Year of the Rats

A warm gongxi fa cai to all who are marking the start of a New Year. If you're planning to do so by attending one of the various Chinese New Year Spectacular/Splendor shows that are touring the world this season, you will do yourself a favor by first reading the New York Times article (2/16/08) below.

Sfmike and I attended this show last year and posted about it on our respective blogs and on SFist (The Falun Gong Show: SFist Goes to NTDTV's Chinese New Year Spectacular, though strangely that post has now been deleted). I have never encountered such brazenly deceptive marketing for a performance event, nor such a virulent response; for a while it was the most commented post on the entire Gothamist network.

Photo from the NY Times

A Glimpse of Chinese Culture That Some Find Hard to Watch
By ERIC KONIGSBERG

[...] It was the opening night of Chinese New Year Splendor, a music and dance production that began at Radio City Music Hall last week.

Then the lyrics to some of the songs, sung in Chinese but translated into English in the program, began referring to “persecution” and “oppression.” 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. [...]

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. [...]

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.”

Caveat emptor.

Comments

[Eve]

Hey, M. C- your SFist post is right here:

http://sfist.com/2007/01/08/the_falun_gong_show_sfist_goes_to_the_ntdtv_chinese_new_year.php

[Eve]

Of course that link was too long and it broke. Sorry, try this:

http://tinyurl.com/yu8je3

[Charles Liu]

Falun Gong's connection to these media outlets is not not a secret, but would you be suprised to find out NTDTV gets money from Congressman Tom Lantos?

Yup millions of our tax dallars made this propaganda show possible.

In addition to receiving financial support from various Falun Dafa Associations, Falun Gong media have also received funding from faction of US Congress that's considered Blue Team China hawks.

Most notably The Friends of Falun Gong, a quasi-government organization started by Congressman Tom Lanto's wife, Annette Lantos, and operated by Ambassador Mark Palmer, one of the co-founders of NED:

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2001/134/145/2001-134145670-1-9.pdf (page 4, list of directors)

FoF's non-profit filings over the years show that millions were given to various Falun Gong media outlets:

[Change the two year references in the link to see 02-05 form 990.]

[Charles Liu]

Here's FoF's 2005 non-profit declaration

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2005/134/145/2005-134145670-028e40ed-9.pdf

Check out page 3 and page 9.