Global celebrity Mr. Yao Ming save lives!
Dear friends,
I wish to share some very good news with all of you. I was very happy to read about this. Although I have never been into sports even from a young age, despite my father’s best efforts, I definitely know who Mr. Yao Ming is. I admire celebrities who use their platform and reputation to champion good causes. If we are going to become famous for the sake of being famous, what is the point? It will all have to be left behind at the moment of our deaths. But if we are famous and we use it to lessen the suffering of others just like Mr. Yao Ming does, then our fame is being used for a worthwhile endeavour.
Thank you Mr. Yao Ming and everyone else who uses their voice to speak up against cruelty towards animals
Mr. Yao Ming turned out to be a wonderful, compassionate man. He sets a good example to other celebrities all over the world to do something positive for our planet with their fame. From today onwards, I am his fan and I will pray for him. Thank you Mr. Yao Ming for your kindness towards animals. They are unable to speak for themselves and so rely on us to protect them. Millions of sharks, which are endangered, will be saved thanks to Mr. Yao Ming’s actions. I hope more and more people will be inspired by his example to speak up against cruelty towards animals. With growing awareness of vegetarianism and so many options for food these days, even in mainstream restaurants, there is no need to keep consuming meat or seafood.
Tsem Rinpoche
Mr. Yao Ming is not the only celebrity using his voice for a good cause. To see other notable and famous people engaged in similar good works, please check out: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=18313
If you would like to give up eating meat and want some interesting vegetarian recipes, you can check out these ideas here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/category/food-recipes
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Thanks to Yao Ming the slaughter of sharks for their fins is down 80%
The former NBA star has helped curb China’s consumption of shark fin soup with a campaign of adverts and documentaries exposing how the “delicacy” has made many shark species endangered.
Thanks to Yao’s campaign, support for a shark fin soup ban has skyrocketed in China
Back in 2011, NBA Hall of Famer and GOAT [Editor’s note: Greatest of All Time] of Chinese basketball, Yao Ming, became the face of an awareness campaign on shark fin consumption that has been instrumental in challenging what sceptics thought was an untouchable pillar of Chinese gastronomy — most recent government surveys found shark fin consumption in China has fallen by up to 80% during that period.
Yao Ming partnered with WildAid to show people how their food habits were destroying shark populations in Asia. In the television ad above, Ming is about to dine on soup. He hears that 70 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins, and looks up from his soup to see a wounded shark in an aquarium tank. In disgust, he pushes his soup away. Other people in the restaurant who are watching him follow his lead and do the same. Source: YouTube/WildAid
How many sharks are killed specifically for shark fin soup every year?
Fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the global shark fin trade every year. — say Oceana.org
In 2006 as many as 75% of Chinese citizens were unaware that shark fin soup, directly translated as “fish-wing soup” even came from sharks. By 2013, public perception of shark fin soup had drastically changed.
An independent iResearch survey in 2013 found that 82% of respondents said they would stop their consumption of shark fin soup, a direct result of Ming’s awareness campaigns.
Yao successfully took on China’s ivory trade and used his platform to campaign against elephant poaching. As of January last year, all trade in ivory-made products was made illegal in China. Source: Facebook/YaoMing
Having changed perceptions of sharks fin soup Yao then took on China’s ivory trade… and won!
Shark fin consumption in China has fallen by up to 80% in the last 10 years — almost the exact same period of time as Yao Ming’s activism on the issue.
Partnering with anti-wildlife trade organisation WildAid, Yao got the public to pay attention. The traction and publicity Yao brings to causes across television and social media is decidedly influential: Forbes named Yao as China’s most powerful celebrity for the six consecutive years from 2004 to 2009.
And just like he did for shark fin soup, Yao successfully took on China’s ivory trade and used his platform to campaign against elephant poaching — as of January last year, all trade in ivory-made products is now illegal in China.
Chinese state media Xinhua described the run-up to the ban as “one of the largest ever public awareness campaigns” with support from other celebrities such as actress Li Bingbing.
But Yao isn’t celebrating just yet. “We all know that there is ‘on paper,’ and under the paper, there’s still a long way to go to save the animals — and then save ourselves,” he told CNBC.
In a strange quirk of fate, Yao was a member of the pro basketball team the Shanghai Sharks earlier on in his career. Now thanks to his activism, the lives of millions of sharks have been saved.
Yao Ming is regarded as one of the top basketball players in the history of the NBA. He is one of China’s most recognisable and influential faces — At 7ft 6in (2.29 meters) tall, he is among the tallest players to have played in the NBA and helped to change the perception of basketball in his home country, the world’s most populous nation. Source: Facebook/YaoMing
Source: https://brightvibes.com/1128/en/thanks-to-yao-ming-the-slaughter-of-sharks-for-their-fins-is-down-80
Mr. Yao Ming with the Houston Rockets. At the time of his final season, he was the tallest active player in the NBA.
Yao Ming’s (姚明) Background
- Born: September 12, 1980
- Place of birth: Shanghai, China
- Height: 2.29 m
- Career and notable achievements:
- Played with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA)
- Eight time All-Star with the Houston Rockets
- Named to the All-NBA Team five times
- The only player from outside of the United States to lead the NBA in All-Star votes
- In April 2016, elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, alongside Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson.
Philanthropy
- 2003 – hosted a telethon, which raised US$300,000 to help stop the spread of SARS
- September 2007 – held an auction, which raised US$965,000 (6.75mil yuan) for underprivileged children in China
- 2008 – donated US$2 million to relief work after the Sichuan earthquake and created the Yao Ming Foundation to help rebuild schools destroyed in the earthquake
- August 2012 – started filming a documentary about the northern white rhinoceros. He is also an ambassador for elephant conservation. Yao has also filmed a number of public service announcements for elephant and rhino conservation for the “Say No” Campaign with partners African Wildlife Foundation and WildAid.
- Dedicated supporter of the Special Olympics, serving as Global Ambassador and as a member of the International Board of Directors
Since he retired from professional basketball, Yao Ming has focused on philanthropy, using his fame and wealth to benefit others, including underprivileged children.
Yao Ming’s philosophy when it comes to philanthropy and giving back to the community
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Global celebrity Mr. Yao Ming a modern icon, Ex-NBA player now head of the Chinese Basketball and wild aid Ambassador helps to save animal lives. Mr. Yao Ming is indeed very inspiring. He is very famous, he has accumulated a lot of wealth, he could have enjoyed his life but he uses his fame to do something beneficial. It is wonderful when money and fame can be used to do something good for society. Incredibly Mr Yao Ming even help to publicize the harm done, appearing in commercials and made countless public appearances to bring awareness to the people of the bloody reality of the global shark finning industry and the loss of African elephants, rhinoceroses to animal poachers. The costly delicacy was banned at most government banquets then. Thank to Mr Yao Ming’s and more people are aware of the extinct. Thank you Rinpoche and blog team for this wonderful sharing. 👍💙😀🦈🐬🐡🦀🦑🐙🐳
There is so much to see and read this in this category dedicated to animals. Let’s never harm animals and let’s not eat them anymore and allow them to live in happiness~Tsem Rinpoche- https://bit.ly/2Psp8h2
Mr. Yao Ming is indeed very inspiring. He is very famous, he has accumulated a lot of wealth, he could have enjoyed his life but he uses his fame to do something beneficial. It is wonderful when money and fame can be used to do something good for society.
Mr. Yao Ming comes from China where people like to show their status by eating expensive and rare delicacy, or people will buy luxurious good to show how rich they are. It is the culture. But Mr. Yao Ming decided to go against the culture and become an activist to stop the eating of shark’s fins and the acquisition of ivory products. He sure has compassion for the animals, he sees no different between a human’s life and an animal’s life. I hope more celebrity can be like him.
Animals are also a citizen on this planet, we don’t own it, we share this plant with them. Animals are like us, they want to have freedom, they want to feel safe and they don’t want to suffer. If we don’t like suffering and we think it is not right to take away a human’s life, it is not right to take away an animal’s life too.
Global celebrity Mr. Yao Ming a modern icon, Ex-NBA player now head of the Chinese Basketball and wild aid Ambassador helps to saves . Well more than a decade later and long retired from the game using his fame , setting a good example to other celebrities all over the world to do something positive. That’s wonderful of him been compassionate and caring, he try to wean the Chinese nation off its love of ivory shark fin’s soup and save Africa’s elephant population. Mr. Yao Ming involving in the wild life and wild aids have saved millions of sharks and elephant population which are endangered.
Incredibly Yao even help to publicize the harm done, appearing in commercials and made countless public appearances to bring awareness to the people of the bloody reality of the global shark finning industry and the loss of African elephants, rhinoceroses to animal poachers. The costly delicacy was banned at most government banquets then. Thank to Mr Yao Ming’s and more people are aware of the extinct.
Thank you Rinpoche for this wonderful sharing.
What Mr. Yao does is very inspiring to the world. He is a famous and successful athlete which has alot of influential power. He ends up using them for good and to benefit society. It is very inspiring because he could have enjoyed his life quietly without the need for him to do so much work and raise so much awareness.
He did it because he thinks it is the right thing to do and doing good deeds like these grants him, inner peace. In this materialistic world, everybody is focusing in and many people are emotionally depressed. That is the key reason for depression. Depression arises when we keep focusing in and everything is about us.
I rejoice in Mr. Yao’s philanthropist work and he is really making a difference. Shark fin’s soup is one of the most popular items in Chinese cuisine. It is very hard to change the mindset of the Chinese to avoid this dish because of the cruelty that it creates from making the dish available.
It is so wonderful to read this about Yao Ming and his great generosity towards helping those in need. The is a great necessity to change the perspective of humans in viewing animals as different and edible. In Buddhism, we know that that is not true. We are all the same, just a matter of difference in form and shape. All share the wish for long life, happiness, safety, health and love. Humans do not have the right to the lives of others. I rejoice for Yao Ming for his compassion in seeing the helpless shark and understanding the wrongness in eating shark’s fin derive from the body parts of another being. He is using his celebrity status to help and such great merits he had gained from the positive outcome of his campaigns. May he be always blessed to be in the position to continue his great deeds. Thank you, Rinpoche for sharing his great story and thank you, Yao Ming for caring.
It’s very inspiring and powerful for someone like Yao Ming, a celebrity athlete to publicly express his care and reject cruelty to the animals. We are now living in the 21st century where internet has become the main source for many of us to get information of the world. Words spread very fast via internet especially among younger generation who are looking for example of their life. Through his very successful achievement in his sports career, Yao Ming has become a public icon and idol for many, any news regarding him is valuable. Hence, by publicly say no to cruelty, the effect he could have achieved is much more impactful compares to others. I hope more and more celebrities would follow his footstep by stand up against cruelty to the innocent voiceless beings.