What do you want to do in your life?" 24-year-old Aly Rose was asked one day in 1996 in Texas by her mother, who was to have major surgery the next day.
"I want to pursue a master's degree in medicine or a doctorate in psychology," said the daughter.
"No, that's not what I mean. I mean, 'What do you really want to do in your life?'" said the mother.
"I want to go to China," Rose answered in a low voice as she chuckled to herself, thinking the idea may seem absurd to her mother.
"Look at me," her mother said. "I am 54. I am an educated woman and I have devoted all my life to you, your father and your brother.
"You are not married and you don't have children. You can be replaced at your job. So just follow your fantasies."
Following her fantasies, Rose sold her jewellery, car and apartment and went in China in 1996.
Seven years later, Rose, dressed like Bruce Lee and holding a sword, is living in a small alley in northwestern Beijing.
"Shall we have Hunan dishes?" she asked me in perfect Chinese. She said she had just finished a dance class.
With golden red hair and fair skin, Rose appeared to be a typical young American woman but she insisted on using her Chinese name, Luo Hongmei. "Hong as in red, Mei as in rose - as if I was born in the Chinese countryside," she laughed.
Rose is today a choreographer with the Beijing Dance Academy, the most prestigious in China. She and her students are to present a "modern folk" Chinese dance at the upcoming Spring Festival party hosted and broadcast live by Beijing Television.
They are to be dressed like the ancient terracotta soldiers and perform a traditional sword dance to the folk music of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province but with tap dance steps.
"I want to make the folk dances more interesting, sexy and in-your-face, although some of my peers don't like it and they think it's not the Chinese dance," she said. But the students are enthusiastic, Rose added.
East meets West
"I am staying in China because I want to incorporate jazz and tap dance with Chinese folk dances and create something new. It's my way of relating my past experiences as a Westerner to the dramatic changes taking place in China," Rose said.
Born in Boston, Rose majored in psychology and minored in dance at the private Claremont McKenna College in California, where she studied between 1991 and 1996.
In the summer of 1994, she made her first visit to China with a classmate.
"We lived for about a month in a village near Wuhan (capital of Central China's Hubei Province), tilled, hoed, cooked and washed the oxen with local farmers," Rose recalled. "There was no running water, no electricity, nor shower. It was extremely hot.
"But we felt wonderful, as if we were on a different planet. People were pure and the scenery was great."
Rose soon realized she was an alien on this "new planet." Having a shower in the bushes with well water, she saw the eyes of dozens of villagers peeping at her.
"Men, women, children - all of them. I was naked and extremely embarrassed, so I cried."
The villagers were curious as they had never met a foreigner before. "They saw I looked like them and I ate their food. They soon accepted me as a member of the village," she said.
Touched by the kind-hearted farmers, Rose decided to live in the countryside when she returned to China in 1996. This time, she chose to study the Chinese language at Guizhou University in suburban Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou Province.
The young woman made friends with a local couple of vendors, became the ganma (godmother) of their son and lived with the Bouyei-Miao ethnic family.
"The people in the Guizhou mountains treated me just like themselves," she said.
After 18 months in Guizhou, Rose moved to Beijing for postgraduate study in the Beijing Dance Academy, where she majored in choreography.
She was interested in Chinese modern dance at the beginning but soon felt the need to learn the folk dancing to which modern dance is related.
'Round-about' feeling
"The Chinese dances I performed used to be American in spirit. There is a 'round-about' feeling in Chinese dance, which I have only attained after years of staying in the country.
"Americans are direct. If an American woman likes a man, she will ask him for his telephone number. But, if a Chinese woman likes a man, she will say, 'I think I have met you before,' be shy, call a friend of the man, and arrange a dinner for the three of them. The whole process may take a month. That makes the feeling of 'round-aboutness.'
"I love to see Chinese women talking on mobile telephones. Holding the phone near her ear, her body waves in a 'round-about' rhythm."
Rose is moving quickly in weaving the West into the East. She has choreographed tap pieces solely using the rhythms of Tibetan dance, incorporated wushu (martial arts), Northeastern yangko and Anhui huagudeng (flower-drum lantern dance) with jazz and tap dances.
She has also performed several modern dance pieces using traditional Chinese symbols, such as the fan and Northeast Chinese handkerchiefs.
In 2000, Rose won the Lotus Cup, a most prestigious Chinese dance award, for her solo dance integrating the Northeastern yangko with modern dance.
"Many Chinese dancers, like me, do not want to solely imitate an art form, whether it be modern, ballet, classical Chinese or minority folk dances. We are not just simply dancers but creators," she said.
Rose has found her chosen career but her parents were worried when they saw her 18-month study period turn into a seven-year stay.
"I am right to be here and I will stay," said the young woman. "It feels good to stop guessing what I should become and how to do it. I have arrived."
(China Daily January 16, 2003)
