Childhood
Zhang was born in the city of Guangzhou to English-translator parents who were forced, by the Chinese Cultural Revolution government, to move to the edge of Jishou, a village in the Hunan Province, soon after Zhang’s birth. In the countryside Zhang was exposed to and learned the language of ethnic minority groups like the Miao and the Tujia, and demonstrated her ability to adapt to situations where she was an “outsider.” Zhang remembers her childhood as “very peaceful and colorful,” and notes that this is where she established the foundation for her aesthetic preferences.
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