BIO
Mrs. Xiaofan Di was born in Kunming, Yunnan province in China, where her parents were in a performance tour as members of the counter-Japanese number nine troop. She returned to Shanghai with her family at the age of two while her parents transferred to work in the movie industry. She is a Muslim, following her father, but she grew up eating pork. Xiaofan’s childhood was full of happy memories as she participated in a variety of extracurricular activities while attending schools with a high reputation. She wasn’t able to attend university but she studied food preservation at the Food Science Research Institute. However, the Cultural Revolution in 1966 changed both her and her family’s life path; she was assigned to work at the No. 10 Food Warehouse for 13 years where she met her husband who was a car mechanic. At the same time, her brothers and sisters were sent to work in the countryside. She talked about the experience and hardship her family endured during the Cultural Revolution. In 1997, her husband, her mother-in-law, and herself moved to the US and stayed in Houston ever since. Xiaofan Di has enjoyed her life in Houston. She worked in a green lab for 13 years and joined several Chinese groups in the community. She was a percussionist in a folk music group and had also been a disciple of a Fengshui Master named Xu Muping. She enjoyed the group atmosphere and believed in the power of doing good. During the ongoing pandemic, Xiaofan Di stayed in her house most of the time and she was disappointed about how the US handled COVID, thinking it was somehow similar to what happened in the Cultural Revolution. Having been through numerous turbulence throughout her life, Xiaofan Di maintained an optimistic attitude but was still uncertain about the future. Xiaofan Di and her husband have a daughter, who lives in Houston as well.