J.J. Cheng is a Chinese American author and cultural historian, born in Beijing into a prestigious intellectual family just before the Cultural Revolution. A former pioneering English-language broadcaster for China Central Television (CCTV), Cheng was instrumental in shaping China’s early media outreach to international audiences. Her lived experience spans three transformative decades of Chinese history, from political upheaval to economic reform. After relocating to the United States in 1988 to pursue advanced studies in TV-Film, Cheng briefly worked at CBS and later took on assignments as a translator/investigative journalist for ABC, MTV, and Discovery Channel, before founding her own PR/advertising firm, helping U.S. and international businesses enter China/Chinese markets throughout the 1990s. Building on her unique bicultural insight and media expertise, she became a bridge between East and West during a pivotal decade of global expansion and cultural exchange.

Bi-continental and bilingual, Cheng is also an award-winning intercultural filmmaker whose documentary work has received international acclaim. Her China Gold Trilogy includes CHINA GOLD RUSH (2000, PBS/WLIW21), MAMA’S GOLD: The Orphans of Shangri-La (2003), and GOLDEN LOTUS: The Legacy of Bound Feet (2006). Her later independent works include c/o BUTTERFLY: A Rhapsody of the Womb (2015) and RED FAREWELL: The Secret of Longevity (2019), both poetic meditations on memory, identity, mortality, and generational healing; Cheng has also served as an associate professor of Cinema and Television, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses in the United States and China. She holds a B.A. in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University and an M.A. in Communication Arts, TV & Film, from the University of Maryland.

Cheng turned to writing during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of documenting the fragmentation of cultural memory and the erosion of traditional values, including the dismantling of her own family heritage at the turn of the 21st century. Cheng traces her lineage all the way back to the 11th-century Neo-Confucian philosopher, Cheng Hao, excavating spiritual relics and cosmic wisdom buried for centuries. 

J.J. Cheng is the sole creator and author of PHOENIXA: The Nest,  A Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy, the first book of the PHOENIXA  Trilogy: The Nest (2025), The Flight (2026), and The Return (2027). Inspired by her grandfather Cheng Zhen Jun 程振鈞, a pioneering modernizer of the Republic of China, the trilogy blends family history, social realism with myth, fantasy, and cosmic spirituality. Cheng wrote, illustrated, and narrated the entire series. She is also the creator of CHENG LEGACY: An Ancestral Quest for Modern China, a companion documentary that retraces Cheng’s role in China’s transformation and revives long-buried spiritual and cultural memory.