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Glimpse of Chinese Culture That Some Find Hard to Watch


By: Eric Konigsberg

Each of the first few numbers was more elaborate than the last, teeming
with acrobatic dancers, awash in jewel-toned silks, swelling to the
anthemic strains of the orchestra. It was the opening night of Chinese
New Year Splendor, a music and dance production that began at Radio City
Music Hall last week.

From left, Pearl Chen, Shiu Ying and Ernie Li set up an advertising
banner in Midtown on Saturday for the Chinese New Year Splendor show at
Radio City Music Hall.

Then the lyrics to some of the songs, sung in Chinese but translated
into English in the program, began referring to "persecution" and
"***." Each time, almost at the moment a vocalist hit these
words, a few audience members collected their belongings and trudged up
an aisle toward the exit.

Before long came a ballet piece in which three women were imprisoned by a
group of officers, and one was killed. At the end of the number, more
members of the audience, in twos and fours and larger groups, began to
walk out. At intermission, dozens of people, perhaps a few hundred, were
leaving.

They had realized that the show was not simply a celebration of the
Chinese New Year, but an outreach of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice of
calisthenics and meditation that is banned in China. More than three
years after flooding city corners and subway stations to spread the word
about the Chinese government's repression, Falun Gong practitioners are
again trying to publicize their cause. Only this time, it involves
costumed dancers and paying audiences in that most storied of New York
concert halls, Radio City.

While the street theater, which often included live simulations of
torture and videos and photographs of beaten victims, took a direct
approach, the Chinese New Year Splendor show involves a slow reveal. It
is not until the performance is under way that any reference is made to
Falun Gong.

"I don't feel comfortable here," said Elizabeth Levy, an author of
children's books who was among the first to leave. "I had no idea when I
came that this was about Falun Gong."

"The Power of Awareness," a piece that occurred late in the event,
marked one of the first overt mentions of the movement in the program.
In that number, Communist police officers walking through a park rough
up a mother and daughter whose banner carries the Falun Gong message of
"truthfulness, compassion and tolerance."

The abusive officers are pushed back and chased away by a large group.
The mother and daughter duo then "poetically leads the multitudes in
learning the exercise of Falun Gong."

Advertisements for the show, which have appeared on Metro-North trains
and in The New York Times, among other places, make no mention of Falun
Gong. Nor do the show's Web site or the brochures being handed out on
Manhattan sidewalks. The brochures include what appears to be an
endorsement quotation from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg "Brings to life
the rich traditions of ancient China right here in the Big Apple."

However, a spokesman for the mayor, John Gallagher, said that Mr.
Bloomberg had neither seen the show nor praised it, and that the
quotation may have been taken from a greeting card Mr. Bloomberg sent to
Chinese-American organizations in which he saluted Chinese New Year
celebrations in general.

The show, which runs through Saturday, is a production of New Tang
Dynasty Television, a nonprofit satellite broadcaster started by Falun
Gong followers and based in New York.

With roughly 200 performances planned for 2008 - the company employs two
troupes - it estimates that about 600,000 people will see the shows (in
2007, the company said, the number was about 200,000).

The television network, which often broadcasts news critical of the
Chinese government, has been sparring continuously with Beijing over the
shows. Before last year's show at Radio City (the first was in 2006),
the network complained that China was pressuring sponsors to withdraw
their support, a claim echoed in other cities where the show has run.

In a statement, the Chinese Embassy criticized the network for trying to
"inveigle the public into watching the show," and said, "The truth is
that the so-called 'galas' were nothing but a sheer political tool used
by 'Falun Gong' organization to spread cult and anti-China propaganda."

Falun Gong is a form of qigong, an ancient practice of breathing
exercises, but also incorporates a spiritual element and some unique
beliefs, including one that followers have a spinning wheel in their
bellies that pushes out evil and attracts good. In 1999, its founder, Li
Hongzhi, told a Time magazine reporter that aliens from other planets
were responsible for corrupting mankind by teaching modern science.

From its creation in the early 1990s, the movement, and Mr. Li, grew in
popularity through the decade. The Chinese government branded it an
"evil cult" in 1999, banning the practice and persecuting its members.

Human rights groups have supported claims that the Chinese government
has tortured, imprisoned or killed thousands of Falun Gong followers.
Mr. Li immigrated to the United States, and at one point was said to be
living in Queens.

The Radio City event "is kind of a P.R. front to try to normalize Falun
Gong's image, so that people don't think of it as some kind of a wacko
cult," said Maria Hsia Chang, a professor of political science, emerita,
at the University of Nevada, Reno, who wrote a book about Falun Gong.

But, she added, "I can only speculate as to why they'd put in these
elements without declaring as much ahead of time, because it doesn't
help their image much."

A New Tang network spokeswoman, and several members of the production
troupe who agreed to be interviewed, said that they did not think
publicizing Falun Gong's connection to the show was necessary. "If we
advertise Falun Gong, then why don't we also say the show has Tibetan
dancing and Mongolian dancing and Korean dancing?" said Vina Lee, a
choreographer and a principal dancer. "Chinese culture is more than
dragons and firecrackers."

MSG Entertainment, which owns Radio City as well as Madison Square
Garden, said in a statement: "When booking a rental, MSG Entertainment
does not discriminate on the basis of political, religious, cultural, or
ethnic viewpoints or beliefs."

Aside from the references to Falun Gong's plight, the two-hour
performance was an elaborately stitched homage to Chinese traditions.
Complementing the dance routines were solos from two sopranos, two
tenors, a contralto and a woman playing the erhu, sometimes known as a
Chinese fiddle. A giant video screen put forth majestic background
images of Chinese landscapes.

But audience members who filed out of Radio City before and during
intermission said they were troubled by the material. "I had no idea it
was Falun Gong until now that it's too late, and it really bums me out,"
said Steven, a Chinese immigrant living in New Jersey who, along with
his family, was among the first to leave and asked that his last name
not be published.

"It's a little too political, too religious, especially the dance
showing some girls getting tortured in the prisons. That's too much for
Chinese New Year, especially with our children."

Tickets cost $58 to $150, though one woman, a Chinese immigrant visiting
from Dallas, said that as she was walking by Rockefeller Center just
before showtime, a man offered her a free ticket. She also left the show
early. "I didn't like the torture stuff so much," said the woman, who
refused to give her name.

Cary Chiang, a father from New Jersey, said that his wife had objected
to the Falun Gong material, but that as for their three children in tow,
"It went right over their heads."

Ms. Levy, the children's book author, said, "I don't particularly like
being accosted on the street by Falun Gong, and I don't like it
happening to me here."

Charles Wyne, a computer systems manager who sat happily through the
entire performance, said he enjoyed the program. "I don't know much
about Falun Gong, but I don't like the way the Communists treated the
people," he said, adding that freedom of speech was among his reasons
for leaving China.

John Campi, vice president for promotion and community affairs at The
Daily News, one of the listed sponsors, said the newspaper's sponsorship
involved trading a one-page ad in the paper for a Daily News ad on the
back cover of the program. "I had heard that they were connected with a
political group, and I said if this show is political, I'm not getting
into it," he said. "And they said it wasn't."

Joe Wei, national editor of the World Journal, a Chinese-American
newspaper that is based in Queens and that takes no position on the
practice and its teachings, said he saw one of the group's shows about
one year ago and detected no Falun Gong imagery. "This would be a major
change," he said. "I don't know why they want to do this."

(The New York Times, February 6, 2008)

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