Shen Yun dancers react to NY Times article

Hey, welcome back. We're the 3 Musketeers! -Welcome back~ -3 Musketeers! It's actually been forever since we've posted, you know, a full-length video. But we wanted to make a video because recently, the New York Times just came out with an article about Shen Yun. And after we saw it, we were really sad because it's just completely the opposite of our experience at Shen Yun. We just want to share a little bit of, you know, our experience here, what life is like at Shen Yun for us. Kind of what we've been trying to do on the channel to show people our lives, you know, through these videos. Shen Yun has been around for almost 20 years, and in the article, they found 25 people who used to work at Shen Yun who are unhappy. So, in 20 years, you find 25 unhappy employees. That's a...that's a pretty good number, I think, you know. What other company do you not have people who are unhappy? I think it's just actually like distortion of like... Even though maybe something happened, but there is basically... They say it in a really weird way, I guess. And then one thing is a weight loss thing. It's your profession. Dance is your profession. So, how you appear on the stage is very important. So, it's like... And then from my experience, and plus like, hearing from other like dancers in Korea that I know, like, the Shen Yun company, they don't really like... -Not that strict? -Yeah, that's...not this strict. Like, look at how we eat normally in the Shen Yun...3 Musketeers videos. Okay, yeah. Basically, when we go on tour, our catering is amazing, and we have like, the best food when we're on tour. And then when we're on the bus, there's food on the bus like, it's like one seat is just full of snacks and food if in case you're hungry on the bus. And underneath, in the luggage compartment, we have so much food there as well. You're surrounded by food. And then on our day off, you go and see how we eat. Okay, like, you see in Vancouver, we have the girls' vlogging. They're like cafe hopping, trying out all the different bakeries in town. And the thing is dancing is not for everyone because it does take a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of hard work. And you know, you definitely have to stay fit and healthy if you want to be able to keep up with the amount of like stamina that dancing takes. So, like, even though we go out and eat like crazy, we really need to also take care of ourselves. There's like, you have to keep that balance. And then another note, you know, they mentioned that we don't get medical treatment, but that's actually pretty ridiculous. It's just a flat-out lie because, you know, we've grown from one to eight companies over all these years. And if you're in...dancers get injured, which is very normal in the dance world, you're gonna sustain injuries in your career. And then you don't get treated, you're gonna have less and less dancers. You can't just force them on stage with injuries. Like, dancers need to be taken care of. And Sam Pu, like, he had a pretty severe injury before, you could tell us about that. Yeah. Um, so, I ruptured my Achilles a couple of years back, and actually, I made videos on the channel about it. So, you guys might know about it. But basically, what happened was I ruptured it while flipping, and then I had to take six to seven months of rehab in Los Angeles. And throughout the whole process, actually, um, honestly, I feel like I wouldn't be dancing right now if it wasn't for Shen Yun the company. So, let me explain. So, right after the rupture, they helped me find a surgeon, and not just any surgeon, they found one of the best surgeons in the country. Uh, he does surgery for a professional... Yeah, Detroit Pistons. It's a...he does surgery for the basketball team. And actually, in basketball, It's very common to have an Achilles rupture because they're jumping a lot. And...so, right off the bat, they made me feel very safe. And, uh, the second thing is right after you get ruptured Achilles, you want to get it, uh, surgery as soon as possible. The longer you go without surgery, the harder it is to recover because literally your tendon snapped. So, it's just gonna shrink afterwards unless you do surgery immediately. And actually, they helped me, uh, find a flight ticket as soon as possible. I flew out, and I got the surgery done in a day or two. Because you can't just get there and start doing surgery, you need to go through MRI, and you need to get X-ray scan, and you need to, you know, get in line and stuff. But I got it done in one or two days, which is very, very fast for, you know, that kind of emergency. But I feel like the company just took care of me. That's it. To put it simply, I felt very, um, uh, looked-after, uh, even after when I was recovering in Los Angeles, where I'm from, the company, uh, manager periodically sent me a text: "How are you doing?", you know, "How's your mental state?" "How's your physical state?" And I feel like, they gave me enough space and freedom to recover properly before coming back to dance. Like, they weren't like, you need to come back now, or you need to do anything. It was just like, take your time, recover fully, and then come back. Just think about it logically: Why would Sam even come back if, you know, the company is depicted like, it is in the article? There's no point to come back. You would just go do something else. Um, when I was rehabbing, I did consider stop...to stop dancing actually, to be honest because, um, Achilles rupture is infamous for being like a career ending injury. Because it's...it's so integral to your jumps to have your Achilles a hundred percent, but actually, um, I think what got me back is just the warmth and support that Shen Yun showed me throughout the process. Uh, it made me feel like welcomed and supported here. And also, just to be honest, like what Shen Yun is doing, reviving traditional Chinese culture, it's very important to me too. So, that also gave me motivation to come back. Yeah. And...it's just pretty saddening for us because we're working so hard right now to with rehearsals, and it's a very busy, you know, time of the year for us. And we're just working hard at our craft on our discipline, and then this article comes out depicting Shen Yun like that. And...it's kind of sad. I mean in daily life, there's must be like conflicts, you know, no, no...like no matter what, like where you live, there's gonna be conflicts with each other, and... but it's important to how you like, face it and stuff. But I feel like, I don't know. This place is one of the best places I've ever been. So, like, I just...I just don't understand. So, like, um...I mean... Why a lot of people want to be with Shen Yun is really the caring and supportive community that we have. And for example, like, we have eight different companies now, and then we're all learning a new dance. For example, in the previous years, we've had Monkey King many times. And then when you, you know, there's gonna be eight different Monkey Kings from eight different companies. And then sometimes we all get together, and then we share our experience with each other: "Oh, this is how I do it." "Oh, it's like, that's a really good idea." "I should try that too." So, you see that environment is very supportive, and it's the opposite of like a cutthroat community where like, you're like: "Oh, I found this way to do this technique." "And it's gonna be a lot better." "So, I'm gonna one up someone else." We actually have the opposite where everyone is trying to help each other. And I think that's also one reason why, you know, Shen Yun has been so successful because everyone really cares for each other. We care about our mission to revive, you know, traditional Chinese culture and share that with the world. So, I guess that's all we really wanted to share. Just a little bit of our initial reactions to what happened. And, you know, we're still gonna keep it up. We're still gonna work hard, and do rehearsals and, you know, do what we're doing, work on our craft. And...in the meantime, maybe...do some more 3 Musketeers' video. I hope we could do that. Life has been really busy, and with 3 Musketeers on top of everything. It's not just sitting down and filming. There's editing, and then just releasing it, and just thumbnails, and then like, you know, trying to, um... -Come up with ideas. -Come up with ideas, yeah. It's just...there's a lot of work involved with it, and we'd love to do some more videos if we ever, you know, have chance...the chance to. So, we'll slowly start to come up with more videos, maybe. No, we will! We will! We will? Okay! We'll try. We'll try our best. All right, guys. So, that's it for this time. We'll hope to see you guys soon. Bye-bye! Bye-bye~ Like, comment, subscribe. Ha ha ha ha!