Here’s a video that covers some of the highlights from last week’s Duke-China game, and the state of Chinese basketball compared to the U.S. game.

At the 2:15 mark is some neat footage of Yao Ming at the game, and reactions of some of the fans who see him. Pretty cool stuff.

The Duke Blue Devils have been in China to play some exhibition games against the Chinese National Team “II” — a group of up-and-coming young Chinese who are expected to be reserves on the 2016 national team.

On Monday, Yao Ming dropped by the Blue Devils’ hotel in Beijing to say hello to the team and visit with Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s legendary coach.

Click here to see more photos of Yao with Coach K and Doc Rivers’ son, Austin Rivers (who is projected to be a high lottery pick when he goes pro).

Later that night, Yao attended the game and Coach K presented him with a Duke jersey.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the game.

As many of you know, Yao Ming owns his old basketball team, the Shanghai MAXXIS Sharks. MAXXIS is a Chinese tire company that is obviously the team’s sponsor.

Earlier this week, Yao and MAXXIS announced the launch of a “Cheer for Earth” initiative to help reduce carbon emissions through fuel efficiency.

Because tire pressure has an impact on fuel efficiency, MAXXIS is offering free tire pressure checks and tire inflation at more than 1,000 stores throughout China in July and August. More than 150,000 customers have taken advantage of the promotion to date, saving an estimated 61,965 tons in carbon emissions.

Who said China doesn’t care about it’s carbon footprint? This MAXXIS initiative may be small in relation to all of the carbon that China emits, but at least it gives you a glimpse within the country that there is acknowledgment more needs to be done.

For more photos from the press conference, click here.

You probably saw the photo we posted a couple of days ago of Yao playing golf in Shanghai. Yao told Sohu.com a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to learn how to play the game now that he is retired and has more time.

Well, you might not remember, but about 7-8 years ago, Yao had his first exposure to golf. Below is an “animated gif” (remember those, before the days of Youtube and online video becoming pervasive?) of Yao trying out a golf club on the Rockets’ practice court in Houston.

Unfortunately, on the backswing, he hit his friend Andy Yao in the head! You can tell it didn’t hurt Andy, but it’s hilarious as you’ll see through Yao and Andy’s reaction! (the animated image may take a few seconds to load)

Raymond reports that Yao Ming told Sohu.com in an interview a couple of weeks ago that he would like to start playing the game of golf. Many people scoffed at the idea of Yao being able to play the game very well since he is so tall.

Well, we have some proof that Yao is serious about it. Checkout the photo below taken at the Shanghai’s Sheshan International Golf Club over the last few days.

Actually, the way he is addressing the ball looks pretty good for a starter. You can tell he’s getting some good instruction.

Raymond also reports that Yao recently moved to a new house in the Song Shan District from his old Xuhui District. Sheshan (and the golf club) is in the Song Shan District and is known for its luxurious houses and villas, as well as its great view of the Huangpu River.

After making his retirement official about 10 days ago, it’s clear that Yao still remains a valuable spokesperson for Chinese companies.

Raymond reports in the forum that just a short time after Yao made his retirement announcement, on July 27th Yao continued to fulfill his commercial endorsement commitments for China Life Insurance. The company announced that despite Yao now being retired, they are going to extend his endorsement contract (terms unknown) when his current contract expires.

As China Life’s Global Ambassador, Yao made an appearance at the opening ceremony of the annual 3rd China Life Insurance Summer Love Camp in Xian of Shaanxi.

About 50 surviving orphans from the Szechuan Wenchuan earthquake, Qinghai Yushu earthquake and Gansu Zhouqu landslide are taking part in a 6-day summer camp. Accompanied by volunteers, these orphans will tour the 2011 World Horicultural Expo, visit the Terracotta (one of the 8 Wonders of the World) as well as the Ming Dynasty City Wall Ruins.

For more photos and details of Yao at the opening ceremony, click here.

The next day (July 28th), Yao flew back to Beijing from Xian and participated in the product launch for Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co Ltd, a high-tech company specializing in Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies.

Yao serves as the company’s official image spokesperson (and actually is their 4th largest shareholder when Beijing Unistrong went public and got listed in the Small and Medium Enterprise board of the Shenzhen stock market). Yao has been a spokesperson for Beijing Unistrong ever since 2005, and his endorsement contract was extended for another 5 years back in 2010.

The product they launched is called China Position, a cloud computing cross-platform, cross-network, cross-industry technology platform claimed to be the first commercially viable cloud computing-based application in China that marked the entry of China’s satellite navigation industry into the “Cloud” era.

For more photos from the product launch and the product itself, click here.

It’s not much of a surprise, but it was confirmed Yao will not be playing for the Chinese National Team again, including the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Bummer for Chinese hoops fans.

On a lighter note, Yao received many awards from various Chinese sports groups a couple of days ago at a ceremony in Beijing attended by about 200 people.

Many top sports officials were there as well as some of Yao’s former coaches from the Chinese National Team. Yao received the following awards:

– The State General Administration of Sports awarded him with a Sports Honorary Medal
– The Chinese Olympic Committee awarded him with a Chinese Olympic Gold Medal
– The Chinese Basketball Association awarded him the China Award for Outstanding Contribution to Basketball, and made him an Honorary National Team member for Life (which is stitched on to the jersey above)

Click here for more photos from the event and Raymond’s report in the forum.

Yao Ming was finally able to enjoy some leisure activities after his retirement announcement on Wednesday, followed by many interview requests the next couple of days afterwards.

So on Friday night, Yao took his family and good friend Andy Yao (who came over from Houston for the retirement announcement) to the “Artistry on Ice” show, an annual tour of some of the world’s best figure skaters.

Also attending the show was Sarah Jessica Parker, who is visiting Shanghai and is a fashion consultant for the ice show.

As seen by the photo below, Parker snaps photos of Yao just like any fan would, giggling like a schoolgirl. It’s really interesting to see even a big Hollywood celebrity going nuts when seeing or meeting Yao.

Like we mentioned earlier in the week, even though Yao is retired, we plan to continue running YaoMingMania and covering Yao because his influence extends far beyond basketball. Parker’s reaction here confirms that.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the event with his family, Yao, and SJP.

Many of you perhaps saw the photo on Wednesday we posted of Yao Ming’s old friend and translator Colin Pine at the retirement announcement press conference. If you weren’t aware, Yao asked Pine to translate his words into English for him (so that Yao wouldn’t have to repeat himself in English). You can see the entire press conference video on NBA.com by clicking here.

It was great to see the two sitting together again, just like old times when Pine translated for Yao during his first couple of seasons in the NBA. Pine has been living and working in Shanghai the past few years.

Pine later was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal’s China blog, which you can check out here. In this blog post, Pine responds to several questions, including how he was touched that Yao asked him to translate for him at the press conference, which he wasn’t expecting.

Since Yao confirmed his retirement on Wednesday, many pieces have been written about Yao Ming’s career. YaoMingMania has been directing you to some of these items, and came across a few more that stand out above the rest.

The first is this blog post from one of two Americans who probably has known Yao longer than any other American: “Team Yao” member Bill Sanders, Chief Marketing Officer for Bill Duffy & Associates (a.k.a. BDA Sports), which represents some of the NBA’s top players.

Sanders blogs about the current mood at BDA’s offices around Yao’s retirement, the time he first met Yao in China back in 2000, what it was like during the whirlwind days of Yao’s first couple of years in the NBA (which YaoMingMania covered in detail back then), and much more. Check it out here.

Sanders also tweeted about this insightful article from the LA Times about how Yao’s retirement will leave China with a gaping void in their international “charm campaign,” and this NY Times article about the state and future of Chinese basketball with Yao now retired.

All we can say is that China has alot of work to do to make up for the loss of Yao from the world basketball stage.