When people emigrate, they usually do it with the hope of enjoying a lucrative career. For Hong Kong-born Kara Wenham, 29, she has achieved neither more money nor a better standard of living, but has realised a passion. Daughter of a British-born Chinese mother and English father, Wenham says she's the only Chinese woman teaching tango in Argentina - the home of the dance - and is here for six weeks to show us how it's done.
'It's interesting to come back to where I was born to teach tango,' she says. 'The close embrace at first seems a little daunting and intimidating, but once people get into it, I think they find it's rather nice. It's attractive to Chinese people because it requires them to connect. I think it opens up another world, an interior world. It's a
visceral experience.'
Wenham's family emigrated to Manhattan Beach, California, when she was eight. She says moving there from Bradbury Junior School on Stubbs Road was a shock, especially as she had to leave behind her closest school friend - a girl who remains her best friend today.
'It was all surfers, roller blades and bikinis. It was unbelievably different to Hong Kong,' she says of her new home.
Graduating from Emerson College, in Boston, where she studied drama, the actress moved to Chicago where she set up the Concrete Stage Company. Her father, hooked on the tango, spent a year trying to persuade her to give it a try. 'I said are you joking? I was an actress. I had a theatre company. I had no idea what the Argentine tango was. I thought of the rose in the mouth and it looked a bit ridiculous to me.'