At the beginning of my project, I intended to focus exclusively on Chinese women’s marital choices and the social and familial pressures surrounding them. My research question was rooted in the Chinese context, and I wanted my interventions to reflect the specificity of this cultural experience.
However, when I began creating the installation in the UK, I noticed something unexpected: many women from other countries expressed strong interest in participating. They wanted to try the tools, interact with the materials, and share their own reflections. Their enthusiasm made me realise that, while my project originates from a Chinese context, the themes of marriage, gender roles, and family pressure also resonate across cultures.
Allowing international participants to join brought new dimensions to my research:
- On the one hand, their responses highlighted the uniqueness of the Chinese context, because they often reacted with surprise or curiosity at certain traditions or pressures.
- On the other hand, their experiences revealed universal resonances, such as the tension between freedom and obligation, or the ambivalence of intimacy and constraint.
This shift has made my project richer. I still consider Chinese women’s experiences as the core focus, but the cross-cultural engagement provides valuable contrasts. It helps me see which parts of the marital system are culturally specific, and which struggles are shared by women globally.
For me, the most exciting aspect is that the installation becomes a shared reflective space, not only for Chinese women to reconsider their own choices, but also for international participants to step into the perspective of Chinese women and empathise with their situation. In this way, the project generates both cultural specificity and cross-cultural dialogue.
（Feedback from international participants）
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