acting career in San Mateo in supporting roles in the College of Notre Dame's yearly performance of 'A Christmas Carol', the story of Scrooge, which she performed in for three years. In 1997, Meilin began an association with the San Mateo Performing Arts Group, with roles in the musicals 'Wizard of Oz', and 'The King & I', where she first came under the tutelage of professional actors and actresses. By 2000, Meilin had begun her early singing career, establishing a local singing group composed of school friends, which she called 'Mestere', a name which she later used for her record company. Relocating to China Meilin's parents' connection with China meant that Meilin visited her family there periodically throughout her childhood, exposing her to Chinese music and culture early on. In 2002, while visiting family in China, Meilin decided she wanted to take one semester at a Chinese school to become more familiar with the Chinese language and culture. Her father and mother were considering moving the family to China for business reasons, so Meilin moved over first, followed up a few months later by her entire family. She attended Nanjing Experimental Middle School, then relocated to Beijing, where she attended Bei Da Experimental School, and later a special music program focused on classical guitar at a public high school in the Haidian District of Beijing. Chinese competitions In late 2005, Meilin entered her first singing competition in China, the citywide 'New Youth Singer's' competition in the city of Tianjin. By week-long TV call-in voting, Meilin was chosen by viewers as the top 'New Entertainer' among the original 800 competitors. Following her success in various city-level singing competitions, in late 2005, Meilin began hosting 'Vantage Point', a 26-episode half-hour television series, presenting Chinese traditional arts and crafts to Chinese audiences, in the Mandarin language. During the taping of one of these shows, Meilin was introduced to the Chinese traditional gourd flute known as the 'hulusi', which she and her younger sister then learned well enough to perform a duet, winning first place on (BTV) Beijing Television's 'Arts of Our Land' international talent competition in early 2006. Meilin then entered CCTV's 'Xing Guang Da Dao' Star Search, winning both weekly and monthly competitions. During 2006–2007 Meilin performed in over 60 shows, both as a solo artist and with her sister Suelin.Meilin was invited by the Chinese folk singer 'A Bao' to perform