Early life[ edit ] Bai was born in Chengdu. In the early s, Bai Ling's parents divorced, and her mother married the renowned writer Xu Chi. Bai has described herself as a very shy child who found that she best expressed herself through acting and performing. During the Cultural Revolution β , she learned how to perform by participating in eight model plays , at her elementary school shows.
After her graduation from middle school, Bai was sent to do labor work at Shuangliu , in the outskirts of Chengdu. In , after graduating from high school, she passed the People's Liberation Army's exams, and became an artist soldier in Nyingchi Prefecture , Tibet. Her main activity there was entertaining in the musical theater. She also served briefly as an Army nurse.
Ling later stated that during her time in Tibet she, along with other female performers, was regularly plied with alcohol and sexually abused by older male officers, including one instance of rape that led to a pregnancy she aborted.
She cites this period of sexual abuse for her subsequent struggles with alcohol addiction. Soon after her release from the hospital, in , Bai joined People's Art Theater of Chengdu, and became a professional actress.
In later years, she appeared in several movies. She temporarily moved to New York in to attend New York University 's film department as a visiting scholar, but later obtained a special visa that allowed her to remain in the United States until she became a U.
