As part of the Cal men’s basketball program’s eight-day trip to China, members of the team are participating in an as-told-to diary with The Chronicle. Here are freshman guard James Zhao’s thoughts on Day 6, which included a starring role at a huge summit, some lasting team bonding and a job offer: “It was a really crazy day. I left Shanghai at around 6 a.m. with Chen Yue of the women’s basketball team, and we headed over to Suzhou. We went into a meeting room before the U.S.-China University Sports Summit started, and important person after important person walked in after us. “There were politicians, the CEO of NBA China and Yao Ming. It was crazy how many people we got to meet. When we got to the summit, there were about 200 people watching from the stands. Someone joked that it was the biggest event of the day, aside from the Shanghai Expo. “We heard a lot of important people speak, and they brought me and Chen up to do a question-and-answer panel with ESPN’s Sean Farnham. He asked us a lot of questions about balancing sports and studies and the differences in sports in China and America. It was definitely a great opportunity, and we were able to share a lot of our experiences with the crowd. “The CEO of NBA China actually asked me to intern at his company this summer. The day before, I met Joe Tsai, from Alibaba, and I’ve gotten to know him on… [Read full story]
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