XIN CHENG | It was in Peter’s kitchen that my eyes opened. A spring day in 2006, I visited Peter in the Auckland suburbs to brew a plan of making Captain Cook’s Manuka Beer (the story was that they improvised with local ingredients after surviving a long journey from England). In his rented flat, beside the cooking stove, I saw vistas of alpine prairies…
XIN CHENG | The last three months of 2015, I lived on a trash mountain. I thought I was going to an eco-park. The morning after my arrival, I walked out of where I had slept, and discovered a giant dome building, a huge chimney, trucks coming in, and a blinking board of what looked like toxic chemicals with numbers beside them…
XIN CHENG | One night in May 2016 in a park in Western Tokyo, I made myself comfortable in between sheets of cardboard. There were high wind in the trees above. I felt the ground move powerfully under me, like riding a giant worm…
XIN CHENG | After a delayed flight and a long queue at the customs, I barely caught the last train, arriving at Yume Nomad some time after midnight. Opening the door was Hiro, ‘You must be Xin! Welcome!’ and gave me a big hug like an old friend. Then there was Mayumi, ‘the boss’ – as Hiro jokingly…
XIN CHENG | Early 2015, I performed for MAU/Lemi Ponifasio’s I AM at Aotea Centre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival. It was an intense and transformative experience. For a start, I was grateful for having been included as a volunteer, despite being an amateur to the world of performance (I had only started getting my toes wet…