Yikang Feng was raised in Shanghai. His grandmother was on Mao Zedong's Long March, the famous military retreat by the communists that saved them from the ruling nationalists' army.

He's now Captain Feng, on his second rotation with the Australian Defence Force to Iraq, training local forces in the fight against the so-called Islamic State.

On the 101st Anzac Day, the capability of a modern army like Australia's that battles shadowy insurgencies among civilian populations, or trains local forces who have their own intricate cultures, rests as much on understanding the world's array of peoples as it does on traditional war fighting skills.

Captain Feng is a case in point. He didn't know what Anzac Day was until he joined the Australian Army. He came to Australia at 18 to study, then became a Sydney finance trader with Macquarie Group and CommSec. He paints and plays cello.