Life at Fei Tian College, Where Shen Yun’s Future Stars Train

is this okay don't you say hi okay um my name is Shen and I'm the second tallest dancer at Fan [Music] college is that too much you repeat the question o it's a tough one I'll tell you the honest answer [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] my name is Ryan Lee and I'm a freshman here at Fan College my name is Cathy woo and I'm a second year graduate student in the department of dance my name is Jesse brow I'm a freshman at fatan college and I'm studying Chinese classical dance my name is Rachel Chen and I received my my bachelor and masters from fatan college majoring in Viola performance the first thing really struck me about fatan college is just the environment here I've been to a lot of places I used to travel around Europe a lot but when I came here I really felt like oh this is something else this is something really really really beautiful when I first saw the campus I was like wow it kind of felt like I was time traveling it's like you're transported back to like the tong Dynasty where first you see a lake and then there's grassy Hills that go up to these Tong Dynasty temples and pagodas and a pavilion it's just a place that everything is really peaceful and we're only 1 and 1 half hours away from New York City which is the cultural capital of the world we have the Met Opera New York Phil yeah I mean what what more could you ask for I felt like before I came to this college I was a very emotional person I would practice for like 2 minutes and then get bored I couldn't really control myself no matter how much I wanted to do well when I was at school in Australia I felt like I didn't see a purpose in me putting the effort to learn all I needed at school because I didn't see a deeper meaning a deeper goal that I wanted to achieve and then there was also the social media aspect where you know you come home from school and then you like look at your phone and just every like scroll scroll double tap SC double tap I would really just waste away my day putting my emotional energy on them putting my time on them kind of worrying about how I fitted into this world on the internet and this world of appearances even though I was young I could myself feel like this is not where I want to be right now I felt like I needed a safe haven I needed somewhere where I could go and really focus what hit me the most when I first came here was walking into the academic classes and it was so quiet people were actually listening to the teacher they actually looked like they wanted to learn the school has a strict policy on smart phones for students and I feel like with this special environment here we have more interaction with each other and really build this [Applause] friendship honestly we don't really use social media to interact that much and that just makes everything a lot calmer like you don't feel like people are missing out on anything there's a lot more human interaction and a lot less of like drama and unnecessary emotions and that just makes this learning environment really great I feel like that also comes from the traditional culture that we are taught here there's a saying in Chinese that goes it's basically a day a teacher a lifetime of Father [Music] [Applause] [Music] Figure the teachers at Fon really put in a lot of effort and really want to give the best to their students students I remember one year in Chinese class we had students with nine different levels of Chinese and the teacher basically made a different curriculum for each student because they wanted each student to improve in their own way in Chinese culture you have this Duty where like you take care of your parents when they grow old there's like a lot of those stories there's the 24 stories of people who were exemplary models of philiopiety one person laid on the ice of a lake to melt it so he could get fish to make suit for his six stepm mother like she wasn't even his mother but like that's just the way his morality was or that's the way the society was and after learning that when I look back I felt like wow I should really be more grateful for my parents like I was such a Troublesome kid and they did so much and it just never occurred to me that I should be like not just nice to them but actually have this filial piety and this is something that people have been doing for thousands of years it's part of their culture and it's something that I can incorporate in my own life [Music] too everyone here the students the teachers all the faculty everyone here is like a family you never feel like you're an outsider here there's always this sense of everyone is looking out for each other thinking of other people there's a really strong sense of the group we feel more connected than just normal friends and we actually feel like siblings as well it just feels very warm being here when people make mistakes it's not about oh my gosh this person made a mistake how could you do that it's more like oh I want to really help this person and help them improve you see people like can you listen to this one passage and they help each other better and then you actually feel that when they get gold or when they get to the final round people are genuinely happy for them and they find that their achievements are more rewarding than their own that sense of Community just feels very strong and it's something that holds everyone together and it makes you feel very like solid like you have [Music] fruits there are many times where I want to give up but I think what faith has given me is this this grit and this confidence in myself that no matter what happens I can always get through it I learned to keep going to not stop if we have class at 8:30 or 9:00 you always have to wake up earlier before that to get your morning workout done and sometimes we would run the lake or do some have workout or some jumps not only is it to train your endurance and your stamina it's also to train your mind [Music] [Music] [Music] College year isn't really just a means of finding a job or like being successful in life but rather truly becoming better people and using these values that we take at this college to bring us through the rest of our lives the standards are very high here and there's definitely Ely a high level of competition in terms of the music track there are people who play incredibly well and you might think you've prepared a piece well enough but you play a jury and you realize that there are places that didn't go so well or perhaps professors will give you feedback that you didn't think about before I think the most challenging part of being a music student at Fon college is balancing your own self-improvement but also preparing for the practicum tour and there's academics at the same time because a lot of times we'll have two essays quiz a dress rehearsal a dance competition piece all at once but I think we don't really know our own limits as students and so these challenges that faten provides really pushed me beyond what I thought I could accomplish it's just a very good thing that we have so many things all together at once and when everything is finished you're just like oh my gosh that was such a journey but I learned so much and I would not have traded it for anything the only true sense of reward or success is when you know you've done something when you know you pushed yourself through it and that you gave something of yourself up to earn [Music] it here we all practice fall and dafa and we all follow these principles of truthfulness compassion and forbearance and in this school I just see everyone being really selfless all the time and putting other people for themselves and it really insprired me there was always someone I could talk to someone I could lean on to ask for help and their guidance I think that was really big aspect on me being able to you know solidify my faith because when I was in Australia I didn't really wholeheartedly believe in this Faith only until when I came here and I see everyone else going through the same thing things and they are still pushing themselves to the limits just so they can you know be better as a person be better as a dancer or a musician so they can further their craft my parents started practicing in the late '90s right so naturally when I was born a couple years later I was brought into this environment as I grew up you know it's probably typical of teenage boys and like you start getting a little rebellious you don't really don't really care that much and you kind of start doing your own thing but luckily my mom had me playing violin so I think she kind of knew that she would send me here one day that only a place like this could truly change me and it was literally like the moment I first entered I think when I walked on campus I looked around the beautiful temples interacted with some of the best people I've ever met I think that instantly just like dug out something that was pure in my heart that has been buried for a long time one of the main principles of FFA is to look inside yourself no matter what happens no matter what kind of conflicts you get into or something goes wrong on stage even if it's not you you look inside yourself and see what you can improve and a lot of times we have conflicts like oh we should do this or we should do that and then everyone's like at a stale it's like nobody wants to back down but then having our faith helps us like we think back we reflect on ourselves a lot and then we realize that there's no need to push our own idea out every single time it's okay if you take a step back and let someone else put out their idea and then you just help make the idea even better after looking within I would think maybe I was being too selfish I didn't think about you know what was better for the whole or like caring more for other people everything happens for a reason so if a conflict arises maybe it's time for me to look inside and elevate my own state of mind sometimes when you can go back and just like meditate or like read the scriptures or just calm down and think about yourself it's a lot easier to realize like oh maybe what that person said to me today it's actually not the end of the world and I feel like that's something people realize later on in life they look back like oh I did so many stupid things when I was young I feel like with found thata it's now I can look at myself and be like is what I'm doing now right is this the kind of person I want to be when that happens to everyone when everybody is doing that then kind of the power behind that is Unstoppable [Music] so part of our curriculum we have this thing called practicum and every year students from fatan college go on tour with Sham Performing Arts there's probably nowhere else in the world where you can go on practicum with a professional Arts company like shinan performing arts and tour around the world and get that kind of real life hands-on experience that comes with not only performing but off the stage too every time we come back from tour it's not like I think wow we performed 100 plus shows it's more like wow I've learned so much every show is a new experience every show brings us new challenges every time we rehearse or every time we travel it brings different tribulations and the way that we get through them the way we kind of develop ourselves as a person and as a musician that's really education in itself it's not just learning or practicing it's experiencing life I've been fortunate enough to get to visit many different countries Shin goes all around the world to a lot of different places like Europe Asia I myself I've been to Taiwan Great Britain Italy Spain Sweden Germany France Brazil all over the world and I feel like it's been really great for me as a person to be able to see and interact with all these different cultures most of classical music and it was written by these great composers that are from Europe and then I think to be able to to there and actually experience the culture I think that for me was really big you go to places you never would have expected try different foods absorb different cultures but apart from that is kind of what we're trying to do as dancers of shenyun and students of f College everybody here from the students to the teachers everyone is here for one goal what drives us is actually the mission of Reviving traditional Chinese culture [Music] I have never seen anything so wonderful as this and to see shenyun work so hard to bring back the best That civilization has ever created Chinese civilization is so powerful shenu has saved so much before it was too late [Music] this is the real China and it's being suppressed I was actually choked up at the end because I thought about all the work and the dedication that the artist put into this and I thought man oh man what an achievement if you're a teacher teaching them at that high level the reward for that teacher is is beyond measure they're obviously in inspired by something greater than themselves I think that just shines from them I can see the spiritual discipline in their physical discipline I can see their commitment and their sacrifice to be able to perform this tonight which is a real honor to be able to partake in that when you improve as a person the art that you produce is more pure and More Beautiful only really by elevating your Mar character do you have something that's meaningful to others here in faith in college I think the biggest benefit I've gained is finding selfworth and self-purpose for a better cause a bigger cause sometimes I take a step back and it's a little bit humbling I guess to be doing something this big to be sharing something this Divine or this ancient which is Chinese culture with the whole world [Music] [Music] [Music]