At the Jooss-Leeder Dance School, Dai met her long-time love, an Austrian-British sculptor whom she never married but loved all her life, accompanying him for a year in London.

Never learning to speak Chinese in Trinidad and knowing little about Chinese culture, Dai envied those Chinese students in London and made friends with them to learn Chinese. With a desire to connect with her roots, she borrowed the English versions of Chinese history books from the Great Britain Library.

Fascinated by the story of Yang Guifei, the favourite concubine of Emperor Xuanzong in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), she choreographed a solo performance called "Yang Guifei" in 1936 according to the stories and her own imagination.

  A dancing swallow in the flames of war

After Japan launched its aggressive war against China in 1937, Dai took part in benefit performances organized by the China Campaign Committee in London to raise funds for the Hong Kong-based China Defense League, headed by Soong Ching Ling, wife of Sun Yat-sen.

Then came a turning point in the dancer's life. By chance, Dai read Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China , which made her decide to return to China. With the help of Soong, Dai arrived in Hong Kong in 1940 and soon fell in love with the noted painter Ye Qianyu.

After she arrived in the city of Guilin via Macao, she found to her surprise that such a large country had no place for artistic dance performances. Many people thought that she was a dance- hostess in bars when they heard she was a dancer. Some people even thought "dancer" was another name for a prostitute. She realized the reason for the lack of dance in China was the absence of brave pioneers to make it popular, besides the obvious reasons related to society and history. Since she was a red-blooded youth, she decided to face the difficulties and blaze new trails. 

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