Chinese officials denounce Falun Gong-backed Lunar New Year show
Terence Chea (’00), Associated Press
Jan. 19, 2007
Chinese government officials say the Falun Gong spiritual movement has hijacked the traditional Lunar New Year celebration with a touring musical show they deride as little more than propaganda for the religious sect that is banned in China.
Performances of the popular “Chinese New Year Spectacular” are being held at high-profile venues in 28 cities worldwide, including Radio City Music Hall in New York City and San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, where audience members paid up to $168 per ticket earlier this month.
…”We strongly oppose the show because Falun Gong is an evil cult,” said Jian Huali, acting spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “This is not a real Chinese culture show. It’s a very politicized show … so people should not go to show their support.”
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I was deeply moved watching the New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV)’s Chinese New Year Spectacular Gala .Walking out of the theatre, I felt as if I had seen the slow unfolding of a new image of heaven and earth. The renaissance of the Chinese culture has begun to emerge in the world again starting here on Broadway.
While I use the word “renaissance”, the NTDTV show, in both format and content, is not just a continuation and promotion of authentic Chinese culture, but a recreation and rebirth of it. The show’s profound impact on China and even the world in the future will perhaps surpass the cultural renaissance that started in Italy more than 600 years ago.
For human beings, the influence of culture is the most widespread. Take a long look into the transformations in human history; we will wholeheartedly realize the power of culture in its ever-lasting capacity to affect us even to the farthest corners of world.
[Caption: Dance, “To the Rightful Place” http://img.epochtimes.com/i6/612240159461041--ss.jpg; Epoch Times]
In the middle of the 15th century, as the Ottoman Turkey Empire eliminated the Roman Empire, a large number of artists escaped eastern Rome to come to Italy. The Middle Ages soon ended, so did its integrative political and religious system. The magic of the ancient Greek culture swept Western Europe, leading to a culture Renaissance movement, in which painting, sculpting and music all began to experience a new development.
China’s situation bears some similarity to the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, in that the Chinese culture has actually been in a state of near death.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embodies a fusion of politics and religion based on the evil doctrine of Marxism. With an atheist belief, this regime monopolizes not only China’s politics, economy, and military in the secular systems; it has also monopolized the rights of moral explanations.
No matter how dictatorial the churches in the Middle Ages were, they still allowed God to preside above the church. For the CP, however, “if you were a Christian, the CCP was the god of the Christian God. If you were a Buddhist, the CCP was the Master Buddha of the Master Buddha.” (Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party – Part III). Thus, the CCP’s fusion of politics and religion is more extreme, consequently the Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist cultural beliefs have been suppressed even more cruelly and completely by the CCP than the ancient Greek culture and the churches of the Middle Ages.
The renaissance of the Chinese culture also faces a deeper predicament than the western culture of the Middle Ages. Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist teachings are so profound that everyday people often find it difficult to understand the classic writings. Under these circumstances, true practitioners of these beliefs become necessary links in passing down the cultures. The CCP had destroyed the classics and persecuted the practitioners thereby creating an unbridgeable void between the modern Chinese and traditional Chinese culture.
The Classic Chinese culture was thrown into the abyss by the CCP.
There seemed to be no hope to revive the Chinese culture. The NTDTV took an uncharted path, by approaching the cultural revival and recreation from the perspective of beliefs. The depth and boldness of this act, which started a few years back, has deeply moved and inspired me.
The programs at the NTDTV show have been mostly created and performed by practitioners of Falun Gong .The ancient spiritual discipline of Falun Gong encompass the classic traditions of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist beliefs, thus the cultural forms derived from it resound with ancient Chinese culture. The programs represent the creation of new cultural forms that comprehensively contain the divine spirit of authentic Chinese culture.
The NTDTV’s show is threaded by the key theme of praising gods. In the Holiday Wonders Christmas show, for example, this theme is expressed in the opening performance “the Vows of Old,” the dance “Celestial Maidens,” and “A Dunhuang Dream”. “To the Rightful Place” reflects the retribution of good and evil; the three soloists (Jiang Min, Bai Xue, and Guan Guimin) each sang to express respect for gods, seeking of godhood, and reflection on the true meaning of human life. The performance “The Loyalty of Yue Fei” expresses loyalty and piety that are valued by the Chinese. The Tibetan dance “Snowy Mountain, White Lotus” was perfect in music, costume and choreography; the Mongolian and Manchu dances embody the multiplicity of the Chinese culture, and the drum rhythms used architectural background similar to the Ming palace to highlight the joyous scenes from the prosperous culture of the Great Tang. The western-style performances such as the ballet, the performance by the world-class clarinetist Giora Feidman, and the Empire Brass Quintet, all come from a cream selection of western theatre, and they also reflect the Chinese culture’s understanding to accommodate all advanced arts of the world.
From these NTDTV performances, I see an ancient as well as an entirely new culture that sparks toward the high mountains and lofty skies, revealing a marvelous future to represent these divine messages.
The Party culture that the CCP relies on for its survival is rapidly disintegrating by the emergence of this cultural renaissance that is embodied by the NTDTV’s Christmas show. This Chinese cultural rebirth will with out a doubt bring about transformations in lifestyles and social organizations of the Chinese people, helping the Chinese to re-establish beliefs, morality and culture to assist China to a peaceful transition in the new era.
The NTDTV’s cultural show has launched a renaissance of the Chinese
January 27th, 2007 | #