Latest, greatest stop? Live-in translator for Yao Ming. All before his 30th birthday. No one has a better view of Yao Ming's rookie season than Colin Pine, top. "I adapt to new circumstances ...

NBA star Yao Ming, architect Yoshio Taniguchi, and other dignitaries break ground for the Asia Society Texas Center on May 15, 2008. (Richard J. Carson/Asia Society) In the summer of 2002, when the ...