Yao's bride, Ye Li
Posted on 08/06/2007 6:56:53 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Yao Ming weds basketball beauty
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's most eligible bachelor, basketball sensation Yao Ming, married his long-term girlfriend Ye Li at a jealously guarded private ceremony at a luxury hotel in their hometown Shanghai on Monday.
The 7ft 6in (2.26-metre) Houston Rockets centre and his 6ft 2in (1.90m) bride tied the knot after a seven-year relationship at a Chinese-style ceremony at the Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai's financial district.
The three-hour ceremony was attended by more than 70 family members, said a statement released on behalf of the couple.
Dozens of security guards patrolled the hotel, across the river from the colonial-era buildings of Shanghai's historic Bund, to keep a scrum of Chinese and international media at bay.
Chinese media speculation over the ceremony date reached fever pitch last week when the couple were spotted at a scenic area near Taihu Lake in eastern Zhejiang province taking wedding photos -- Yao in a tuxedo and Ye in a white veiled gown.
The relationship between China's richest sportsman and 25-year-old Ye, also a basketballer with the China national team, has tickled Chinese media and sport fans for years.
The couple reportedly met as teenagers in 1999 when Yao was playing with the Shanghai Sharks, but their relationship only became public in 2004 after they were seen walking hand-in-hand at the Athens Olympics closing ceremony, according to the Shanghai Daily.
In January, 27-year-old Yao dismissed reports linking him to American television actress Nia Long, saying that at only 5ft 2in, Long was not his type.
The statement said Yao would travel to Beijing on Tuesday to take part in a ceremony marking the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics, before taking a break for the rest of the month to recover from a shoulder injury.
$10 says they buy a Mini-Cooper to celebrate.
Good for them. It’s gotta be hard to find love where you’re so different from the general population.
That’s lovely!
Nah, this is what they'll buy
Are they allowed to have more than one child ?
Yao Ming is one of the best paid athletes in the world and his ad endorsements alone rivals those of Shaq and Lebrone James. I think they can have 10 kids and not ask the government for any support.
Of course the fly in the ointment is the Chinese government gets a huge portion of his “salary”.
Good for him...
Hey, what do you think Yao’s reaction was when he saw how much was deducted from his first paycheck for taxes? I wonder if he looked around for the many hundreds of people that his taxes must be supporting....
Chinese regime turned him into a regime’s showpiece. He and Chinese regime are inseparable in that sense. The regime groomed him. I am sure they want to breed more super athletes like Yao and Ye. This couple will be probably allowed to have as many children as possible.
A hot 6’2” Chinese girl. That has to be a rarity. Good luck for dude finding someone at least close to his height.
“Are they allowed to have more than one child ?”
AS I understand it, from my chat buddies in China, that law is not uniformly enforced anymore. Like everything else in China, that situation is changing — slowly.
At 6'-2", long all over...
She is very pretty.
Watch...Danny Ainge will draft their first born son next year
You can have more than one child in China, you just pay a penalty for the second, third, and so on. Unless you’re in one of the poor Western provinces and work in agriculture, then you can have a second child with no penalty if the first one is a girl.
As far as taxes, here in China it’s about the same as in the US. Including deductions for foreign taxes paid.
Is that the ‘Smart Car”?
Is that the ‘Smart Car”?
Yep. Either that or a rollerskate got into Barry Bonds medicine chest.
It is...loved those little cars when we lived in Germany. They are going to start to become available in the USA in the first quarter of next year. :)
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