Apocalypse Yao
IT’S easy to get hung up on Yao Ming’s height when, at 7’-6”, he stands out even among the human skyscrapers of the NBA. Ming is so big he was kept awake by growing pains in his teens as his body stretched during the night, and at eight years of age he had reached the average Chinese adult height of 5’-5”.
Even at birth he was the size of an average Chinese four-year-old. However, that birth was no accident. A new book by Brook Larmer, former Newsweek magazine bureau chief in Shanghai, alleges Yao Ming’s arrival had been anticipated for years by Chinese Communist Party officials desperate to boost the nation’s pride through sport. The officials had kept an eye on the family — and others — for decades, equipping doctors with special growth-predicting manuals that measured youngsters’ bones and pubic hair in order to identify the size of future athletes.
