BEIJING: Jong May Urbonya’s given English name sounds the same as her Chinese name: Zhongmei, which means China and America. The 28-year-old was born in China, and later schooled from elementary through high school in the U.S. She has now returned to China and opened her own business. “My parents want me to be a world citizen, and that is who I have grown up learning to be,” she told Beijing Review.
Her parents were teachers working in China from 1987 to 2000. Urbonya lived in China until the age of 6. It was in those years that the seeds of love for Chinese culture, especially Chinese dance, were planted.
“My sister performed Chinese dance beautifully when growing up, I looked up to her elegance. I then fell in love with it myself,” Urbonya recalls.
Urbonya’s family moved back to the U.S. in 2000, just in time for her to enter elementary school. Even while living in the U.S., Urbonya’s parents used Chinese TV shows and ancient historical dramas to keep up her Chinese language abilities. “I have a Chinese name, I needed to speak Chinese well enough to fit that name,” Urbonya said.
Watching historical dramas also produced some “side effects”: Urbonya fell in love with ancient Chinese culture and the imperial way of life. “When I was little, I would take my sheets, drape them around my arms, and walk around the house, pretending to be an ancient princess,” she said, adding that almost every little girl has a princess dream. Hers though, was not a Disney one, but rather that of a princess from imperial China.
The seeds of passion brought her back to China. In 2011, when she turned 17, Urbonya came back to Beijing for her senior year of high school to study Chinese. One year later, she enrolled in Beijing Normal University, studying Chinese dance. “I wanted to pursue my passion to the furthest extent possible,” she said.
–The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
