Written by Zihan Chen, Class of 2026; Edited by Chi Zhang & Harper Chen
“What does it mean to live, strive, and dream as a rural woman on the move?”
On November 1-2, 2025, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative (InE), in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Contemporary China (CSCC), hosted The Life of Mulan Flower, an interdisciplinary game-theater workshop that explored the lived experiences of rural migrant women in China, supported by 6 DKU student volunteers. The workshop was organized by the Mulan Community Service Center, a non-profit social service organization dedicated to supporting female migrant workers in Beijing since 2010.
Each session of the two-day workshop began with an exhibition area where participants were invited to explore videos, songs, and creative works produced by female migrant workers (“Mulans”) whose stories inspired the workshop. The exhibition also displayed life narratives and collections that carried the weight of struggle, love, perseverance, and hope, offering a deeply human context for the game-theater workshop that followed. Through these artistic expressions, participants could get a glimpse of the emotional and social realities behind the statistics, policies, and stereotypes surrounding migrant women.
The workshop then guided participants through a game-theater experience combining role-play, group interaction and chance-driven incidents. Each participant assumed the identities of migrant women and navigated through four critical life stages— education, labor, marriage, and childbirth—while facing systemic constraints and social inequalities. By stepping into these roles, participants moved beyond passive observation and immersed themselves deeply in the emotional and structural realities of rural women’s lives. The experience culminated in a powerful moment when it was revealed that each character had a real-life counterpart, prompting silence, reflection, and emotional resonance among participants.
The Mulan Community Service Center also introduced its ongoing work—creating community spaces, cultural hubs, and educational programs for migrant women and their children. Through these initiatives, Mulan seeks to promote gender equality, social integration, and empowerment for women adapting to urban life.
The Life of Mulan Flower workshop left participants with a renewed awareness of the strength, complexity, and resilience behind the lives of countless migrant women. Beyond stories of hardship, the experience revealed creativity, hope, and the quiet determination that sustains women navigating change and inequality.
Through initiatives like The Life of Mulan Flower, the CSCC and InE continue to support creative and socially engaged projects that connect research with real-world experience. By amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and fostering spaces for dialogue and empathy, such programs help build a more inclusive understanding of China’s contemporary transformations—one story, one life at a time.
