My Life with Shen Yun | Dancing on the 20th Year Anniversary Tour

Seeing this, it really is remarkable to think how far we've come. We've went from 1 to 8 companies touring the world simultaneously. It's my 19th year touring with Chen Yun. But how did I get here? Falun Dafa is a Qigong practice, kind of like Tai Chi or Yoga, that spread rapidly in China with nearly 100 million practitioners within a few years. Many people benefited from the meditative exercises and moral teachings, including my grandma. She had a type of immune system dysregulation that hospitals couldn't cure, but she was healed from practicing Falun Dafa. My family was amazed by how beneficial this practice was for her, so they also started What set Falun Dafa apart is that it's not just the physical exercises. It actually taught practitioners to be good people, to live by the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. At the time, the Chinese government was all for it, even giving awards and recognition. Many top CCP officials' relatives, or they themselves, were practicing Falun Dafa. But because of its popularity, the number of practitioners even surpassed the members of the Communist Party. The leader of the CCP at the time changed the narrative overnight. What was once a popular practice suddenly was a cult. And with that label, the persecution began in 1999. I escaped to Canada in the year 2000 and haven't been back to my homeland since. Canada was comfortable, but deep down, I was never truly at ease. There's the persecution still going on, and the world's media echoing CCP propaganda. Growing up in Canada, I was never fully comfortable about sharing my faith, because there was always that pressure of thinking, what if that person is already biased towards us? Fast forward several years later, I heard practitioners were getting together, using art as a medium to revive genuine, traditional Chinese culture, and show the plight of religious faith being suppressed in modern China. Eventually, Shen Yun was born. I didn't expect much attending Shen Yun's first show in Toronto, but it made me as proud as ever. Shen Yun gave me a breath of fresh air, and hope to see that many in the audience resonated with the stories of my culture, and gained awareness of the persecution of my faith. It opened my eyes to how, just in a few hours, one show that thousands of people come to understand this important story of humanity. So I asked myself, why not dedicate my time to strive to become a part of Shen Yun? I worked hard, and got admitted to Feitian, a dance academy that partners with Shen Yun, and allows its qualified students to go on practicum on tour along with training performers. I made lifetime friends there, training and studying together. And thanks to this amazing opportunity, I was able to travel the world at a young age, performing with my friends, all while keeping up with my studies. And I kept going. I graduated college with a BFA in classical Chinese dance and a 3.8 GPA. I even became a principal dancer with Shen Yun, and toured the five continents performing on the world stages. I portrayed many characters from history and folklore, some comical, while others were powerful historical pieces, where I even got to dance with the love of my life. It's a really cool feeling knowing the audience can laugh, cry, and resonate with the stories without a single word spoken. In fact, a big motivation for me is to see the audience reactions. The way that they move, the way that they perform is just on another level. Visually stunning, flawless. I can't wait to bring my children to this show. I like the whole thing, this is my fourth time. It's wonderful, don't stop. Congratulations on a great 20 years, and good luck and best wishes for another 20 years. That spirit, that's a culture, that's a value, that's compassion, that's amazing. This was beauty, grace, truth, and kindness. Those qualities unite us, they bring us closer together, and they overcome the challenges and, one may say, the darkness of the world. As I hold this coin and look back on two decades of Shen Yun, I realize that 20 years isn't just a milestone, it's a foundation. We've grown from one company to eight, and from a small group of artists to a global phenomenon. But we aren't done yet. Whether I'm on center stage or behind the scenes, my mission stays the same, to bring hope to this world for the next 20 years and beyond.