LONDON — Lululemon is further tapping into the Chinese market’s unique take on well-being and cultural sensibility by pairing renowned American Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma with its latest brand ambassador actor Zhu Yilong, as well as city dwellers and ice dancers, for a spring rendezvous that celebrates the extraordinary within the everyday.
The Canadian sportswear brand continues its fast-growing trajectory in China even as it struggles in the U.S. It has been leveraging the festive holiday as a key brand communication moment with campaigns that explore the different facets of well-being for consumers in China.
Lululemon’s 2024 “Be Spring” campaign partnered with Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh and eight dancers from the stage performance Wing Chun.
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Having collaborated with celebrities such as Michelle Yeoh and Chris Lee in the past few years, the brand becomes more philosophical for the Year of the Horse, exploring the beauty of and achievement gained from repetition for all walks of life with the short film “Spring Repeats, Yet It’s Always New.”
The film begins with Ma playing Bach’s Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major by a tranquil lake. It is followed by scenes of Zhu rowing on a river, ice dancers Junfei Ren and Jianing Xing forming perfect circles on the rink, dog walkers strolling across a bridge and commuters in between.
In an exclusive interview, Ma said the Bach number, which he has been playing since the age of four, is never just a piece of music as “it represents infinitude, the idea of repetition and constant change.”
In many ways, the arrival of spring, according to Ma, carries a similar resonance. “What I love about spring is that it always comes back. And each time, it’s new. In repetition, we find and feel the extraordinary within the ordinary. That’s the coded message spring sends to us,” he added.
While music feeds into his soul, Ma said he has also found rewards in daily exercise, which helps him stay in shape at 70.
“I try to stretch in the morning and do 50 push-ups, and I practice breathing slowly to change my state of mind whenever I need to during the day,” Ma told WWD, adding that he also swims during the summer and goes to gyms in the winter.
Given his intense traveling schedule, Ma said he manages to maintain posture and muscle strength through awareness. In the first half of 2026 alone, Ma has more than 24 performances across the U.S. lined up.
“I sit so much for traveling, playing and rehearsing that it’s important to do things that are not sitting at other times. I do move around a lot because of the places I go,” added Ma, who has received 19 Grammy Awards.
Having grandchildren helps, too, Ma quipped.
“I’ve heard that it is almost impossible for an adult to mimic all the actions of a child during the day, because it would be so exhausting — just being around my grandchildren is a great incentive to move,” the musician continued.
While Ma was born in Paris and later grew up in Boston and New York City, the Eastern concept of well-being, which was explored in great length in a recent report by Tsinghua University, has been influencing his way of life from a young age.
“I like to think that for a living thing to stay alive, it has to be in a kind of homeostasis: that is, a state comparable to the very delicate equilibrium that needs to exist in nature for life to exist at all. We see this need for balance in nature and throughout human culture,” Ma said.
“For example, I practiced calligraphy as a child, an art where the different strokes, density, lightness, and speed all need to be balanced, but with enough asymmetry for a character to be alive. And this is also true in classical musical form, where it is the combination of symmetry with just enough asymmetry that makes a piece of music come alive,” he added.
For the upcoming spring festival, which lands on Feb. 17, Ma said he is looking for advice on how to pass on the traditions of spring to his grandchildren.
“Part of the change of years and seasons is about fitting ourselves into a larger universe and story. For those of us here today, this might mean showing gratitude to ancestors who have passed, while offering food to people around us as a show of thanks,” Ma added.
“And there is also the important idea of reset. When we’re starting another year, we clean our house — but metaphorically, we also clean our brains. We give ourselves a restart in context, not denying anything that has happened before, but also being able to look forward with fresh hope and goodwill,” he continued.
As for his Year of the Horse resolution, Ma said he would like to “try to be on time” for every appointment.
