SAN JOSE, Calif.—It was impossible for Ashley Walker to miss the billboard advertisements everywhere along the freeways prior to seeing the show. She said she'd wanted for years to attend Shen Yun to see the leaping beauties displayed on the signs and what had been promoted as “China Before Communism.”
Tonight, she finally did.
“My friends just bought tickets for the three of us,” Ms. Walker said during intermission. “I thought it was amazing. The storytelling, the effects, and then all the outfits.”
‘Very Educational’
“I learned a lot about the history of China and the culture,” she told The Epoch Times. “Understanding how people struggle with their beliefs and then, with the Communist Party—it was good to learn about it.”
Directly onstage, she saw Shen Yun depict some scenes of religious persecution. The company’s members are mainly American-born Chinese or expats who themselves escaped from China due to religious persecution.
Ms. Cochran, who hails from Argentina, said she came away from Shen Yun feeling grateful for what she has here in America. “We have to appreciate our freedom,” she said. “[Shen Yun] makes me appreciate where I am a lot more because not everyone has it.”
“I do know people [in China] who can’t practice their faith freely,” she said, speaking in the theater in between segments. “There is an underground church, and the police can come at any time.”
Surveying her experience during the performance as a whole—the costumes, the classical Chinese dance reborn, Shen Yun’s mission—Ms. Ellis called Shen Yun “a great way to entertain, but also to teach about the cultural values and what is happening there.”
