FORT LAUDERDALE—David and Brenda Hinds enjoyed learning about traditional Chinese culture when they saw Shen Yun Performing Arts on April 19.

The couple could tell it was a unique and complex culture based on a distinct way of thinking after experiencing the performance at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

“You can tell it’s a different way of thinking than maybe Western thinking. It is wonderful, I love them,” said David, a president of his own company.

Shen Yun is a traditional dance and music company that tours the world with the aim to bring back China’s 5,000 years of semi-divine culture, which was nearly lost after seven decades of communist rule.

Most of the vignettes showcased in Shen Yun depicts aspects of genuine Chinese culture, which was closely linked to the divine and was replete with virtues and values---the five cardinal virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness.

David said while experiencing Shen Yun he felt calm and “connected with nature and spirituality.”

“It was very nice,” he said.

His wife Brenda, who is also an entrepreneur, also shared a similar impression of the performance.

She said, “Very colorful. Very relaxing and I enjoyed the music and the performers. It was spectacular.”

She said she was surprised to see modern day pieces in the performance that depicted real-life human rights abuses in communist China.

“I didn’t realize that … I thought this was a performance for China. So that was surprising, you know, but I’m sure the story and everything were very very on point,” she said.

Like Brenda, many of Shen Yun’s audience members are surprised when they hear from the emcees that New York-based Shen Yun can’t perform in China today.

Little does the audience know, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees traditional Chinese culture, which is deeply rooted in Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, as its greatest rival.

The aim of the Cultural Revolution, which occurred between 1966 and 1976, was an unprecedented move to systematically eradicate traditional culture and replace it with Mao Zedong’s way of thinking and style of discourse, as Shen Yun also explains on its website. Therefore, Mao’s campaign has been catastrophic for China’s traditional culture.

With Shen Yun performing in over 100 cities around the world a year, the performance is like a window into a cultural treasure that is nearly lost.

David also expressed a disappointment that Shen Yun cannot be seen in China. He said, “It would be good, why not I mean … it’s such a legacy of history you know.”

He also praised Shen Yun’s effort to bring back their culture to the world.

He said, “I think we need the connection to our past.”