Summary
âž¡ Shenyon tours, which use buses across the country, have been targeted by vandals, leading to the need for constant security. Despite the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Biden administration has not taken significant action to protect their civil rights. However, both the Trump and Biden administrations have sanctioned specific Chinese officials for their actions against Falun Gong. The speaker hopes for more government recognition of the threat posed by the CCP, not just abroad, but also domestically in the U.S.
âž¡ The New York Times has been accused of ignoring the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government, and instead focusing on discrediting the group and its related practices, such as Shen Yun. This is seen as problematic, as it aligns with the Chinese government’s propaganda against Falun Gong. The motivation behind this is speculated to be the New York Times’ support for a globalist movement led by China. This issue is part of a larger problem of the Chinese government’s control and persecution of groups it cannot control, which is predicted to eventually lead to its downfall.
âž¡ The text discusses the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, highlighting the use of the social credit system to monitor and control them. It also mentions the resistance within China, with some officials refusing to participate in the persecution. The text further explores the Falun Gong’s active resistance, their belief in standing up against the perceived evil of the Chinese Communist Party, and their lack of formal association with other persecuted groups. Lastly, it touches on the accusations of Falun Gong being a money-making scheme, which the author refutes.
âž¡ The Shen Yun organization, a performing arts company, is self-funded and doesn’t rely on corporate sponsors or donations. The ticket prices for their shows vary depending on the venue and seating, but are generally affordable compared to other concerts. Despite not performing for a year and a half due to COVID, they didn’t let any of their staff go. The organization also supports a school where every student is on full scholarship. The main goal of their performances is to educate and inspire people about traditional Chinese culture and the Falun Gong story, not to make money.
âž¡ The text discusses a show called Shen Yun, which the speaker highly recommends. The speaker, Levi Brody, encourages people to visit the show’s website, Shenyun.com, for more information. He also expresses gratitude for the opportunity to share his experiences and wishes luck to all viewers.
Transcript
They could take your money. You’re number two. You’re in secondary. You’re an unsecured creditor and I would not leave my nest egg with any bank right now. Noble Gold can get your retirement out of your bank, put it under your control, back it with precious metals. It’s completely viable. Hello, I’m a seven and a half year customer multiple times over. Let Noble Gold fix it for you. Go to Dave Hodgesgold.com that’s DaveHodgesgold.com leave your email and I’ll rush you out a free information packet with Noble Gold’s number on it. And I promise you, you have to literally close your own deal.
I was shocked the first time I did business with them, but that’s the way they operate. Best people I’ve ever worked with for integrity. But don’t leave your nest egg in the bank, please, I beg you. We’re in the red zone right now. Well, we have a terrific show coming up here. We’re going to be talking about something. If you followed me for any length of time, you know, I’ve had Chris Kitc on the show talking about the Falun Gong and the abuse of the ccp. And we’re going to take a slightly different look at this also from a journalistic point of view.
And we’ve got a really, really tough topic here. Here as my system fades, let me click it. Okay, we’re good. We have Levi Brodeon and Levi’s going to talk to us about Shen Yun, the New York Times, the CCP and how a leopard never changes its spots. And I’m talking about the New York Times and the ccp. Levi is a first time guest. Levi, welcome to the show. I’m glad to have you on. This is a topic that’s important to me because my friend Chris made it important to me. I have all the respect for the people in the Shen Yun organization.
The abuse that these people that suffer in China, the organ Transplants and so forth. It’s, it’s one of the, it’s not the worst human rights abuse on the planet right now. So thank you for coming on and talking about it. I’m going to let you tell a little bit about your background, what got you interested, and then I want to jump into the topic. Sure. Again, thank you very much for having me. It’s great to be able to talk to people about this issue. It’s, it’s obviously very important. So my background, I’m a software entrepreneur, which means I’m just a computer nerd.
Did that for 20, 25 years. But while I was doing that, one day one of my best friends from Beijing came into the office and said his mother was gone. And that was kind of my foray into the whole world of the Falun Gong Buddhist based spiritual practice, how it was being persecuted in China. And I started volunteering my time and dedicating my life to that human rights cause. And then that evolved when both of my sons who started in the training program for Shenyan and started dancing for Shenyan. And so I’ve been working very closely with that organization for many, many years and watching how what is essentially a great American story, a great American company, it was founded here by first generation immigrants working very hard.
They built up Shenyan, created into a global phenomenon. And now we’re watching the CCP and all its tentacles and influence targeting that company, trying to shut it down, trying to sabotage it, certainly in the United States and around the world. And so that’s sort of how I come into the picture, Levi, is this is what’s behind the appearance of the CCP police stations inside of America? Well, it’s related, it’s interesting. If you look at, you know, the indictment for the two guys that were trying to run a Beijing police station in Manhattan, some of the detail line items of that indictment say that they’re trying to go after Falun Gong.
And that’s not new to us. But it was interesting, interesting to see the indictment because in every single diplomatic mission all around the world, certainly in the United States, there are people or peoples in the Chinese embassy whose sole job is it to try and malign and silence Falun Gong. And so these guys, while they were trying to set up a Beijing police station to do all kinds of nefarious things, one of their jobs was to go after Falun Gong. Wow. You know, I’ve, I’ve asked my friend Chris this question and I still don’t know that I understand the answer.
We’re looking at people, it’s almost like meditation. It’s theatrical, it’s athletic. What possible threat to any regime could these wonderful people serve? Well, we have to start with the Falun Gong itself, right? So the spiritual practice was widely popular in China in the 1990s. I mean, it was everywhere. 100 million people, that’s one out of every 13 people in the country were practicing the spiritual practice. Again, very sort of heartland Chinese, very. It grew out of the traditional culture of China, very Buddhist, sort of in nature. The problem was numbers. By 1999, the Chinese government said, okay, there’s 100 million people practicing.
That’s way more people than were in the Communist Party. Crush it. And so for the last 25 years, simply because of the size, but also because the spirituality represented a challenge to the Marxist view which the Communist regime had been trying to push down the throats of Chinese people for decades, along comes Falun Gong. It’s really a spiritual renaissance of the country. And so because of the size, because of its principles, they started a campaign to crush it. And that’s been going on for 25 years. Mass detention, torture, death from torture, forced organ harvesting. Move over to the United States, and you have a small group of Falun Gong practitioners who were artists.
They started Shen Yun. And the whole point of Shen Yun was beyond just the Falun Gong issue. It was, let’s revive this traditional spiritual culture of China. Let it not die from the face of the earth the Chinese regime was trying to crush. Let’s build a company where we can share that culture with the world. And part of that sharing that culture is to tell the real story of modern China, show the tyranny of the ccp. Show them going after Falun Gong and the resilience of the Falun Gong practitioners. But that’s not the only part of the show.
It’s really showing the totality of Chinese culture. Well, that’s a threat to the Chinese regime. It’s a threat because it exposes what they’re doing to Falun Gong. And it’s a threat because it shows that the real Chinese culture is something that the Chinese regime had tried to crush, and that the Chinese regime is not the legitimate ruler or shepherd of the Chinese nation, its people, or its culture. And so for that reason, while the Chinese regime is trying to go after the Falun Gong diaspora, overall, it makes a specific, very target of Shenyun to. To shut that.
That company down. I’m still baffled, because if I’m the leader of a country, if I’m Xi Jinping and I look at all the wonderful things that are in my country, I would want that on display. It’s great pr and it destroys the image going back to the days of Mao about how abusive the Chinese government is. I think it’s an antidote that would serve as good propaganda. If you were a moral leader with a healthy vision for your nation, your people, I think that’s exactly what you would conclude. And, but because of the way the Chinese regime has run the country there, Shenyan really could only be done in the United States.
So it’s sort of counterintuitive that here in America, Made in America, as an American company, you have something that is more authentically Chinese than anything you can find in China today. Well, Levi, I know you’re the executive director of the Fallon Data Information Center. Are you getting direct interference from the ccp? Absolutely. And on multiple fronts. And so we’ve studied, you know, most of our work at this nonprofit has been studying the persecution in China. But as the CCP’s aggression overseas has expanded, we’ve been looking at that. And they are throwing the kitchen sink at Falun Gong and Shenan at this point, anywhere from engaging their Chinese spies to incur lawfare here in our courts against Falun Gong practitioners.
And Falun Gong practitioners started companies, they’re baiting and in one case, trying to bribe U.S. officials to open investigations against Shenyon and Falun Gong. And then there’s just basic thuggery. We’ve had people beaten up all over the country. Are the buses. Here’s, here’s an example. The buses that Shenyon tours with, they usually use buses all throughout the country. We have to have guards 24, 7 to watch them because they were slashing the tires and vandalizing the braking system. And so that’s another aspect of, I mean, there’s, it’s sort of a, a very much a kitchen sink approach to try and silence us by the CCP right here in America.
And I’m going to make a broad assumption. The Biden administration hasn’t lifted a finger to protect the civil rights of the Falun Gong. You know, I, I think the American government is 10, 12 years behind the curve on this. And I think there’s a variety of factors. For the first time in this 25 year history, for the first time in the first Trump administration, they started sanctioning specific Chinese officials for persecuting Falun Gong. Now the Biden administration actually continued that. And where they were sort of sanctioning it, where they are copying What Trump was doing, where they were doing that out of their own accord, it’s hard to say, but that’s really just a tiny, tiny fraction of trying to hold the Chinese regime account and perhaps is equally important trying to protect American people and American interests and American companies from.
From this transnational oppression where the CCP uses its influence, uses its political clout to come after us right here in our own country, in many cases Americans. And so I think that’s another aspect where our government really needs to step up and recognize the nature of that threat and how that threat manifests. You think it’ll be any different under Trump? I do hope so, and I think the trajectory is that way. I think there were some, again, there were some things we’ve never seen before under the first Trump administration. These sanctions, looking at Chinese companies that were clearly helping the People’s Liberation army and had military applications and getting them off.
Our stock exchanges are recognizing that. I think the awareness of what the CCP is really doing in the threat, both domestically and abroad, is only going up. And I think with the new administration, that’s going to get better and better, but they have a lot to catch up on, a lot to catch up on. How do you reach out to them? Is that part of your role? I assist on that. We, our role is mainly analysis and reports and sort of understanding the facts and figures of what’s happening in China, what’s happening in the US and so we know, you know, for example, we have grassroots volunteers that are knocking on doors of Congress that are trying to reach out to people, the Department of State, and help them understand this issue.
So it is very much a grassroots effort, and we’re part of that. Okay, well, I’m glad to hear that. I. I don’t see. But Trump has a balancing act. He needs to bring China into compliance with return of American manufacturing. I think he has a decision to make an issues like this, how far he’s willing to go, and that would just be my guess on how he would look at this. But I also, you look at the nature of Donald Trump, he seems to like the underdog, you know. Yeah, he does. And, and to his credit, I mean, he was the first.
He was the first president that had a Falun practitioner into the Oval Office with the cameras rolling, shook her hand, heard her story, and, you know, wasn’t the one. There were the Uyghurs there. There were other people there as well. And so that was very encouraging because I think we need more of that because that’s the One thing, the ccp, I mean they, so much of their regime is built on a narrative, a lie, but a narrative that, that they are the legitimate rulers of that country and, and convincing the world that they’re the legitimate rules of that country when really, you know, communism came from Germany.
Right. That’s an import. Has nothing to do with China and Chinese culture. They seize power and it’s been nothing but death and destruction pretty much since they took power. So I do think it, it does appear that President Trump, I think, is sympathetic and understands that. But hopefully, as importantly, he understands that this is not just some far off distance, China only issue because of what the CCP is doing domestically here to Americans on U.S. soil. This is a real issue right here in America. Because the people that are performing in Shen Yun are illegal immigrants or citizens, correct? Yeah, a lot of them are citizens or legal immigrants.
And you know, this again, this is sort of like we’ve had so many problems with the southern border and all kinds of horrific immigration problems. This is the group, this is the kind of group we want. Everybody came here legally. They didn’t ask for a bunch of government support. They built a company on their own, nor no corporate support, no major government support. Lifted themselves up and said, okay, we’re not only going to build a great lives for ourselves right here in America, we’re going to build a company that’s going to give back in spades to the United States and to the world.
I mean, it’s really a model citizen community when it comes to immigrating to the United States. And one thing I’d like to add is it’s very interesting. I spent a lot of time on campus talking to predominantly Chinese people who run Shen Yun or dancers at Shen Yun. And there is a real tangible, visceral appreciation for the American ideal. They’ve lived the alternative. And so to come here and read the writings of, you know, everything from Thomas Paine to Thomas Jefferson and understand where the framers were coming from and what they understood in how and how they built the company, built the country, there’s a real appreciation there and I think that’s, we need more of that in this country.
Well, that kind of goes back to the old immigrant notice here in 19th century, 18th century, people escape tyranny. So they appreciated freedom when they got it much more. So we take it for granted. Although after these last four years, we maybe don’t take it for granted as much as we did before. I go to the New York Times, I want to express surprise in one Thing about the ccp, on one hand, they’re chasing a fight they don’t have to fight in America. I don’t see how this affects their bottom line in their country. At the same time, excuse me, we, we have had.
I can’t rule out the Chinese. We have had interferences on every one of our shows today. But anyway, we’ll mute this again. And it’s. I can hear you fine. It’s an international number, Levi. How interesting is that? Okay, well, it just adds to my point, and my audience is growing used to it. Inside China, there’s a movement and I’m going to mess up the term. Ben loin, I think it’s called. Let it rot. And the rising youth class, young adults who’d become your merchant class, move into entrepreneurship and so forth. They want nothing to do with CCP ideals.
CCP economy. I’m sure you’re aware of this. They’re. They’re dropping out by the droves and it’s hurting the Chinese economy. So in your opinion, why would they chase an unnecessary fight with Shen Yun when they got this huge problem staring them in the face inside their own country? They are more concerned with image than reality. And they’ve built. The whole legitimacy of the Chinese Communist regime is built on an image of legitimate rulers and that they were the ones who lifted Chinese out of poverty. They don’t mention the fact that they’re the ones who drove them into poverty, of course.
And so the Falun Gong diaspora and Shenyan in particular, are one of the leading voices on showing what the CCP is really about on the world stage. They’re the ones calling them out, saying, this is what the tyranny of the CCP looks like. This is the result. This is the impact. And they’re terrified of that. To them, it rises to the level of an existential threat, much like the extreme left in this country now. I mean, I, it’s. I think if you look in this country, other countries throughout history, communist elements all share some characteristics, and I think that is one of them.
And the, the try and divide people and use that division to amass power. Well, well, we got to turn our attention domestically to why would a paper like the New York Times so chastise Shenun, the Falun Gong? Why would they do this? There’s something tragic about the New York Times. I’ll put it this way. The New York Times has a Falun Gong problem, and it has for 25 years. You know, if you go back 25 years, when the whole persecution first Started. You know, there’s been problems in all the major media in terms of coverage of human rights in China.
But the Wall Street Journal was literally doing a Pulitzer Prize winning series when the persecution first started on Falun Gong and how they were being tortured and killed in prisons. The Washington Post was doing groundbreaking work getting Chinese government officials to quoted on, on record that yes, Beijing mandated this thing against Falun Gong. Yes, they said use torture. While those two papers are doing that, guess what the New York Times was doing. Their publisher flew to Beijing to meet with Jiang Zemin, who was the secretary of the CCP at that point. He is the architect of the persecution of Falun Gong, to broker a business deal, a Chinese language version of their website and what have you.
The last 25 years, the new York Times has been largely completely silent on the persecution of Falun Gong. So there’s a very problematic history there. By far the most time and attention and resources they’ve dedicated to the Falun Gong issue has been the last year when they don’t speak about virtually anything about the persecution in China, where they try and convince their readers essentially that the forced organ harvesting atrocities are not even happening. Stuff that’s been widely covered in other media. Experts all over the world have verified this, tried to do that, and they spent all their attention trying to cherry pick a few individual stories to cast this widespread accusation to demonize the company and really ultimately demonize the Falun Gong faith.
And so this didn’t just fall out of the sky. It has a 25 year history of very, very problematic thinking and approach towards the Falun Gong issue. Back to the motivation question again. As I’m listening to you talk, I almost get the feeling the Chinese are persecuting at least one of the major reasons, because it wasn’t invented here, because we’re not in control of it. You can’t have it. And I’m talking Shen Yun and the related practices. Is that a valid way to look at this? I think it’s a very valid way to look at it, but.
And I also think part of that is, you know, again, it’s sort of what’s the message of Shen Yun? What is it doing? It’s showing people that China before communism was wonderful. And of course the implication being China without communism can be wonderful again. And they don’t want that message on the world stages. Shenyan performs for more than a million people in five continents every year. They don’t want people hearing that message. They want people to see it. And so that’s really why they’re, they’re out to sabotage the company. I see a real parallel maga. All MOG is, is make America great again.
That MAGA got tied into domestic terrorism with this administration. And it looks like this is what China is doing with Shen Yun. Absolutely. I mean, that’s. You’re trying to take something again. If you look back, what’s, what’s tragically ironic is if you look back to the mid-1990s when Falun Gong was very popular in China, even the Chinese state run media, as horrible as it is, was openly admitting, oh, Falun Gong’s great. Look at this thing. Falun Gong, it’s making people healthy, it’s elevating them spiritually, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s returning the great things to China. It was until it got so popular and they knew they couldn’t control it.
And they knew that the spirituality that they were embracing was going to be a challenge to Marxism. That’s when the whole narrative changed. So the Chinese government went from saying, this is a wonderful thing, we celebrate this to they’ve called us every awful name under the sun. Right. And that’s what’s so troubling about the New York Times. I mean, look, I’m not in the back rooms in the New York Times. I can’t say what decisions are being made, who’s talking to who. But it is undeniable that the talking points, the message being delivered by the New York Times is the exact same talking points that Beijing came up with initially to persecute Falun Gong.
And it is achieving the propaganda goals of the CCP that’s undeniable. That’s in, in black and white, plain as, as day, on, on the COVID of the New York Times. I got to really make a reach to have this make sense to me at the highest level of thinking. What would be the motivation for the New York Times to promote something so inhuman? And the only thing I can think of is if we do move closer to globalism, often it’s talked about China will be the world policeman. And the New York Times is on board with supporting that.
And so if the Chinese don’t like something, it’s the role of the New York Times as a mouthpiece of this movement to go ahead and support them. I might be off base here, but that, this is what’s starting to rumble up in my head that starts to make a little bit of sense. I mean, there’s got to be something going on because otherwise, if you look at the objective facts, it doesn’t make any sense. If you look at even, even the integrity of their own articles, like this last article where they tried to paint, I guess they tried to convince their readers, if I could, you know, make a summary of it, that the whole Schengen thing is just a money making operation.
I mean, that’s like trying to call Mother Teresa the worst capitalist in the world. I mean, it completely misses the whole story of what that woman was trying to do, help the poor. You know. And so if you look at everybody who start, everybody, here’s an, here’s an interesting fact. Everyone at Shenyan started as a volunteer. No money involved at all. They didn’t have any money. The only thing we cared about is let’s not let this culture die from the face of the earth. Let’s tell the story of Chinese culture. And an integral part of that story is let’s tell the story of Falun Gong.
That’s it. That’s what we were trying to do. None of that is conveyed in the paper. So there’s something else going on. Objectively looking at their articles, they don’t make logical sense except it goes back maybe to supporting a Chinese globalist movement. Okay. And here’s why I think this too. I’m convinced from the congressional testimony I saw, Joe Biden was on the take from China, family members on the take from China, same behavior, same motivation. And I think this is, this is what we’re looking at. And you just have to wonder, how can a paper maintain credibility when they engage in going after people that effectively exercise and meditate.
Yeah, I, you know, again, I’m not in the back room decisions there, but it just, it doesn’t make sense from a journalism standpoint. It doesn’t even make sense from, I guess an American company standpoint. There must be something else driving this because otherwise it doesn’t make sense logistically. But again, I’d have to go back to this didn’t fall out of the sky. They’ve had a 25 year problem with Falun Gong and the very fact that they’re the one major paper, not the only, but one of the, one of the only ones that refused to cover the forest organ harvesting issue with any substance.
They are the only paper that I know of where at least one of their reporters is on record giving testimony saying I was going to expose, essentially saying I was going to expose the forced organ harvesting story and my editors killed it. You know, they’re on record talking about that. So there’s certainly a lot of red flags. There’s a Lot of problematic behavior and history with the New York Times before they even got to the craziness that they’re doing with Shenyan. You know, maybe I’m wrong, but I’m also looking at this as kind of like eventually we’re going to see a straw that’s going to break the camel’s back.
You’ve got the disenchanted youth, I’ve already mentioned. You’ve got China’s economy on the downside. The, even the people running the banks aren’t happy in China. And now you’ve got this persecution. You got the Uyghurs, the public image around the world. At some point in time, doesn’t this collapse under its own weight for the Chinese government? I think that’s the inevitable outcome. And it might just be sort of a, a question of when and exactly how that unfolds. And there’s another factor to this, and it’s one of the little things, the things that most people don’t know about Falun Gong.
Inside China for at least 15, 16 years, there are literally tens of millions Falun Gong practitioners, supporters that run essentially the largest civil disobedience movement I think, in world history. Where, and it’s primarily what they call underground print shops, where in every little home, or in some cases in a village, in some mud hut in the back room, they’ve got a printer and they print out leaflets that expose the persecution of Falun Gong, they expose the history of the CCP and they print these out and they create packets and under cover of night they go out and hand it out to everybody in their village, in their town, in their neighborhood, in their condo in Shanghai.
And this has been going on for years and years and years. And I think it’s starting to have a real impact where people are finally getting a sense of what the CCP is really about. Because they’re certainly not going to get that on state run media. And so this is also happening inside China. They don’t talk about it, but it’s happening. And I hear lots of anecdotal stories where there’ll be a police chief in some district somewhere who says, you know what, I’m not doing this persecution Falun Gong anymore, I’m just not. And we’ll start to protect them and say, oh, you know, the CCP committee person is coming to town, you guys go hide.
And so you see that type of stuff happening in China more and more. And I think that’s another factor adding to the things that you just talked about. That’s Another factor that leads me to believe this cannot last in its current mode. Levi, have you looked at how this persecution fits into the social credit system? We’ve certainly seen overlap there. So the card that people must carry and that has their social credit, it has other things. Certainly if you’re a Falun Gong practitioner, that’s a doc against you. But it even gets more technological and creepy than that.
There are in some cities, I’ve heard accounts where policemen actually have devices where they can detect the kind of cards of the people that are walking around them. And if you’re a Falun Gong practitioner, they would even know that they were just some little. One of their devices just goes off and says, oh, I’ve got a Falun Gong person in my vicinity. And so the, the massive surveillance state, the social credit system is all parts of the arsenal that they’re using not just to keep social order for criminals, but to go after the dissidents and certainly to go after Falun Gong.
Why the repression is just so off the charts though, the. On the social credit, did I understand you to say that Falun Gong does get identified under social credit profile? I believe it does. And I don’t know if it’s the standard social credit that we’ve been hearing about in the last year or two, or it’s something a little bit more older than that. But there’s definitely a system where if you’re a Falun going practitioner, you could now not get housing, you can’t travel. Those mechanisms have been in place for some time. Whether that’s integrated into the modern social credit system, I’m not entirely sure.
But that’s been going on for years and years and years. That’s really, to me, that’s really fascinating. How many practitioners do you estimate there are inside of China? It’s very hard to tell. We’ve got a couple data points though, I could look at. One of the reasons it’s hard to tell is because Falun Gong doesn’t have like a. It’s not like a. It doesn’t have a structure, it doesn’t have a church. There are no clergy, there’s no membership. You don’t sign up for it. So if you want to be a fal, if you want to practice Falun Gong, you download the book for free on the Internet, the video instructional videos on how to do the meditation on the Internet.
You can just do it in the privacy, your own home and nobody knows. And there’s certainly a lot of that. But there’s a few data points we have one, of course, is the 100 million figure I mentioned where the government did a systematic survey. Right. And that was back in 1999. Then about 12 years ago, these underground print shops I had mentioned that are downloading pamphlets and printing them and handing them out. Looking at that system and that grassroots network, we determined that there’s 20 to 40 million people just doing that. So those would be you, I guess you could call them the more actives, Falun Gong practitioners.
And that was about 12 years ago. So it’s definitely in the tens of millions. But those are the two data points that we really have for sure. You know, I, I would think they, the people, the Falun Gong inside of China would be incentivized not to register, to be as anonymous as possible, and to stay off the radar as much as they can. Yeah, we get a, we, we get that question quite often. And, and I think it baffles people to some extent. I think there is a, you know, again, Falun Gong arose from traditional Chinese culture.
And just in general in the east, the, the, the line between culture and religion and faith is, is sometimes blurred. Yeah. There is a deep seated belief that comes from their faith in the Falun Gong community that this is a grave injustice. It’s not just a tyrannical government. This is, you know, essentially an evil force. And it is incumbent upon each of us to stand up to that. And so for that reason, you don’t get a lot of Falun Gong practitioners that just quietly practice in their home. There is a real impetus to get up and say, you know what? I’m going to say something, I’m going to do something.
I’m going to hand out a flyer, I’m going to talk to the people at the marketplace when I’m buying my groceries. It is a very active community because again, it comes down to this idea that it’s not just a government persecuting a religious group. The CCP represents a grave evil in the world, and they’re not going to stop at Falun Gong, and they certainly haven’t stopped at Falun Gong. And there is a moral responsibility to stand up to that peacefully, but to stand up to that. It’s really interesting. I mean, it truly is very interesting. Are they tied to any other groups that are resistant, maybe like Christians or some other group that the CCP disagree, disapproves of? Not really.
I think we, we, we have some commonalities in how the CCP has come after us. Most tragically, you know, forced organ harvesting that was Primarily Falun Gong for many, many, many years. And then in more recent years, they’ve expanded that to really go after the Uyghurs. And so some of the ways the Chinese regime goes after one group will expand to the other group. And so we, we share a common burden or, or that unfortunate situation. Yeah, because at some point in time, if there’s going to be a regime change, I would guess in China, it’s going to be a coalition of many different forces.
Yes, very possibly. There’s certainly a lot of groups, religious and non religious groups in China that have at one point been a target of a Communist Party campaign. Like, like, you know, not at the scale of Falun Gong, but like that. And that’s been going on for decades. They went after the landlords and the capitalists, then the intellectuals, then, you know, the list goes on and on and on. The Falun Gong is just the latest. And so I, here’s something to note. If you have a Chinese friend and they’ve got an extended family in China, you can bet somewhere in that family tree going not only back two or three generations, someone has been a target of a CCP campaign at some point in the last 70 years.
Well, I’d like to say I’m surprised, but we’re seeing that kind of persecution emerge here in America against various groups too. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that’s almost. I mean, I remember when the first New York Times article came out, I, I actually, I went up to campus where, you know, Shenyan has a headquarters, but on the same campus there’s also an academy in a college that does a lot of the training. A lot of the dancers and performers go through that school system. So there’s a larger campus, it has high school kids, it has college kids as well.
And I just remember going up there and I was volunteering to help with some things related to that article. And just the hurt and the confusion and the worry that was on a lot of the faces, particularly the Chinese who had just, you know, they haven’t only been in the country maybe 10 years, five years, and they’re like the horrible things that Beijing used to say about Falun Gong in, back in 2000, 2001, 2002 are now being printed in bold across the New York Times. And they was just devastated. How could this happen? Why is this happening? You know, I didn’t have good answers for them, but it was clearly crushing many of the people there that to see this kind of thing.
It’s a perfect Element, let’s say it this way, it’s a perfect element. When, when I look at repression, going after someone’s spiritual beliefs really cuts to the heart as much as the economics. But I’d like to expand economics a little bit. You alluded to for a second you said that, that when people start in Falun Gong, they’re volunteers, they don’t get paid. Yet I’ve seen the propaganda from the CCP that says it’s like TV evangelists, they’re trying to raise money on this religious fervor, trying to get rich on false premises. Are you seeing a lot of that in America, that narrative being targeted at us? Yes.
Not until the New York Times said it. I really didn’t. I didn’t see a lot of that. I mean, there’s little pieces of it, but nothing, nothing like this. So that one kind of blindsided us a little bit because I think most people who know us understand how ridiculous that is and that we have very grassroots, even our legal organizations, like our Falun Gong association that helps organize Falun Gong practitioners in a given state, pretty much doesn’t deal with money at all. And so that wasn’t a huge problem until the New York Times decided to take that angle.
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about the performance. Let’s bring economics into performance. I can’t honestly tell you what a ticket cost because when I went to see Shen Yun, my friend Chris Kitsey bought my family tickets. And I imagine when they come back and we go, I’ll know then. So what does it cost to attend? It really depends. I mean, it’s like any theater show, live show, it’s going to depend on the theater and where you are. It could be, you know, in the cheap site, if you’re up in the third deck, you know, could be $70, $60 if you’re in the front row or very close and you’re in a really nice theater, Lincoln center, it could be 300, it could be 320.
So there’s a pretty big range, but it’s, it is fairly standard for performing arts. Yeah, but it’s a low end concert prices. It’s certainly not as much as a Taylor Swift ticket. Yeah, that’s my point. I mean, we’re not talking exorbitant fees. My wife and I like to go to concerts and I know what the going rates are and that that’s below the median level. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, one of the things about to understand about the Shen organization is, is that unlike almost every other Performing arts company, even venue out there. We don’t have a single corporate sponsor, probably mostly because a lot of them don’t want to upset China.
We don’t have a corporate sponsor. We don’t have this active donation. You know, if you go and see an orchestra or something, you get the calls months and months afterwards about donating this and donating that. We have no active donation system at all. We have no ongoing government help at all. This is all our own doing. We built this. The people of Chenyun built this. And whatever money we make, however good our show is, that’s the only money we’re bringing in. And with that we’ve got to maintain the campus. We help the schools that are there, every student that’s at the school, by the way, the academy and the college that helps train shenanigans folks, first of all, it’s a full on New York state approved curriculum.
Some people there don’t go on to Shen Yun, they do go on to, you know, Columbia or other universities. Every student there is on full scholarship. And then there’s, you know, paying for the facilities, there’s paying for all the artists. And they make a new show every year, brand new music, band, new dance. All that stuff has to be paid for. And I feel like some, some of this is like, you know, because I built and ran my own software company for 20 years, I think there’s a lot of people that just don’t understand. What does it actually take to build an organization, to keep it running and to make sure that you’re providing financially for all those people? Even through Covid, they didn’t let one person go during COVID even though Shenyan didn’t perform for a year and a half.
That takes money, that takes resources, that takes forethought, it takes financial responsibility. And all that is being done without any kind of donations or, or handouts to us. It’s all done through ticket sales and earning our own dimensions. Yeah, but I’ll go back to the prices you were citing and I, and I do remember because we had really good tickets, I do remember the 300 range vaguely. I couldn’t give you the exact amount, but I’m just telling you as a concert goer, you know, I’ve been to everything from Tom Petty to the who, and you’re going to pay for comparable seats to what I had.
You’re going to pay up to at least double what you’re citing there. So I wanted to take that New York Times accusation and just blow it out of the Water. Because it’s not valid. I, I can tell you now it’s not valid. And there’s also just a logical fallacy, like if you wanted to make money, this is a horrible idea. If you took this idea in front of Shark Tank, they’d laugh at you trying to make money in the live classical performing arts industry. I mean, let’s face it, it’s kind of a dying industry. This is not what you would do.
There would be a lot of other ideas if you wanted to take, you know, if the Falun Gong founder wanted to take the Falun Gong practitioners and the whole, you know, group of people and make money, this is not a good way to do it because that’s not what it’s for. Yes, we have to make some money to make sure we can run the thing responsibly, we can take care of people, we can educate people and all that kind of stuff. But this is not, it’s ridiculous to try and even postulate that a traditional arts, live performing arts group is primarily about making money.
What a really laborious, difficult way to make money. No, no, I, I hear exactly what you’re saying, but what I like about it is when I was there, you know, and I’m reasonably adept on politics and I know about China, but I felt I was being educated, but I didn’t feel I was being propagandized. I mean, there were the ccp, evil figures that were in the performance, but, but mostly it was about grace and beauty and dignity. This is what I saw in the performance. Those are some of the elements that stuck with me. And I look at it as a frontline resistance movement of almost a Gandhi, Martin Luther King, non violent.
This is what we stand for and we believe this is right. I mean, that’s how I view it. And that, I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of what’s in the hearts of people putting on the show. That’s the goal. I mean, the primary goal is let’s give people something that’s beautiful, that helps remind us that we all have a divine connection and give them something that’s inspiring. And the delivery mechanism is traditional Chinese culture. But of course, part of that is the Falun Gong story. It’s the tyranny of the ccp, it’s the Hong Dynasty, the Tan Dynasty, all these things.
That’s all part of the show. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s brilliant. Well, let’s educate people. How can they attend a Shen Yun event? And I highly recommend it. The, the main thing I’D say is go to the Shenyon website. Shenyon.com S H-N Y-U N.com Schenyun.com There you’re going to get to see everything about this show. You’ll get, you know, you can see what other people are saying about the show. You see the advertisements. You get to read more about the company. Of course, you can buy tickets and you can even read press statements about the various issues that are in the New York Times.
It’s all right there on that one, one website. So that’s where I would direct people to. Is Shen Yun directly confrontive towards the false statements of the New York Times? We are, in the sense that every time the New York Times says something this egregious, Shenyon does issue a press statement and say, wait a minute, we need to, you know, there’s a couple clear things they’re clearly getting wrong or they’re trying to mislead readers and that gets called out. And all those press releases are on shenyon.com there’s also something called shenyun community.org and that was very much a grassroots effort where all the artists or the former artists or the family of artists got together just to share their ideas of, like, you know, what.
This is what Shenyan is really like. This is what it’s like to be in the schools where Shenyan people are trained. This is what a life is like at the company. And so they came together and created this Shenyan community.org website to kind of give people more insight into what the culture of the company and the. In the, in the affiliated schools is about. Yeah, that’s. I think it’s such a valuable service. But before we close, is there anything else that you think our audience should be aware of? I think the main thing is you got to be skeptical what you’re reading in the news these days.
And I always choose to go to the source. You know, I’ve. I’m. When I read stories and this, this first happened to me, my sort of awakening, you could say, was with the Chinese, with the China world. I mean, I. I was shoulder to shoulder every weeknight, on the weekends for years, working with Chinese dissidents, telling me what’s going on in China. And then I was reading in the paper what they were saying about China. I was like, these are two different worlds. The people on the ground are saying this, the papers are saying this. They do not match.
That’s exactly what’s happening to go see with, with Shenyan. And so I would say the best antidote to that. To figure it out, just go see the show. Fantastic stuff. Our guest has been Levi Brody. And Levi, would you give out the website again, please? Sure. It’s Shenyun.com which is S-H-E-N-Y-U-N.com Shenyun.com Very informative, very interesting. And you’ve really made me kind of relive my experience at Shen Yun in a way that I didn’t fully appreciate when I was there. But thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. And good luck with your work. Thank you very much for having me.
And thank you to all your viewers as well. Our pleasure.
[tr:tra].
Author
