I do get around. Geographically, that is.

Is it an original idea? Or is it something where you’re literally a creative collagist? You’re taking pieces of the world that you see around you and that are inside of you and put them together in a way that you see fit.

I’ve noticed that the more I open up, the more I learn.

I’m, I guess you could say, the Chinese-speaking, banjo-picking girl.

I believe in the old, because it shows us where we come from – where our souls have risen from. And I believe in the new, because it gives us the opportunity to create who we are becoming.

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty and it's not what it is for me.

In some ways, in the U.S. we don't know how to be. I think in a lot of ways America is about liberation and about change and progressive human relations. And because of that, I feel like that we're confused about who we're supposed to be and what it is that's supposed to satisfy us and make us feel fulfilled.

In some ways, my most comfortable feeling has been that of being an outsider coming in, but over the years I've tired of that and I'm ready to feel at home. That's what music gives me: a feeling of absolute home.

I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.

In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.