Xiaoping Zhou was born in the Chinese province of Anhui, where he studied Fine Arts. He arrived in Australia in 1988, where he discovered the Aboriginal artistic communities of the Northern Territory, from the central desert to Arnhem Land.  He befriended a number of Aboriginal artists, including Johnny Bulunbulun, who was awarded the Red Ochre Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2004. Bulunbulun taught the bark painting technique to Zhou Xioping: their artistic collaboration was at the heart of the exhibition "Trepang: China & the story of Macassan-Aboriginal trade" presented jointly in Beijing and Melbourne in 2011, shortly after Bulunbulun's death.

This exceptional exhibition surprised the Chinese public by exploring the little-known history of the ancient trade links between Australia, Indonesia and China, based on Trepang, a delicacy prized by the Chinese for its aphrodisiac virtues - otherwise known as sea cucumber (or sea spade) - and originating from the northern coasts of Australia. The collaboration between the two artists explored various traditional media specific to the two cultures: ink on rice paper and canvas, natural pigment on bark or, as in this work, blue and white porcelain with ancestral motifs taken from Bulunbulun's paintings, presented according to Chinese tradition in a silk-enhanced case. The outside of this bowl features Chinese motifs, while the inside has an Aboriginal motif. A bowl of the same design and size features Chinese motifs on the inside and Aboriginal motifs on the outside.