It’s bad enough that The New York Times is mobilizing a multi-year “investigation” that appears to condemn responsible, loving parents as complicit in “child abuse.” It’s far worse that the idea came from Beijing propagandists.
Since August 2024, The New York Times has run more than ten articles on Shen Yun Performing Arts – a classical Chinese dance company founded in New York. Amid the barrage of inaccuracies and inuendo, the articles essentially accuse Shen Yun of abusing student artists with rigorous schedules, failures to treat injuries, and extreme religious rhetoric. The obvious implication is that parents like me willingly offered up our beloved children to this alleged horror show.
As my dear old grandfather would say, that’s a load of horse pucky.
Back in 2015, I faced a dilemma, and one that is familiar to millions of parents across the country. Despite having moved into a “blue ribbon” school district, I watched in dismay as the public school system was woefully failing an entire generation of students. The use of smart phones and social media were skyrocketing, and with it, depression and anxiety. The substance of day-to-day education was inundated with identity politics and groupthink. Everywhere we turned, young people are encouraged to maximize their comfort and safety, instead of learning to dig deep and persevere.
This is not what I signed up for. This is not what I wanted for my boys.
After an exhaustive search for schools across the New York and New Jersey area, we finally settled on Fei Tian Academy of the Arts – a boarding school that resides on a beautiful, 400+ acre campus in upstate New York. The academy shares its campus with its sister school, Fei Tian College. The campus is also the training center for Shen Yun, and indeed, many of Shen Yun’s artists were trained at the Fei Tian schools. While the academy offered a standard New York Dept. of Education curriculum, it specialized in classical Chinese dance.
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This was a stretch for my boys, quite literally. They were both accomplished baseball players, with physiques that more resembled Roger Clemens than Mikhail Baryshnikov. I knew next to nothing about classical Chinese dance. But here’s what I did know: the schools had a strict policy against smart phones and social media on campus. Students had the chance to learn classical Chinese dance from some of the best in the world, and the entire school’s approach to education was rooted in the Falun Gong faith – a Buddhist-based spiritual practice that involves daily meditation and striving to live by the principles of being genuine, compassionate, and resilient.
The school challenged my boys academically. It pushed them to new heights physically. And most important of all, it gave them a spiritual foundation that allowed them to face the day-to-day challenges of life with both grit and gratitude – two characteristics that are sure to propel them through the ups and downs of life.
The schools and training program with Shen Yun are literally a parent’s dream come true. I was, therefore, both shocked and saddened to see The New York Times portray the program as a nightmare. So where were these terrible stories coming from and why would the Times choose to publish them? As I looked further into it, it became increasingly disturbing.
Much of the Times’ “abusive” false narrative is built upon the statements of a core group of 6 interviewees, with small quotes from an additional 7 people – all former performers with Shen Yun. Yet, in the last two months, over 750 current and former Shen Yun performers along with 790 parents of Shen Yun performers have signed a petition calling the Times’ accounts of Shen Yun “gross distortions…about our work, our faith, and our way of life.” Furthermore, the Times’ depiction of Shen Yun bore no resemblance to the school and training program my boys had experienced for the last seven years. It seems the Times has elevated the act of cherry picking to an artform of the grossest kind.
I don't know exactly why the Times would do this, but I do know there's one significant red flag.
Beginning in 2023, the Chinese communist regime launched a new and sophisticated campaign to sabotage Shen Yun Performing Arts by weaponizing social media, leveraging the U.S. justice system with lawfare, bribing a U.S. government agency, and yes, baiting mainstream media -- all to target Shen Yun. And right in the middle of this campaign unfolding on U.S. soil, the Times embarks on a series of articles about Shen Yun that, wittingly or not, achieve the exact propaganda goals of the communist leadership in Beijing. Coincidence?
It’s bad enough that we have to fight to raise our kids with wholesome, traditional values in America. It’s even more troubling that Beijing is baiting our media to tear down one of the few educational institutions that’s truly nurturing grit and gratitude in the next generation.
Levi Browde is a board member of Fei Tian College. His two sons are students at Fei Tian College and perform with Shen Yun Performing Arts as part of the practicum program. Levi is also the executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, which has published several in-depth studies about The New York Times’ problematic coverage of Falun Gong and recent attacks on Shen Yun.
This column is presented by TCRC
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