"People do not connect through information. They connect through experience."

I left home at sixteen, travelling alone to Australia to study. It was my first time abroad, and my first real encounter with how the world sees China.

What I met was not only difference, but misunderstanding. I still remember a classmate asking me, quite seriously, "Do you have television in China?"

At first, I did not know how to respond. Then I began carrying my laptop everywhere, showing people images, videos, and fragments of a country they thought they already understood. It was in those moments that I realised something fundamental: facts alone are not enough to change perception.

Australia

"Every culture deserves to be learned through presence, through observation, through genuine engagement."

At university in Australia, I studied culture, translation, and drama education. It was there that I began to understand culture more deeply, not as something static, but as something lived, layered, and constantly evolving.

Theatre, I realised, allows you to step into another life. To feel, even briefly, what it means to be someone else. Each person carries their own archive: a living record of history, memory, and identity shaped by where they come from.

I became increasingly drawn to language, not just as a tool, but as a bridge between worlds. And yet theatre remained the one space where something deeper could still be understood.

I later moved to the UK to continue my journey in theatre. There, I did not just study acting. I immersed myself in the full ecology of theatre: performance, theory, backstage practice, and production.

Performance

Community

I began with something simple: community work. I ran workshops for people who had never encountered theatre before, bringing strangers together in shared spaces of expression. In those rooms, language mattered less. What mattered was presence, trust, and the willingness to connect.

Through this, I met people from many different cultural backgrounds. I supported emerging artists, helped develop their work, and brought productions to theatre festivals. Over time, I founded my own theatre company.

What began as a personal response to misunderstanding grew into something larger: a platform to bring Chinese stories onto international stages.

Cultural Theatre

Public Voice

Today, I curate and produce a Chinese Culture Week at the Edinburgh Festival, bringing over ten productions to the UK each year. Each piece is a different voice, a different perspective, together forming a more nuanced, more human understanding of China.

Festival Work

On Stage

I have also represented Chinese theatre work publicly, helping Chinese cultural stories travel into international spaces with greater depth and care.

In recent years, I have also brought international artists and theatre-makers to China to create work. Almost without exception, they fall in love with the country. There is a saying I often share: you either go to China zero times, or countless times.

Because once you experience it for yourself, something shifts. When China began to gradually reopen its borders, I saw more than a policy change. I saw an invitation. That moment led to the creation of Nihao Serica.

Through it, I invite people to experience China not as tourists, but as participants, through theatre, storytelling, and lived moments. It is not about ticking off landmarks, but about slowing down to truly understand. Not about presenting a perfect version of China, but a real one.

"To travel not just across geography, but through stories."