With a career spanning film, music and live performance, the Chinese actor and singer is eager to keep pushing his boundaries.

“<a href="https://www.hommessingapore.com/culture/mikah-on-his-latest-music-project-solo-journey-and-being-a-budding-fashion-icon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Music</a> is a language. It allows your thoughts to travel to places you can’t physically reach. Thanks to the Internet, it can now cross cultures and borders,” says Zhang Zhehan on how he understands the medium. “When I perform live and see the response from audiences in different countries, it feels like recognition. It’s also motivation, pushing me to explore further, perhaps to create more English songs or share <a href="https://www.hommessingapore.com/living/traditional-chinese-medicine-steps-into-the-academic-spotlight" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chinese culture</a> with a wider audience.”
For Zhang, boundaries are never as fixed as they seem. Some are shaped by history, others imposed by the self. “If you think about national borders, they’ve constantly shifted over time, often affected by mountains and rivers,” he says. Lately, the actor and singer has been engrossed in Shi Zhan’s “Rivers and Mountains and History”, a lecture tracing the evolution of Chinese civilisation alongside geological change. It has sharpened a belief he has long held: that landscapes may define regions, but culture is what gives those boundaries meaning. Travelling makes him acutely aware that borders are both physical realities and collective human invention.

The boundary that preoccupies him most, however, is far more intimate: the one between the outer world and inner self. “There are moments when the line between the external and internal begins to blur,” he says. This is especially the case in the age of the Internet and AI, where reality takes on increasingly complicated forms. A video appears online and viewers are left questioning its origins until it is labelled accordingly. Even real events now demand scrutiny. “That kind of uncertainty inevitably seeps into your inner world as well,” he reflects.
This question of reality lies at the heart of August, the 2024 documentary Zhang made as a reminder — to others as much as to himself — to remain present in a world that can still be touched, seen and felt. “We rely so heavily on our phones and computers now that we risk losing touch with what’s tangible,” he says, his thoughts drifting back to childhood, before technology became fixtures of daily life. Back then, “play” meant marbles, sandbags and racing through the neighbourhood. “There was a mountain behind where we lived, and we would dig up sweet potatoes and roast them ourselves,” he recalls.
Those memories carry significance because so many children today grow up with a different experience, one moulded by iPads, phones and online conversations. They may never know what the person on the other end looks like, or whether the voice even belongs to them. In retrospect, the pandemic made face-to-face connection feel essential again. “Being able to meet people offline and feel that direct exchange of energy is incredibly meaningful,” Zhang affirms.

Words JOHN NG and JOSHUA PANG Photography NAM JIANG Creative direction and styling COLIN SIM Grooming RICH

Read the full interview in our August 2026 issue, available at selected major bookstores in Singapore, as well as online at <a href="https://www.magzter.com/SG/AMTD-Digital-Media-Solutions/LOFFICIEL-HOMMES-Singapore/Mens-Interest/All-Issues" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.magzter.com</a>.
For magazine orders online, visit <a href="https://u.jd.com/fatHdsb">https</a><a href="https://13media.vip/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://13media.vip/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1784676345791000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1VAkZhZ1gq3MKXEAx4BI1c" rel="noopener">https://13media.vip/</a>.

Cover Story: Zhang Zhehan is a Man of Many Talents

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