“The most amazing thing was feeling that connection back to my birthplace,” Ms. Brower said.

“It was amazing. It was almost like there was a string in my heart that was connecting me all the way through the sky back to China, back to my home place,” she said.

“The erhu is my favorite traditional Chinese instrument of all time,” she said. “The only way I can describe it is like it’s like a human voice that’s wailing. It’s a beautiful wail that has like all sorts of emotions.”

A live performance of an erhu, she said, was “mind-blowing.”

“I’ve heard music [with] it, and I’ve heard songs and everything like that, but to see it in person, to watch what I was seeing and what I was feeling, experiencing all around together, it was just incredible.”

“The moment I sat down at Shen Yun and they told us about the next scene we were going to see, the next dance, I went, ‘I know that story. I know the story of Monkey King.’ And the moment the characters went out, I said, ‘I know exactly who that is.’”

Regarding the persecution, Ms. Brower said it’s horrible while adding that it’s also sad how common such things are. “There are lots of groups out there who are being persecuted for what they believe in and what they think, and it’s unfortunately so commonplace now that most people don’t even realize that this is a terrible thing that’s happening,” she said.

“I mean, how many disasters have we had in the last couple of years alone? It’s horrible that most people just look at the next disaster and go and just add it to the list and don’t think about it again,” she said.

“I am so excited,” she said. “There are so many cool things that have happened in Chinese history. There are so many interesting ideas … even just like the books about cultivation or the idea about what beauty means, like you can be both strong and powerful and beautiful and graceful at the same time,” she said.

“The whole idea about how the world works and functions, about how there has to always be balance. It’s beautiful in its own way, and it’s really sad that more people don’t know about it.”