Cleo (Zhiming) Cui is a freelance illustrator and part-time translator/editor based in Beijing. She has a background in state-run institutions, having interned at CCTV and the National Museum of China. Cleo also worked as a full-time editor at Luxopus publishing house, where she published one translation work and has another awaiting review. Spending most of her life in Beijing, she observed and gathered stories of how the younger generation adapts to the cultural and social nuances of this city and the broader “collective”. This observation led her to explore how social norms and “unspoken” criteria impact the younger generation since the founding of the PRC.

Cleo received her bachelor’s degree in art history from Pitzer College, focusing on contemporary Chinese artists in the diaspora during the 1980s. She furthered her education by obtaining a Masters degree in postwar East Asian history from Kings College London. With her writing-based background, she seeks to develop different approaches at OHMA to record and document stories, continuously exploring the formation of “popular norms” in modern Chinese society and how the youth struggles to pattern after these trends to fit in.