This weekend Yao attended the Archery World Cup (“Stage 1”) in Shanghai to cheer on the Chinese athletes participating in the competition. Below, Yao talks with Tom Dielen, the World Archery Secretary General.

Unfortunately for China, they only won one silver medal in the female individual event, and 2 bronze medals in the women’s and mixed (men and women) team events.

As usual, the South Korean women dominated the team and individual events. Chinese Taipei, however, surprisingly beat Japan to win the gold medal for the mixed team event.

Brady Ellison of the USA won the men’s individual event, while Ki Bo Bae of South Korea, arguably the best female archer in the world currently, won the female individual competition. Both Brady Ellison and Ki Bo Bae also led the USA men and South Korean women to win gold medals for the men’s and women’s team event.

It’s easy to tell what country this team is from!

Click here for more photos from the event.

On Friday Yao Ming joined his fellow former NBA Chinese big men (Mengke Bateer) and Wang ZhiZhi) to attend the retirement ceremony of Du Feng, who had a great 14-year CBA career with 7 CBA championship rings.

The Guangdong team played a 30-minute exhibition game with Du Feng’s friends, all national teammates or CBA stars. Bateer was the head coach while Yao was the assistant coach for Du Feng’s friends’ team.

Click here for more photos of everyone laughing and having a good time, and the ceremony honoring Du Feng. Since everyone was having a great time, I wonder if afterwards they got together to play some poker?

You might have missed it, but late last week Stephon Marbury and his Beijing Ducks team won the Chinese Basketball Association championship, beating Aaron Brooks and the Guangdong Tigers 4-1 in the CBA Finals.

You can tell Marbury was very emotionally invested playing for Beijing as seen from the photos below…

Click here for more photos from the game. Click here for an article about the championship game.

In the series-clinching game, Marbury scored 41 points and dished 7 assists, while Aaron Brooks scored 33 points and had 5 assists. After the game, Marbury thanked God for giving him the chance to complete his redemption in China, and that the whole CBA Final series was like a miracle.

Marbury was clearly the MVP of the Finals, but was prevented from being awarded the MVP trophy because of CBA rules that prevent foreign players from winning it, nor the MVP of the regular season. But Marbury is the “virtual MVP” of Chinese basketball analysts, media, press, and fans, especially those in Beijing. Marbury almost single-handedly led his team to bring Beijing it’s first CBA championship, the first time Beijing has won anything major in basketball since 1983.

Last week it was announced that Yao will appear next month on the inaugural cover of the Mandarin version of Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Checkout the preview below where Yao is looking quite dapper.

Here’s the press release:

WINE ENTHUSIAST MAGAZINE LAUNCHES MANDARIN EDITION IN CHINA
The world’s largest wine media company reveals plans to reach millions in Greater China and Hong Kong.

New York, NY (March 19, 2012) — Wine Enthusiast has announced its launch of an entirely Mandarin edition of the magazine. Through a strategic partnership with YesMyWine.com, Wine Enthusiast Magazine will reach millions of untapped VIP Chinese wine buyers and key trade decision makers. The release of their premiere May 2012 Mandarin digital issue of the magazine will include:

1. International content for Chinese wine consumers to enjoy about wines from the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, China, Australia and other parts of the wine world where Wine Enthusiast Magazine has journalists and editorial offices.

2. Tens of thousands of wine ratings and reviews based on the famous 100 point scale which will help provide the YMW customer direction for their wine purchasing needs.

3. Educational articles about wine to expand the knowledge of YMW’s customer base.

Wine Enthusiast Companies Chairman Adam M. Strum stated:

“We are very excited to bring Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s approachable, user-friendly editorial to these new wine consumers. With tasting offices in Rome, Bordeaux, New York, California and Seattle, we rate and review more than 20,000 wines per year on the famous 100 point scale. We intend to provide the new Chinese wine consumer with these reviews for purchasing direction not previously available to them at this magnitude. We will also be tasting wines from China starting this month in our New York offices. Eventually we hope to reach more than five million wine consumers and key wine trade in China.”

For the first time in a very long time, Yao, his wife Ye Li, and his daughter Amy were photographed together in Houston at Saturday night’s Rockets-Mavericks game.

Click here for more photos of Yao and his family at the game.

Big Yao surprised everyone by flying to Houston this week and was courtside at the Rockets-Lakers game. Below he hugs former teammate Metta World Peace, the basketball player formerly known as Ron Artest.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the game.

Click here for a video interview that Yao gave to the press before the game. As always, he was hilarious.

Fortunately for Rockets fans, the team made a great fourth quarter comeback to beat the Lakers.

On Saturday in Shanghai, Yao did something very rare, even for him. He participated in a discussion with some pretty interesting guys on stage in front of 12,000 people at the Shanghai Expo Mercedes Benz Cultural Centre, part of the 40th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.

World class Japanese architect Tadao Ando, a recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the Nobel Prize equivalent in the field of architecture) gave a talk to the audience, then was joined by Yao and Wang Shi, the multi-billionaire and founder and chairman of Vanke, China’s biggest real-estate developer.

The theme of Tadao Ando’s talk was about Asian Era, where he discussed the arrival of the Asian era in architecture and his philosophy in architecture. He also talked about the importance of quality, conservation of energy and resources, and environmental protection in architecture.

Right after Ando’s speech, there was a session where Yao Ming and Wang Shi were invited to join him in a casual exchange about pursuit of personal dreams and excellence. Yao talked about how he pursued and realized his personal dream, working from a nobody in the CBA to a basketball star in NBA.

Click here for more information and photos from the event (props to Raymond for posting them).

Yao Ming, his wife Ye Li, and the Princess of Monaco visited a special needs school in Shanghai on Monday. Both the Princess and Yao Ming are global ambassadors of the Special Olympics.

The Princess, Charlene Wittstock, married Prince Albert of Monaco last July. She was formerly a South African Olympic swimmer.

Click here for more photos and an article on Yao and the Princess’ visit to the school.

Raymond was able to find some photos of Yao Ming at a golf driving range Friday morning in Shanghai. Check out his cool customized TaylorMade golf bag, too!

Two new articles from Reuters and CNN quote Yao on more insightful comments about Jeremy Lin (click here to see both articles). Here are the best excerpts (Yao’s quotes are in red):

“Shanghai-native Yao said Lin, who stands 1.91m, could change the way China selects and trains its basketball players.”

“This is something else that Jeremy Lin has brought to us. It has given us something to reflect on, whether there are imperfections over the development and selection process for our basketball players over the past 10 or 20 years.”

“Yao said he had known Lin was a good player but was stunned that he was able to reproduce the sensational form night after night.”

“I am very surprised but also very happy. When he played well in his first game I thought this was a great start and perhaps he would soon have more stable game time.

“But I never thought he would perform up to such levels as he had today.”

“Lin has said he communicates often with Yao, who he regards as a role model. Yao said he did not have much advice to give because of their different backgrounds but had always encouraged and cheered him on.

“First, New York and Houston are different. Also, the cultures of the two basketball teams are different, the cities are different, the team mates he faces are different, so I don’t wish to tell him too much.

“If I do so, perhaps I will give him too much pressure.”

“We have a lot of talented young athletes here who are passionate about basketball. They all want be the next Jeremy.

“I think they can relate more to Jeremy because they’re more common-sized.”

“The easy part is to find a strong basketball player — I have the size; Shaquille O’Neal: big and strong; Kobe, LeBron, all those names. Jeremy has basketball IQ — you can’t program that.

“He’s the kind of player I’d like to play with if I’m still a player — he’s a team player and everybody likes the way he wins a game. Honestly, he did much more than I’d expected.”

“He gives a lot of hope to kids with the same background like his: Asian-Americans, second generation or maybe third.”

“They can follow his footprints and have more confidence in playing basketball.”

“I know people talk about me giving him tips — it’s really not that. I just congratulated him and said I’m happy for him.”

“I told him we’ll support him and I’m a big fan of his.”