Love saw world ballet great Li Cunxin become a political asylum seeker and again it was love that brought him to Australia.
Now best known as Mao’s Last Dancer, thanks to his bestselling autobiography and the resulting film, Cunxin is the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet, one of only three classical companies in Australia.
From a childhood in a desperately poor farming family in Communist China, he now feels as much Australian as he does Chinese.
“China plays an important part in my early formative years but having said that, besides my Chinese language or celebrating Chinese traditional holidays, and the fabulous values my parents taught me, a lot of my thinking is very free and not restricted to Confucius, Mao, or Chinese values, per se,” Cunxin said.
“You can learn from each other, from different cultures, different races, of their wonderful values, not just food, clothes, fashion, language but this wonderful essence of values, wonderful traditions, and learn from and respect them.”
But Cunxin is also happy to let some traditions go.
“Li is my last name, but in China the last name comes first so a lot of people in the Western world think Li is my first name and I’m perfectly at peace with that,” he said.
“My parents gave me the name ‘Cunxin’, which means, ‘keep your honesty and innocent heart’, and I try to obey by that, live by the nobility of that name.
“Cunxin has the spelling C-U-N-X-I-N. If you have the Western pronunciation… it doesn't sound right.
“Li is much simpler and Li is beautiful too, and proud too, and Li is my family heritage, so it's not wrong.”
At age 11 he was taken from his rural village faraway to Madame Mao’s Beijing Dance Academy, the first step to his international stardom.
“Communism played a major part in my upbringing, even the colour red evokes a violent emotion today,” he said.
“I do owe the communist system that incredible disciple it taught me, the work ethic and the rare opportunity to got out of the deep well, see the big world, see the possibilities in my life for the first time.”
Seven years later in 1979, the teenaged Cunxin was sent on exchange from Beijing to the Houston Ballet in the United States.
He fell in love with fellow dancer Elizabeth Mackey and his defection two years later was an international sensation.
“I can't imagine living a life without love, without love would be like living in a world without colour, without air, without oxygen, without water,” he said.
The love for his second wife and mother of his three children Mary Li (nee McKendry) brought him to Australia in 1995 and he became the principal dancer at the Australian Ballet for three years.
Cunxin has been back to China regularly to see his parents and six brothers. He was Australian Father of the Year in 2009.
“My children love China, especially the big capital cities, Shanghai, Beijing and they feel alive when they go back because China is emerging, happening, changing so quickly," he said.
“The only thing I would like my children not to experience is communists, the communism.”
“I would like them to know what it’s all about, through reading, but never have the experience of the restrictive hard life. On other hand, I sometimes think harsh life wouldn’t do them any harm.”
For Cunxin, it also equipped him to be a successful stockbroker before he had rejoined the ballet world with his current job four years ago.
“How marvellous to come back to art I love so much,” he said.
“Sometimes I wonder how a devoted Communist, obedient to Mao, would get into the game of money and make as much as possible. Where did that come from?” he asks himself.
“The reason I went into stockbroking was a childhood dream to make enough money to help my family back in China and for my own children to be educated.”
While happy in Australia, he still longs for his family and sensations of his youth in China.
“You miss those kind of odd things, you miss the Chinese holidays, the traditions, the dumplings for Chinese New Year, the long life noodles for your birthday, things like that.”
The three-part documentary 'DNA Nation' premieres on SBS on Sunday 22 May at 8.30pm, and afterwards on SBS On Demand.
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