Why Shen Yun Matters to Me—and Why It Matters Today

When people ask me why I have been involved with Shen Yun Performing Arts for so many years, my answer is simple, though not short: Shen Yun helped me rediscover my own culture—and, in doing so, helped me understand what has been lost, and what is still worth protecting.

I was born and raised in China. Like most people of my generation, I grew up believing what I was taught in school, watching what was allowed on television, and repeating the narratives that were considered “normal.” I did not realize at the time how much history, culture, and truth had been removed from my education. Only after coming to the United States in the 1990s did I begin to understand the scale of that loss.

It took years to process what I learned—about the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, the persecution of faith, and the systematic destruction of traditional Chinese culture. Even longer to accept that what I had thought of as “Chinese culture” was, in many ways, a carefully constructed replacement.

Growing Up Without My Own Culture

Under the Chinese Communist Party, culture is never neutral. Art, history, language, and education are all tools of political control. The goal is not simply obedience, but transformation—cutting people off from their roots so that ideology becomes their only reference point.

As a child, I saw dance used almost exclusively as propaganda. Performances were rigid, militarized, and focused on glorifying the Party. Beauty existed, but it was hollow, disconnected from moral meaning or spiritual depth. I did not know that Chinese dance once expressed reverence for heaven, harmony with nature, or compassion between people.

I did not know—because I was not supposed to know.

The First Time I Saw Shen Yun

The first time I saw Shen Yun, in Los Angeles, I was stunned. I remember thinking: So this is what Chinese culture really looks like.

The elegance, the restraint, the inner strength of the dancers—it was unlike anything I had ever seen in China. These were not performances praising political power. They were stories drawn from ancient legends, classical history, and spiritual traditions that existed long before communism.

For the first time, I saw Confucian values of integrity and filial piety, Taoist ideas of balance and harmony, and Buddhist compassion expressed through movement and music. It was deeply emotional for me, because it felt like encountering something that had been taken away before I even knew it existed.

Preserving Meaning, Not Just Beauty

One thing people outside China may not realize is how deeply meaning is embedded in traditional Chinese culture—even in the written language itself. Traditional Chinese characters are visual expressions of philosophy and morality. Over time, many of these characters were “simplified,” often removing components that carried ethical or emotional significance.

Culture is not just entertainment. It is how wisdom is passed down when books are burned and voices are silenced.

Shen Yun does something rare: it restores meaning. Through classical Chinese dance, it revives a way of understanding humanity that sees art as a path to virtue, not a tool for indoctrination.

Why Shen Yun Faces So Much Pressure

Shen Yun is based in the United States and is completely independent of the Chinese state. That independence is precisely why it is targeted.

For more than 20 years, the Chinese Communist Party has tried—unsuccessfully—to stop Shen Yun from performing around the world. These efforts have included diplomatic pressure on theaters, harassment, vandalism, anonymous threats, and repeated legal attacks. There have also been coordinated media narratives attempting to portray professional artistic training as something sinister.

None of this is accidental.

Shen Yun presents a version of Chinese culture that contradicts the Party’s narrative. It shows that China’s civilization did not begin in 1949, that spirituality is not superstition, and that art can exist without serving political power. That is deeply threatening to an authoritarian system built on historical erasure.

Why This Matters Beyond China

Some people ask me why Americans should care about this. My answer is that cultural erasure is not unique to China.

When societies lose connection to inherited wisdom—when history is flattened, language emptied of meaning, and art reduced to ideology or profit—we see the consequences everywhere: confusion, division, anxiety, and a sense of rootlessness.

Shen Yun is not only about China. It is a reminder that culture, when preserved honestly, helps people understand who they are and how to live well. That reminder is needed everywhere.

A Source of Hope

What gives me the greatest hope are the young performers themselves. Many of them are American students who train with extraordinary discipline, not for fame or wealth, but because they believe this culture is worth preserving. They remind me that tradition is not something frozen in the past—it is something that must be actively chosen and passed on.

I often say that Shen Yun restored my faith in humanity. Not because it is perfect, but because it exists at all.

In a world where truth is increasingly negotiable and culture is easily manipulated, Shen Yun quietly insists on something radical: that beauty, morality, and spiritual meaning still matter.

And for me, that makes all the difference.

Video credit: I was interviewed by Bishop Dennis Eversen about Shen Yun and the CCP's Transnational Repression on Jan. 7, 2026