Yao Ming joins Shanghai committee

Former NBA star Yao Ming was named to a committee of a top city government advisory board in his native China. The Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference voted the one-time Houston center into its ranks at its annual convention during the weekend. Yao told the Shanghai Daily he was moving into the position slowly and would likely focus on issues involving education and sports. "I hope I can make some good proposals soon as a CPPCC member and hope other members will offer their help to me," Yao said at the training class for rookie CPPCC members. Yao did not offer any proposals of his own at the conference, but he will have plenty of them to mull over. Shanghai Daily said 902 proposals were formally submitted at the conference, about 28 percent of which dealt with sports, education, science and health.