Dai Yin was a child when his university employed parents were displaced by the Cultural Revolution in China. He spent several years living on the China-Russia border as a farmer-soldier before leaving to live illegally in Beijing. After teaching himself English and compiling a Chinese-Australian dictionary in 1977-78, he qualified for tertiary studies completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at Beijing Teachers' College and a Master's degree in American Literature at the People's University, Beijing. He taught for two years as a lecturer at the People's University then decided to apply for postgraduate work outside China. Eventually, he was able to enrol at Murdoch University, Western Australia, where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis in 1994 on the representation of Chinese people in Australian literature. Subsequently, he has worked as a translator for an architectural firm in Western Australia.
