For more than a few years now Adelaide-based Chinese-Australian Xueqian (Chien) Zhang has been developing her voice through music and storytelling to spread the word about Chinese culture. Apart from involvement in festivals such as OzAsia Festival, Chien successfully presented her first Adelaide Fringe show in 2025. Since then, she was selected for the Interplay program presented by Nexus Arts, but also took a trip to Ireland for the first time. Being Chien, she couldn’t help but be interested in Irish culture, and the similarities and differences from her own.

This fascination is the heart of her offering for this year’s Fringe, Bamboo and Shamrock – When China Meets Ireland. As with last year’s show, tonight is basically a personal narration from Chien, but this time with an interesting mix of musicians giving support. Uilleann pipes, tin whistle and bodhran player Jack Brennan adds the Irish flavour, sitting next to Erhu player David Dai from the School of Chinese Music and Arts, while Keith Preston on acoustic guitar, bodhran and even bouzouki adds a further Western flavour.

The show begins with Chien explaining the Chinese tea ceremony, interesting in itself, but the link with Irish culture is a rather tenuous ‘the Irish also enjoy drinking tea.’ There is also a demonstration of Chinese calligraphy, which includes some audience participation, but again the link with Irish culture is not clear.

The crux of the show however, is the music. This includes some of Chien’s own songs, some traditional Chinese songs, and also some traditional Irish songs. What stands out immediately is how suited the Uilleann pipes and the Erhu are when combined. The music, which also includes a song sung by Keith Preston, is well received. The songs are generally gentle and reflective, until the show concludes with a traditional Irish song which has a number of people up dancing and singing along.

This meeting of different cultures is an interesting story to tell.