Playing hither and zither

To make this traditional Chinese instrument better known to people in France, Peng carefully selected and arranged each song in her repertoire.

She chose to focus on traditional guzheng pieces and a number of pop songs with strong Chinese influences.

Thinking that the audience's unfamiliarity with Chinese songs might create barriers for them to better understand her performances, Peng came up with ingenious adaptations of the songs and received positive responses from onlookers.

For example, she prefaced Da Yu (Big Fish), a song from the soundtrack of a Chinese animated film, with explanations in French, briefly introducing the plot of the movie.

"A lot of people came up to me and asked me what the name of the song was, and showed their interest in the film," Peng says.

She also played Western pop songs that listeners could relate to. "Because they may have heard these songs before, they will be more interested and become more easily immersed in my performance."

Peng played the songs in a Chinese style, making use of some unique techniques for playing the guzheng, such as strumming. One YouTube user commented: "Never in a million years I would've thought that Smooth Criminal (a song by the late US pop star Michael Jackson) could be played on a Chinese traditional instrument, but she did it cleverly and beautifully."