Pearl Zhi Ping Chen was born in Beijing, China in 1950. In 1966 at Grade Eight, her formal middle school education stopped and in 1968 she was sent to a village in Inner Mongolia as a farm labor. Then she became an English teacher in a middle school in Baotou, China. After twelve years in Inner Mongolia, she returned to Beijing in 1980, and in 1990 she left China. At present, she is living in Edmonton, Alberta, and working for the government of Alberta.