Yao Ming turned 27 yesterday and attended a press conference that welcomed Steve Nash, Baron Davis, Chuck Hayes, Carmelo Anthony and other NBA players who are in Beijing for a charity basketball game this week.

Our Raymond in China has done a great job of posting photos from the press conference as well as the American players’ siteseeing trip around Beijing. For a translated report from the press conference and Yao’s philanthropy emphasis, click here.

Yao Ming does a great job of impersonating a point guard at a celebrity basketball game at National Taiwan University.

Click here for photos and Raymond’s recap of the game where Yao seemed to have alot of fun throwing no-look passes and throwing down lots of dunks. Perhaps it’s a sneak peak of what to expect in the Rick Adelman era.

After the game, Yao ended his trip by returning to Beijing.

Yao Ming had a productive day in Hsinchu today.

He played the Nintendo Wii with some school kids, as pictured above.

He also had a round-table discussion with some IT executives who are basketball fans, and just like I thought he might do, was able to go against the restriction by the Taiwanese government that he not raise funds for charity by auctioning off 70 autographed basketballs for over US$ 200,000 to help fund Taiwanese kids’ basketball programs.

The previous day after his arrival in Taiwan, Yao visited Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world.

Click here for photos from Yao’s visit to Taipei 101 and his day in Hsinchu. Thanks to Raymond for the news and pics.

Yao Ming arrived in Taipei today.

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Our Raymond is covering his trip in the YaoMania! forum.

As Raymond points out, the trip is somewhat of a mystery because Yao’s original intention for the trip was to raise money for charity, but the Taiwanese government has set up some tight restrictions in approving his visit. For example, he can’t raise funds for charity, can’t have a press conference, can’t promote anything commercial, and can’t mention the 2008 Olympics or torch relay.

He will teach some kids how to play basketball, and will be playing a little bit of pickup basketball. However, something tells me that Yao is going to slip a few references to one or some of these things during his trip. What are they going to do? Kick him out of the country?

Yao has always been loyal to coaches and teammates who have caught alot of heat, as seen with Rudy Tomjanovich, Steve Francis, Jeff Van Gundy, just to name a few. Now he’s doing the same with embattled Chinese national team coach Jonas Kazlauskas, who recently lost 5 straight games in Europe, partly due to Yao’s recuperation and honeymoon.

China Daily reports that Yao said, “I have heard a lot of people speaking against him (Kazlauskas), but I am sure he is a great man, he unites the team and of course he should stay and lead us at the Beijing Olympics.”

“Some media are like grass atop a wall swaying in the wind. When you win some games, they cheer for you. But when you lose, they go to the other side.”

To read the entire story, click here.

If you didn’t hear about it , new Rockets’ power forward and Yao Ming wingman Luis Scola of Argentina won the MVP of the FIBA Americas tournament in Las Vegas that ended a few days ago. Although Argentina finished second to the dominant U.S.A. team, Scola still garnered enough votes to win the award over the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony.

Our Raymond has translated an article that appeared in the Chinese press after Scola won the MVP award. You can tell Scola is fired up about getting to work with the Rockets.

It looks like Dikembe Mutombo will play one more year for the Rockets, which is great news in my opinion. Deke was a capable backup last season for Yao Ming, especially during all those games where Yao was hurt while helping keeping the Rockets afloat. But for some unexpected reason former coach Jeff Van Gundy decided not to play him much in the playoff series they lost against Utah.

Mutombo is mad about how things ended last year for the team, and wants one more chance to end his career on a better note.

One unfortunate thing for him is that he wishes he hadn’t let his contract get pushed to the end of the Rockets’ line. He blames himself, probably because he didn’t know if he was going to come back and play this season. Instead, he will sign for somewhere between the veteran’s minimum of $1.2 million and a max of $1.9 million based on the team’s salary cap situation.

The way I see it, considering the millions of dollars that Mutombo has donated to the hospital that he has built in the Congo, this is one of those cases where I don’t mind hearing about an athlete not being 100% thrilled about the money he’s making. Overall, though, he appears ready to come back with a vengeance, which is the most important thing.

For the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the story, click here.

Yao Ming played more minutes in his second consecutive game against the Melbourne Tigers in an 84-78 victory. This time he scored 25 points, grabbed 8 boards and dished two assists, but he also had more turnovers (4) with the increased playing time and missed 3-of-6 free throws.

The Chinese national team coach for this game, Guo Shiqiang, was pleased with Yao’s play in the game. “Yao’s performance is beyond my expectations since he was not at his best level just days from resuming training.” Guo said. “Yao had created a lot of chances outside the 3-point range but our guard did not catch those chances and missed a couple of shots.”

Click here for an article about the game, and here for more photos.

In his first game action since April, Yao Ming played in a 69-56 win over the Melbourne Tigers in China. Yao scored 12 points and grabbed 6 boards in less than 20 minutes of action.

Click here for more photos from before and after the game. You’ll see that Yao seemed to really enjoy the intensity of being on the court again. Click here for footage of one of Yao’s dunks from the game.

Taiwan finally approved Yao Ming‘s application to visit Taiwan, but they set conditions like limiting the visit to 3 days. You can read the entire story here.

However, one confusing point is that Yao’s intention to visit the country is to raise funds for charity from hi-tech executives, but the article later states that Taiwan says he cannot raise funds. I would think Yao is still going to be able to raise the funds, though, because he’s excited about the approval to visit.