Yao Ming swats bullets, saves elephants, but can't get the Rockets far into the post-season.

Shanghaiist has been super-busy of late, and to save time and sanity, we have started spending a lot more time in Shanghai's fleet of taxis. One experience that added to the boredom of our long and usually uneventful taxi trip has been the looping of LCD advertisement screens placed inside some of the taxis. However, Shanghaiist was overjoyed to see this new anti-ivory (well, new to us at least) and poaching advertisement featuring Yao Ming. The taxi version of the WildAid advertisement we watched was in Chinese. Our extensive YouTube search only uncovered this 10 month old English version, and we were surprisingly unable to find anything else that is elephant and Yao Ming related on YouTube. The WildAid website also hosts a version of the ad (again English) .

Shanghaiist has a fondness for elephants retained since our childhood exposure to Barbar. In mid-May we linked out to a Washington Post report that stated that the world's illegal ivory trade was being facilitated by Chinese-run smuggling rings that have extended their reach into Africa over the last decade.

Markets in China are driving the demand for illicit ivory, which arrives either directly or through Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Japan and Thailand are also important final destinations, and the Philippines is a key transit country.

These seven countries and territories account for 62 percent of the ivory recovered in the 49 largest recorded seizure cases, the report said.

The study identified Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria as major sources of illegal ivory.

Shanghaiist recognises that luxury goods are increasingly popular in China, but we are certain that the 7 foot, 6 inch behemoth from Shanghai tops the list of popularity in China. Yao Ming, who joined forces with WildAid last year, has previously pledged to stop eating Shark's Fin soup. If Yao can use his considerable influence to sway the opinion of the Chinese consumer away from animal goods trafficking and hunting of endangered animals, the world will be better for it.

There was a few things about this ad that also struck a chord with our familiarity with Mao. We understand advertisers often over-state a famous athelete's abilities to make their point or sell their products. We have no qualms with Yao shot-blocking ability extending to stop bullets with his bare hands. However, we have serious qualms about Yao's ability to move with lightning speed to get the right spot on the floor to block the shot. If Yao was able to move with lightning speed, maybe, just maybe, the Rockets would have gone past the first round of the NBA playoffs. Without a doubt, if Yao could move faster than sloth speed, the best shot-block of this current NBA season would have never happened.