Inside the World of Miist: Music, Healing & Connection
For independent artist Miist, music is not simply an act of performance but a form of connection, an attempt to reach across emotional and cultural distance through sound. Her work blends feeling and reflection with a rare sincerity, exploring what it means to be human in an increasingly disconnected world. As the first native Chinese artist to reach Billboard’s Top 25 Adult Contemporary Chart, Miist has carved a space in global music through empathy and intention. Her song Could You Lend Me a Smile, translated into fifteen languages, has become a quiet anthem of kindness, reminding listeners that hope can begin with something as simple as a smile.
Accounting to Artistry
Before discovering her voice as a musician, Miist led a very different life. She began her career as an accountant, approaching everything with a methodical and rule-based mindset. Music entered her world unexpectedly during the pandemic, when isolation led her to experiment with piano chords on YouTube. “My husband challenged me,” she recalled. “He said, you have this incredible gift. Why don’t you explore it first before letting others teach you.”
The transition was far from easy. “I fought him for six months,” she said with a small laugh. “Then one day I sat down at the piano just to prove I could not do it and wrote three songs.” That moment, born from resistance and curiosity, became the turning point. “It showed me I do not have to learn everything first to be able to do it,” she reflected. “If it is a gift for you, you can just trust it and use it.”
That trust has guided her ever since. As an independent artist without the resources or marketing power of major labels, she values every opportunity to share her message. “Music is the only thing that can change people’s emotions in a matter of seconds,” she said. “If I can talk about something important and let people feel it through my music, that is very powerful.”
Healing Through Music
Miist’s creative awakening is rooted in empathy. The inspiration for Could You Lend Me a Smile came after she read about a young man who died alone in his apartment. “He was only 20 years old,” she said quietly. “In Asia, lonely death is becoming more common. When I read his story, I felt I had to do something.”
She wanted her song to move beyond awareness and offer an action that anyone could take. “I have heard many beautiful songs that talk about social issues,” she said. “But sometimes after listening, I do not know what I am asked to do. That is why I wanted to give people a simple solution. Smiling takes half a second. You do it for yourself, but it also helps the people around you.”
Her approach combines personal vulnerability with social purpose. She writes about loneliness, mental health and connection not from theory but from lived experience, blending moments of pain with resilience and hope. “The hope I talk about in my music is not that everything will be okay,” she explained. “It is that there will always be difficult things, but if we hold on to the goodness in humanity and in ourselves, we will make it through.”
Safe Spaces and the Roots of Creativity
Miist’s understanding of healing is inseparable from her creative process. She spoke candidly about growing up in an environment that was not always safe, yet finding brief moments of peace that sustained her imagination. “Even though my dad was abusive, I remember feeling completely safe when we sang songs together,” she said. “That is how I learned that creativity comes from feeling safe.”
Those early experiences shaped the way she writes today. “Every time I need to create, I have to feel safe,” she said. “I often write in very private spaces, like a closet or bathroom, somewhere I can be completely alone. That is where I can connect with what I truly feel.”
Her songwriting often begins with a story or emotion that she inhabits fully. “Because I am not formally trained to compose, the only way I know how to write music is through emotions,” she explained. “I put myself into the story as one of the characters and feel what that person would feel.”
The Language of Connection
Miist’s multilingual approach to songwriting reflects her belief that art can bridge cultures. Translating Could You Lend Me a Smile into fifteen languages was not just a creative decision but an experiment in empathy and understanding. “We told every lyric adapter, please do not translate. Adapt it culturally,” she said. “Some phrases that make sense in English do not mean anything in other languages, so we wanted each version to feel natural to the people who would sing and hear it.”
The process was meticulous. “We found three independent lyric adapters for each language,” she said. “They did not know about one another, and then local speakers combined the best parts. The singers had the final say, because they needed to feel the message deeply in their own hearts.”
Not every language worked. “There were two we had to give up,” she said. “In one, people said, we are not lonely. We were happy for them. That is the point of connection, to understand how different cultures experience emotion.”
Collaboration and Creative Purpose
Collaboration has been central to Miist’s artistic growth. Working with musical legends such as Carlos Santana and Curtis Williams taught her that true creativity comes from openness and feeling. “Santana still talks in the language of music,” she said. “He can be in a conversation and suddenly pull out a song that fits. He stays focused on music because it is what keeps his creativity alive.”
From Curtis Williams, she learned the importance of emotional sensitivity. “Every tiny thing touched him,” she said. “He would have tears in his eyes from a small story and then walk straight to the piano. That taught me that creativity comes from feeling life fully. If you let yourself feel deeply, you will never run out of inspiration.”
Miist believes independent artists have a unique role in keeping this authenticity alive. “Independent musicians explore humanity in their music because they have more freedom,” she said. “When artists are controlled by labels, that freedom is harder to find. But music that comes from honesty always connects with people.”
Loneliness in the Digital Age
For Miist, the modern world’s disconnection is both the subject of her work and the challenge she tries to mend through it. “Loneliness does not mean being alone,” she said. “It means being disconnected.” She sees social media as a major cause of this divide. “It promises connection but gives us one-way communication,” she explained. “Every click gives us a little dopamine hit, but it leaves us emptier. People spend hours scrolling and afterwards feel worse than before.”
On her podcast, she explores this idea further, offering simple, daily ways to reconnect with the world. “Each episode I suggest something anyone can do in under fifteen seconds,” she said. “Smile at someone. Say a kind word. Call someone and just tell them you love them. That one call can make someone feel good for a month, and it helps you too.”
The Legacy of Love
Today, Miist continues to use her voice to promote empathy and well-being. Her ongoing Smile Project focuses on mental health and the power of small gestures to create real change. Next year she will launch The Love Project, a continuation of that mission. “It is not about saying everything will be okay,” she said. “It is about knowing there is a way through.”
For Miist, success is not defined by fame or numbers but by resonance. “Music can change people’s emotions in seconds,” she said. “If I can talk about what matters, sing it, and let people feel it, that is success.”