A community seminar in Otisville on Oct. 24 shed light on the security threats posed by the Chinese communist regime to those who live and work at Dragon Springs.
Dragon Springs is a 400-acre campus primarily in the town of Deerpark that is home to Tang-style Buddhist temples, an academy and college, and the global training headquarters for Shen Yun, a premier classical Chinese dance and music company.
Shen Yun portrays genuine Chinese culture untainted by communism—and the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—on stages around the world and is a primary target of the regime, according to Levi Browde, vice president of the Dragon Springs project office.
“Don’t take my word for it,” Browde told the seminar audience before citing several translated excerpts from leaked directives out of the CCP in Beijing.
“‘Make every effort to curb the overseas cultural activities of Shen Yun,'” Browde read. “‘Implement a targeted crackdown against Shen Yun.’”
According to Browde, there are 130 documented cases in 38 countries in which Chinese officials, their proxies, and others have pressured theater operators and local politicians to cancel Shen Yun shows.
The CCP’s global campaign against the company also hits home at Dragon Springs and have included tactics such as harassing artists’ family members in China, vandalism of security cameras on the campus, and threats of violence against people who live and work there, Browde said.
Last year, a Chinese YouTuber made threats of violence against Dragon Springs and was spotted near the campus, which prompted federal authorities to send an officer safety notice to Deerpark police.
“We got emails almost every week that look like this,” Browde told the audience, while holding up printouts of emails written in Chinese with threats of violence against the campus, such as denoting bombs and gang-raping female students.
“The safety thing is real. The CCP’s resolve to silence Shen Yun is real,” he said, noting that the placement of guards at the campus gates and the closure of the campus to the public are precautionary measures that directly resulted from the CCP’s actions.
“We are working to be open and transparent as we can, but first and foremost, it is the safety of our people. If this was your family, I think you’d do the same thing.”
“Our hope is to, despite all this, try not to have their interference or their targeting of us get in between” Dragon Springs and the local community, he said.
David Ofshinsky, a Deerpark resident, told The Epoch Times that the seminar answered many of his questions about Dragon Springs’ heightened security measures.
Persecution of Falun Gong
Dragon Springs is also home to people who practice Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, a Buddhist spiritual discipline that has been persecuted in China for 25 years.Allen Zhong, president of Sound of Hope, a California-based Chinese radio network that broadcasts uncensored news to people in China, shared how he benefited from Falun Gong, as well as his understanding of the reasons behind the CCP’s persecution of the practice.
In the early 1990s, Zhong left China to pursue graduate studies at the University of Iowa. With only $240 in his pocket upon arrival, Zhong had to make a living while being a full-time student.
“At the age of 24, my body was nearly collapsing,” said Zhong, who started practicing Falun Gong to reduce stress. The practice combines five sets of gentle exercises with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
“It brought me peace, it brought me calmness, and my health problems were just gone in a few months,” he said at the seminar.
Through his recommendation, his brother and his parents soon picked up the practice. In China, the practice gained wide popularity in much the same way, by word of mouth, Zhong said.
Within a few years of the practice being introduced to the public by founder Mr. Li Hongzhi in China, at least 70 million people had taken it up for its health and moral benefits, according to official estimates and media reports at the time.
“You may wonder, ‘Why the persecution?’” Zhong told the audience.
“Believe it or not, it is very simple—it was because [the practice] became too big. In China, when something independent becomes too big, it is perceived as a threat.”
Since July 20, 1999, when the CCP launched the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners in China have been illegally detained, tortured, killed, and even subjected to death by forced organ harvesting.
Growing Local Falun Gong Community
As a place of faith, Dragon Springs draws practitioners from around the country and the world, and contributes to the growing Falun Gong community in western Orange County, according to Liam O’Neill, president of the Falun Gong Club of Orange County. He pointed out that the local area has been shaped by its long history of people coming together in communities of faith.“Some of the most beautiful buildings in Port Jervis and Middletown are these churches that were set up 200 years ago by faith communities who moved here,“ O'Neill said at the seminar. “You build a place of worship, and people around that place of worship grow.”
Some Falun Gong practitioners who moved to Orange County work for educational institutions and the dance company at Dragon Springs, while others make a living in the broader local community, O'Neill said.
Though most are first-generation immigrants from China, they nonetheless share and embrace the values of the American people, he said.
“America is a place of religious refugees. Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights were written and drafted for people seeking freedom of belief, speech, and assembly,” he said.
He added that the local Falun Gong community shares their cultural heritage with their neighbors through several traditional culture-themed events every year, such as the Moon Festival in Deerpark and the Chinese New Year celebration in Mount Hope.
“When you just look at the guards at the gates of Dragon Springs, it can be very off-putting, but it would be wonderful if we could see it for what it is and bridge those gaps,” he said.
“If you get to know the people behind these entities, you will see that they really truly want a stronger and more open community.”
Jerri Dodd, a longtime Otisville resident and an administrator of a growing local Facebook group, said the seminar was a good start in terms of community building.
“The only way we can move forward is that we all work together,” Dodd said.
The seminar was presented by the Mount Hope Chinese Association.
David Zhang, host of the YouTube channel “China Insider,” moderated the panel discussion.
