I'm a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Humanities, University of Westminster. My PhD research aims to demonstrate the cultural complexities of London’s Chinatown through critically examining the notion and practice of Chinatown heritage in global London. Through analysing how different people create meanings about Chinatown, my research challenges the homogenising portrait of Chinatown as a bounded urban space essentially or exclusively containing an “ethnically other” Chinese community.
Before my PhD I worked as a journalist and I wrote news stories on UK art, culture, education and business for a Chinese audience for 2 years. In the past 5 years, I have been working for China Exchange, a UK registered cultural charity, that aims to create opportunities for the UK general public to learn more about contemporary China, Chinese culture and London's Chinatown.
Xiao holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Media and Enterprises from the University of Warwick (2013) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art from SOAS University of London with distinction (2016).