Director Tian Qinxin at a rehearsal of her latest play Romeo and Juliet. Xie Fei / For China Daily

On March 29, the other play Stunning Beauty started to tour the US West Coast. It adapts the story of a famous courtesan Sai Jinhua (starring arguably China's most popular actress Liu Xiaoqing) whose marital life influenced China's diplomatic relations with foreign countries in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The story also resonated with the Western audience. The courtesan could speak several European languages and accompanied her diplomat husband to Russia, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. When the eight-power allied force invaded Beijing in 1900, she went to negotiate with the German command.

Both the green snake and the courtesan are active and "noisy" women who are bold to pursue the life or the person they want, but Tian herself is different－passive and quiet since her youth.

Born in 1969 to a painter mother and a military father in Beijing, Tian believes her natural gift was painting. But her mother thought it would be too hard for a woman to be an artist, so she sent the 11-year-old Tian to a boarding school to learn traditional Chinese opera, which she thought fit girls better.

Obviously, the mother did not know her girl. Tian says that she really did not like performing onstage.

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