SYDNEY, Australia—When asked to share his impression of Shen Yun, the New South Wales (NSW) Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Damien Tudehope, gave two words—“the best.”

“I think that there is a significant impact on the modern world because when you see people at their best, people want to follow them …  It is something which brings out the best in human beings.

“And in many respects, that’s a message for us all, that the period that we live our lives is about doing our best.”

“The day-to-day life that we all live sometimes is just the same and same and same again,” the shadow treasurer said. “But when you see people at their best performing in this way, then there is something wonderful which emerges from it.

“And I think probably for us all, it is uplifting.”

Mr. Tudehope said it’s a “great experience for the people of Sydney to be able to see,” yet at the same time, “a tragedy in many respects that the whole world does not participate in seeing this fantastic performance.”

While also commenting on the cultural aspect of Shen Yun, John Macaulay, who works as a manager in the shipping industry, looked at the issue from another perspective.

He recalled an experience of attending a folklore show in the mountainous region in China, which he described as “spectacular.” But while he was “mesmerised and spellbound for hours and hours,” he found that a lot of the Chinese audience “had been inured, or had become numb to that awe, and they couldn’t really plumb the depths of their own culture.”

“That’s not the case tonight,” Mr. Macaulay added.

Mr. Macaulay said while Chinese people should be “very proud of their pre-revolutionary history,” it’s also important to recognise that they have been living under a totalitarian regime “for too long.”

“It shows how people are still talking about righteousness, and people are still thinking about doing the right thing or standing up for a cause,” Ms. Saluja noted.

“And there is kindness there always. I’m glad that the people of China—they are thinking about those right things.”

At that moment, the boy “indulged in the feelings of happiness” of his belief in the divine, which “will always take you on the right path,” she said.

“It gives us a message that if you’re doing everything you can do, everything right, God is always with you,” Ms. Saluja added.

“So you keep on doing the right things without even thinking about the consequence or how we can do it. If it is really, really hard. You just keep doing it.”