At a 2025 Shanghai charity gala, 15-year-old Yao Qinlei, daughter of Chinese basketball legends Yao Ming and Ye Li, worked as a fluent English simultaneous interpreter, impressing all present with her poise.
In 2025, under the spotlight at a charity gala in Shanghai, stood a young woman who had just turned fifteen and had already grown to 1.9 meters tall. She wore no makeup,her long hair flowing freely. She spoke fluent English, providing simultaneous interpretation for Yao Ming standing beside her. As she concluded, she added a touch of humor that perfectly matched the atmosphere, prompting laughter from the foreign guests in attendance.
After
this photo went viral, everyone looked at it over and over again, and the question on everyone’s mind was the same: What do Yao Ming and Ye Li’s children actually look like?
This curiosity isn’t unfounded. Both Yao Ming and Ye Li are top national players in Chinese basketball. Yao Ming set records for Chinese players in the NBA, and Ye Li was a key interior player for the Chinese women’s national basketball team back in the day; most longtime fans still vividly remember their performances on the court.Since their marriage in 2007, the couple has maintained a very low public profile, sharing almost nothing about their private lives except for necessary public appearances.While most people can imagine the daily routines of raising children in an ordinary family, curiosity has been building for over a decade about how this elite athletic family—which, in the eyes of outsiders, carries an aura of prestige—would raise their child.When
Yao Qinlei was born, many assumed she would naturally follow in her parents’ footsteps toward a career in basketball. After all, both her parents were professional basketball players, and with such obvious talent, it seemed only natural for her to be exposed to the sport from a young age. But as details gradually emerged, everyone was taken by surprise.
Ye Li never forced her daughter to play basketball; she hadn’t even taken her to a formal basketball tryout.She didn’t follow societal trends, nor did she fixate on so-called “family-inherited talents”; she simply let her child grow at her own pace, prioritizing academic development first, then involving her in various community service activities to teach her the proper way to interact with others—a path that was completely different from what everyone had originally envisioned.
By the time Yao Qinlei turned fifteen, the answer was crystal clear. At an earlier public event, she stood on stage with natural poise and confidence, showing not a hint of stage fright. She was taller than many adult male athletes,her backpack always filled with extracurricular reading materials. She traveled back and forth time and again with her team to participate in charitable activities in Yushu, Qinghai, and her fifth-grade diary clearly documented her desire to help others.
She didn’t follow the basketball path her parents had laid out for her, yet her steady demeanor and the kindness ingrained in her very being remain undiminished.
Many have remarked that this approach—one that doesn’t treat talent as a shortcut but instead nurtures a child according to their true nature—is indeed rare.Raising a child has never been about rigidly following someone else’s path; respecting a child’s true nature often leads to the most well-rounded and grounded outcome.
