NBA MAKES YAO CETER OF ATTENTION AS IT SELLS EXPANSION OF CHINA TOUR


Fans in Beijing go wild when basketball's premier league drops by with the 7-foot-6 superstar up front, GEOFFREY YORK reports

By GEOFFREY YORK
Monday, October 18, 2004 - Page S2
BEIJING -- Outside the crowded gates of Beijing's first National Basketball Association game yesterday, a young female souvenir vendor was enticing the 18,000 fans with an imaginative pitch.

Beside her usual array of shirts and caps, she was hawking a heap of pillows, each emblazoned with the jersey number of China's most famous superstar. "Take Yao Ming into your arms to sleep and dream," she shouted to the passing fans.


By the end of the afternoon, she had sold her entire stock of souvenir pillows at the full price of the equivalent of about $4 (U.S.) each -- without even the usual haggling that goes with shopping in China.


"We love Yao Ming," said the vendor, Liu Songxia, a 20-year-old sophomore at China Agriculture University who joined three friends at the scene of the historic game between the Sacramento Kings and Yao's Houston Rockets.

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