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Artist Spotlight: The Things Longhui Zhang Carries

Five years ago,Longhui Zhangflew from China to Denton — his first time outside China. When he landed at DFW, North Texas was not what he expected. He wasn’t expecting a Hollywood Western, but this certainly didn’t look like New York or LA, either.

“Especially when you drive out from DFW area to Denton,” he recalls, “it’s nothing there, and you only see a couple cows on the farms, right? So I was like, ‘Dang, where is this place?’ It’s like a country town. It’s flatter than China!”

These days, he says, when he picks up new Chinese students at DFW, their confusion can feel familiar. “They’re all like, ‘Am I coming to wrong place? Am I making my wrong choice?'”

Read about Zhang's story of struggle, cultural confusion and the American Dream on Art&Seek. Learn about other North Texas artists in the Artist Spotlight.

Jerome Weeks is the Art&Seek producer-reporter for KERA. A professional critic for more than two decades, he was the book columnist for The Dallas Morning News for ten years and the paper’s theater critic for ten years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines.