When Sun Shang-chi left his native Taiwan for Germany to pursue a dance career, he made sure he packed a rice cooker along with his ballet shoes, in case sausages and sauerkraut were tastes he failed to acquire.
'I couldn't cook at all. With a rice cooker, I thought I could at least have some rice,' he recalls.
Eight years on and such concerns are far behind him. Now an up-and-coming choreographer, Sun has adapted to life in Germany.
'I got very homesick in the first two years. But afterwards, everything worked out well. And I've got used to those salty, meaty German dishes,' he says.
Born in Taipei, Sun, 33, runs Berlin-based dance troupe Shangchi Move Theatre. He developed a passion for dancing when he tagged along with his actress mother to dance clubs as a child. After graduating in dance from the National Taiwan University of Art, he performed with a couple of companies in Taipei but set his sights on Germany.
'I'd never been there but it appealed to me because of great German choreographers like Pina Bausch,' he says. He worked hard to save enough money and then flew to Germany to audition for eight companies. In 2001, he joined a Nuremburg outfit.
Life was challenging as there were no Taiwanese or Chinese communities and his broken German was an obstacle. Differences in mentality also added to his frustration.