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Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets and Yi Jianlian of the Milwaukee Bucks.
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Yao Ming has made basketball very popular in China. In America, he represents China's sports image.
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To Americans he became a kind of "business card for China". His moderate and refined behavior gave Americans a different appreciation of China. Yao Ming also made many Chinese American children enthusiastic about learning Chinese, and that spread to other youth. Yao Ming has become a cultural envoy and personifies for many Chinese the spirit of the nation.
The opening up of sport in China also raises a trend of personal fitness. Ping Pang Qiu is the official name for the sport of table tennis in China. The table tennis community in China continues to produce many world-class players. The overwhelming dominance of China in the sport has triggered a table-tennis fever in the country.
The Nationwide Physical Fitness Program, with an emphasis on young people and children, encourages everyone to engage in at least one sporting activity every day and have a health examination every year.
Community-based sport activities associated with the program play a key role in helping Chinese keep fit.
With about 640 Chinese athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics, the country is in the grip of a sports fever.
(CCTV August 22, 2008)
