She then served as a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina, where she claims to have first discovered the role that civil society can play in environmentalism.
She returned to China in 1996 and founded the non-government organization Global Village of Beijing.
[1] Her idea is to promote "a life of harmony" through reduced consumption and decreased use of harmful practices in daily lives.
She served as an environmental adviser on the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Through her role as president of Global Village of Beijing, she has produced models for green neighborhood complexes, rural communities, and organized many public awareness campaigns regarding pollution, recycling and reducing consumption.