A low-key but elegant wedding ceremony at Shanghai's five-star Shangri-La Hotel on August 6 looked ordinary enough until the bride and groom walked down the aisle. He is 7-foot-6-inch and she is 6-foot-3-inch. Family members and relatives craned their necks skywards to smile at the happy couple. Legendary Chinese basketball player Yao Ming and his long-time girlfriend Ye Li were finally tying the knot.
No teammates, no coaches, no screaming fans. Yao and Ye enjoyed their hometown family reunion and traditional Chinese wedding ceremony, exchanging rings, offering tea and flowers to their parents and sharing their wedding cake. The only exception to the "normal" setting was the phalanx of bodyguards that almost outnumbered the wedding guests.
The 27-year-old Houston Rockets' star center met his 26-year-old sweetheart in 1999, when he was playing for the Shanghai Sharks, and Ye was playing for the club's women's team. Later, she was promoted to the national team, but has been plagued with injuries in recent years.
Ye is now an English-language student at the University of Houston.
Yao and Ye kept their love life closely guarded from the public, with the first rumors circulating when they were spotted together at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Almost three years later, they received their marriage certificate at the Bureau of Civil Affairs of Xuhui District, Shanghai, bringing their marathon eight-year long courtship to a slam-dunk climax.
"I courted her for almost two years before she agreed to go out with me."
Yao said in his autobiography, Yao: A Life in Two Worlds, in which he shares his life in the jet-setting world of the competitive NBA
"This is a match based on pure love."
Titan Sports Weekly, an influential sports paper on the Chinese mainland
"The preparations for Beijing 2008 are truly impressive
in every regard."
Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, speaking at the opening ceremony of the First Seminar of the Chefs de Mission for the 2008 Summer Games on August 7, one day before the one-year countdown to the world's largest sporting event
"The average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely the highest during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in the past 1,300 years."
World Meteorological Organization, revealing
in a statement on August 7, warning that this year's record global temperatures and rain, heat waves and storms are a preview of more frequent weather extremes in the next 50 years
"The meeting between the top leaders of the North and the South will be of weighty significance in opening a new phase of peace on the Korean peninsula."
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, announcing on August 7 that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun will meet on August 28-30 in Pyongyang for the second-ever inter-Korean summit
"It's really difficult to implement a smoking ban against the prevalent cigarette culture."
Cui Xiaobo, consultant of China's Ministry of Health, calling for tightened anti-smoking efforts in the country to honor its pledge under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of banning tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport and indoor public places in three years
"Class is in session.'"
NASA spokesman, after space shuttle Endeavor blasted off on August 8 sending the first teacher-turned-astronaut, Barbara Morgan, into space 21 years after the Challenger
explosion tragically ended the dream of another pioneering teacher | 
