Ever since kindergarten, Liu Jing has appeared destined to be a bridge between the public and Kunqu opera, the art she loves.
An employee at her school chose her to sing a folk song with a male classmate at a community performance. But when the day came her partner fell ill and she had to perform on stage alone.
Undaunted, she won not only huge applause but also encouragement to proceed down the path of learning and performing the ancient art form. And today, at 41, even though she stepped down from the stage 10 years ago and is now a researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing, she still shows a natural flair for illustrating where its beauty lies. Her graceful gestures and facial expressions symbolise her character's persona.
'The stage may be empty, or it may have just a chair or a table,' Ms Liu said. 'When I come out and act as if I'm appreciating a peony, then you know I'm in a garden.
'When I act like this,' she said, changing her gestures and glances, 'you know I'm in a study room'.
Ms Liu was in Hong Kong as a visiting researcher on Kunqu at the Chinese Civilisation Centre of City University. She stayed for three months and returned to Beijing last month.
The origins of Kunqu opera go back to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). A forerunner of various forms of Chinese opera, it was proclaimed a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage by Unesco in 2001, and that, coupled with efforts by devout Kunqu lovers such as contemporary writer Pai Hsien-yung, has rekindled popular interest.
A renowned wu dan (someone who does female roles that involve martial skills) in Beikun, the northern variety of Kunqu that is famous for its martial scenes, Ms Liu has played various leading roles in such classical plays as The Legend of White Snake, Tian Gang Zhen and Stealing Silver From the Treasury.
Her talents have won her numerous awards, including the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre - the top artistic honour in China - in 1996.
After the early triumph in kindergarten, an opportunity finally dawned for Ms Liu. In 1978, two years after the Cultural Revolution ended, the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts recruited its first batch of students since 1974.
'At the time, my parents told me a lot of things to encourage me to go to this school to fully develop my potential,' she said.
'Although I didn't know what kind of person I would turn out to be, I just thought that it was something I wanted to do because of the applause I had received on stage during my kindergarten days.'
And so, at the age of 10, she left behind her loved ones at her home in Shandong to go to Beijing to attend the theatre school. There she underwent intensive, and often painful, training including tongzigong, which stresses the body's flexibility so that the children can practise all the difficult postures.
'For example, normal people can't raise their legs very high, but we'd have to raise it higher than our heads,' she said.
'Each day we'd attend eight lessons and had to carry out the various exercises repeatedly because we needed to be good at all elements of a drama - singing, dialogue, acting and martial arts.'
Most of the time at school was used for training their voices, their body movements and the study of various acting skills from the masters as well as preparing for public performances. But the lessons learned in school paled when compared with the lessons learned through performing, Ms Liu said.
'I was very young when I was in school, so I only had a brief idea of what the drama was about. For example, I didn't really understand the love between Lu Bu and Diao Chan [the protagonists in Romance of the Three Kingdoms]. I just imitated what the teacher did,' she said.
'My understanding of the characters gradually developed as I became older. It was then that I started to have a deeper understanding of the beauty of the various gestures - even simple gestures like drinking tea can be very beautiful - and the subtleties ... such as the gaze between Lu Bu and Diao Chan.'
Upon graduation at the age of 18, she joined the North Kunqu Opera Theatre and has played a wealth of leading roles since then.
Yet, at the peak of her performing career, Ms Liu retired to return to school in 1999 - something she said she had always wanted to do, but which proved to be more difficult in practice, especially after all the glamour of stage life.
'On stage, you're cheered by the audiences, who are so passionate towards you,' she said. 'But once you're at Peking University, you're no longer the glamorous lead actress on stage, nor the recipient of the Plum Blossom Award. I was only an ordinary student, just like everybody else, so I needed to adjust my mindset.'
But she persisted. In 2002, she graduated with a master's degree in Ming and Qing dynasty dramatic history (the period of peak popularity for Kunqu). Looking back, she says studying has not only enriched her life but also trained her to 'use her own eyes' to observe society.
Now, at the Chinese National Academy of Arts, Ms Liu teaches, conducts research and carries out some creative works on Kunqu.
On special occasions, she even goes back to the stage.
While Kunqu is still a major part of her life, she describes her work now as 'behind-the-scenes promotional work'.
'I want to make use of my stage experience to carry out research and do creative work such as writing plays and stage design,' said Ms Liu, who is now helping a group put old video recordings of classical Kunqu performances onto compact discs so that more people can learn about this ancient art form.
So which one does she prefer, being an academic or a full-time performer?
'If only one could have the time and energy to do both,' she said, flashing a smile. 'But you know, you just can't have both.'