"I was very thin and in poor health, so my father, who knew a dance teacher, hoped that I could learn dancing as physical exercise," he recalled.

He was 11 that year. Later he was enrolled in the Beijing Dance Academy, and in 2014 he was offered scholarship after a competition in New York.

"I have several countries to choose from, among which I chose Australia, because I heard of Guo Chengwu," Xu said.

The road was bumpy. "I didn't adapt quickly, because my English was bad," Xu said. There were more than 20 students in his class of the Australian Ballet School, but only himself was Chinese.