Xiaoqing was born in Shanghai, China and has since lived in different cities in Asia and Europe. She is proficient in six languages: French, English, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Tibetan. 

 

Graduated with a masters degree in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies from the University of Oxford, she went on working as a fixer and stills photographer with Éric Valli (an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, National Geographic photographer) on a documentary project about the Yangtze River in China and Tibet during six months (Feb-Aug 2014).

 

She has a deep interest in China's borderlands and its ethnic minority groups. Her recent film, 'In Search of Putin's Tiger' (2015), is a 15-min documentary on the human and geographic landscapes along the Sino-Russian border. 

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Xiaoqing can be contacted via: ashamalia@gmail.com