Zhang Yadi is 22 years old, and the handful of photos of her on social media show her as an ordinary, smiling young woman. She is pictured in France standing in front of the cliffs of Etretat in Brittany, in Egypt in front of the Sphinx of Giza, and in China with her hair blowing in the wind in front of a mountain in the country's west in a Tibetan region she was especially fond of. She was a former student at ESCP Business School in Paris and was preparing to continue her studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London when she disappeared in China at the end of July.

In France, Zhang took part in a few protests against the Chinese Communist Party (PCC), but was most active online. Writing under the pseudonym "Tara Freesoul," she published several articles for the website Chinese Youth Stand for Tibet (CYST), which aims to "foster a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture within Chinese-speaking communities, challenge and deconstruct Han [Han being the majority ethnic group in China] chauvinism, and address ethnic conflicts and prejudice."

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