ESCONDIDO, Calif.—Scott Stokes attended Shen Yun on Saturday evening at the Escondido Center for the Performing Arts for the third time. He has always enjoyed the performance so much, but this time he brought along his children. All in all, he purchased 13 tickets for
Shen Yun.
“Not only do I love how beautiful the performance is, but I really want my kids to learn about the dangers of communism from people that have escaped communism.”
Shen Yun cannot perform in China, where its members, most of whom are Falun Dafa practitioners, would face
religious persecution by the Chinese communist regime.
Today, Shen Yun’s
New York-based company’s eight groups tour the world simultaneously each season, bringing traditional Chinese culture to millions.
For Mr. Stokes, the message is about loving the divinity of life. “We’re all divine creatures,” said Mr. Stokes, who owns a San Diego-based software company. “We’re not formed from some primordial ooze in an evolutionary sense.”
Traditional Chinese culture was divinely inspired.
Spirituality, as well as cardinal virtues, played a central role in ancient Chinese civilization.
He also thinks the performance is a stark warning for people living in the United States.
“The US is on the verge of a very dangerous point when it comes to communism, especially as it relates to the Democratic Party,” he said. That’s why he brought his children along to the
performance.
“It’s one thing for a parent to warn their children about the dangers of something,” he said. “It’s even more significant for my children when they see that message delivered directly from people that have escaped that type of persecution.”
Shen Yun’s
mission is to revive ancient Chinese culture, which was once almost lost after communism seized power in China.
He says he attended the performance in part in protest against the Chinese Communist Party.
“It’s clear that the Chinese Communist Party is threatened by you,” he said of Shen Yun.
“I came here in protest of what they’re trying to do to prevent you in the New York Times articles and all those things,” he said, referring to recent attacks on
Shen Yun published by the paper, which were then
amplified by Chinese accounts on the social media network X.
Reporting by Jane Yang and Kimberly Hayek.
