull away on a 19-2 run.

UCLA coach Ben Howland said after the game, “They were making a good run. They were a good team, good coaching.”

Click here for more photos from the game.

You can also find more photos from the game on the UCLA Men’s basketball team Facebook photo album for the game right here.

You would think after Yao’s exhausting trip to Africa was over, he would come back home and relax a bit. Not for Yao. He continued his very busy schedule.

Right after landing in Hong Kong, he jumped on an economy flight to Leshan of Sichuan. Yes…economy.

Check out a photo that someone took of Yao in a coach seat! (He had to take another flight on which business and first class seats were sold out).

Yao only had 4 hours’ sleep after arriving back in China from Africa. He arrived in Leshan of Sichuan at 9:00am to checkout his Yao Foundation Project Hope Primary School basketball camp and league for its inaugural season. Below are some pics of Yao checking it all out.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the basketball camp.

Later that evening, Yao and Los Angeles Clipper Caron Butler attended a performance of a variety show of the participating students {Butler is involved with Yao and the NBA in the basketball camp as well).

Later Yao came on stage and read the names of 27 students whose birthdays are in the month of August. Then he gave them all birthday presents, and even led the audience to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Click here for more photos from the students’ performance.

The next day, Yao and Caron were head coaches for an exhibition game between two teams formed from the 400 students who participated in the camp.

Click here for more photos of Yao coaching at the camp. Here’s an article with more information about Yao’s involvement with the camp.

About 8 days ago Yao Ming and his wife Ye Li attended “Artistry on Ice” featuring some of the world’s top figure skaters at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. Sitting with them were the TV-movie star couple Deng Chao and Sun Li.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the “Artistry on Ice” event.

After the show, Yao and Ye Li met with Jeffey Buttle and Joannie Rochette, Olympic medalists and World Champions from Canada. Look how small they look!

On June 20th, Yao appeared in a press conference to announce he will be part of Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament in October at the Mission Hills golf course in Haikou of Hainan Island.

Yao will be the Charity Ambassador for the 2nd bi-annual tournament, which will benefit the Yao Ming Foundation and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The tournament was first staged in 2010 and has already become one of the region`s leading lifestyle and entertainment events.

At the press conference, Yao said he has become addicted to golf.

“I am a totally fresh hand in golf and just began to learn how to play it. Golf is a good experience, and it brings back fond memories of when I was strong-minded and determined to go on the path when I started to learn basketball in my childhood.”

Yao also said he hopes golf will help him keep fit since he has been struggling to control his weight since retirement.

“If golf proves useful in weight control, I will persist with it,” he said.

This year’s 2012 Mission Hills World Celebrity Pro-Am, like the inaugural one, will feature many famous professionals, celebrities and movie stars from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the world.

Joining Yao will be Brazilian football superstar Ronaldo, Chinese gymnast and international businessman Li Ning, former world number one snooker player Stephen Hendry and past Masters champion Ian Woosnam.

Celebrities include famous film directors Feng Xiaogang and He Ping, film actors Wang Zhiwen, Chen Tao-ming, Zhang Guoli, Sun Nan, Leon Lai, Coco Lee, Charlie Young, Simon Yam and Michelle Chen. More celebrities will be announced later.

The professional golfers who will play will compete for a prize purse of $1 million.

Click here for more photos and information from the press conference.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Yao since our last update, so here’s a summary of what he has been doing since then (thanks to Raymond for the summaries):

Yao Ming and Liu Xiang appeared at the opening ceremony of the inaugural Shanghai Municipal amateur public competition on June 10.

The purpose of the competition is to raise awareness on the importance of physical fitness, so the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau will organize Shanghai’s inaugural amateur public sports competition for all Shanghai residents, as well as tourists and ex-pats working and living in Shanghai to participate.

The event will last for 5 months, starting June 10th all the way through November 17, and apart from basketball, football, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, and swimming competitions, it will feature a range of demonstrations, from body-building to more traditional Chinese sports such as martial arts.

Around June 6th, Yao Ming’s Shanghai MAXXIS Sharks officially called off a trip to The Philippines for so-called “goodwill games” amidst a tense Chinese-Filipino territorial dispute.

On June 9th, Yao Ming went to Linshu of Shandong to donate RMB 1.5M for the 14th Yao Foundation Project Hope Primary School.

Yao took a late evening flight to fly Qingdao from Shanghai on June 8, and had to travel by car for 3 to 4 hours to arrive in Linshu.

This will be the very first Yao Foundation Project Hope Primary School in East China. The first thirteen Yao Foundation Project Hope primary schools were in the Southwest provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai.

The RMB 1.5 million will be used to refurbish and build new school complex and facilities at an old school, the Taoyuan Elementary School founded in 1985. The Taoyuan Elementary School currently has six classes, 350 students, and 16 teachers.

After the refurbishment and expansion, it is expected the new school will be able to educate more than 700 students, and will become much larger with new sports facilities and equipment.

Yao Ming’s 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon won a silver medal at the world’s most authoritative and prestigious Decanter World Wine Awards in London.

President and Director of Winemaking Tom Hinde stated, “This is not an easy competition, and the best wines from around the world are showcased. To win a silver medal for our inaugural vintage confirms our dedication to producing superior wines that are a true representation of Napa Valley quality.”

The Decanter World Wine Awards is the world’s leading wine competition. The competition is well known for its rigorous judging process, which has led to the Decanter World Wine Awards becoming the most trusted and prestigious source of wine recommendations for wine lovers worldwide. This year, over 200 judges from around the world assessed 14,119 wines from 47 countries, the largest entry ever for the Decanter World Wine Awards. The judging panel consisted of wine merchants, sommeliers, journalists and authors, including 54 Masters of Wine and 11 Master Sommeliers.

The 2012 Decanter World Wine Awards were announced on May 22, 2012 at The London International Wine Fair.

Check out this video with Yao posted yesterday where he talks about his busy life in retirement, including his involvement with conservation efforts…

For more information on the Yao Foundation and its new conservation initiatives, click here.