Prior to this assignment, I believed that I knew a fair deal of information about Yao Ming’s past, being the basketball fan that I am. It was my assumption that he was randomly blessed with extraordinary height and happened to play very well overseas, leading to him being drafted into the NBA. However, Yao’s rise to superstardom is nowhere near as natural as I thought. Brook Larmer’s 2005 biographical exposé, Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar, published by Penguin Books, provides incredible insight into Yao Ming’s life, which is more reminiscent of The Truman Show than any typical athlete’s upbringing. It is crucial to note that Larmer is an American foreign correspondent for Newsweek and the New York Times who was living in Shanghai at the time of the biography’s publishing. Therefore, he
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Making good use of his experiences and familiarity with American and Chinese culture, Larmer did an excellent job at breaking down Yao’s role in the China’s metamorphosis starting in the 1980s and going into the twenty-first century, as well as nonchalantly analyzing the level of control and restraint that went into molding Yao in his intended image. He did so unbiasedly, without any agenda behind the reporting. Larmer simply wanted to make it known that while Ming is a symbol of personal success and achievement in China, inspiring millions to follow in his footsteps and hope to acquire wealth on their own terms, he had no real say in what he did with his own life. While Operation Yao Ming increased my knowledge of the changes in Chinese society within the last thirty years, it also raises questions as to what extent they will go to in order to garner international respect, why they feel that athletic dominance on a worldwide stage is so vital to maintaining a powerful image, and what the public perception of China would be without
Making good use of his experiences and familiarity with American and Chinese culture, Larmer did an excellent job at breaking down Yao’s role in the China’s metamorphosis starting in the 1980s and going into the twenty-first century, as well as nonchalantly analyzing the level of control and restraint that went into molding Yao in his intended image. He did so unbiasedly, without any agenda behind the reporting. Larmer simply wanted to make it known that while Ming is a symbol of personal success and achievement in China, inspiring millions to follow in his footsteps and hope to acquire wealth on their own terms, he had no real say in what he did with his own life. While Operation Yao Ming increased my knowledge of the changes in Chinese society within the last thirty years, it also raises questions as to what extent they will go to in order to garner international respect, why they feel that athletic dominance on a worldwide stage is so vital to maintaining a powerful image, and what the public perception of China would be without