The New York Times is on the war path, publishing 9+ articles in the last few months targeting Shen Yun Performing Arts, Fei Tian College (the school where many Shen Yun dancers train), and the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, whose practitioners founded Shen Yun.
The Times is pressing hard to convince its readers that Falun Gong practitioners are extreme religious zealots, and that Shen Yun is largely a money-making scheme.
Yet, the stories of over a thousand Shen Yun staff, artists, and students at Fei Tian tell a very different story about an organization that combines a remarkable education with world-class artistic training, all of which is grounded in a wholesome, traditional Buddhist faith. They also reveal how the attacks by the Times align, both in timing and substance, with a new aggressive campaign by the Chinese regime to sabotage Shen Yun and “eliminate Falun Gong globally.”
Is this just a coincidence or is the Times – wittingly or not – being used as the primary weapon of the Chinese regime in a desperate attempt to destroy an American company and the lives of those who study and work there?
Levi Browde is a board member of Fei Tian College. His two sons are also dancers with Shen Yun Performing Arts and students at Fei Tian College. Levi can provide an inside look at the Shen Yun/Fei Tian College experience, dissect exactly what the Times got wrong, and why the broader CCP campaign to destroy Shen Yun on U.S. soil should worry every American.
Background
A career software entrepreneur, Levi’s life changed dramatically in 1999 when his best friend came to the office one morning and announced the Chinese Communist Party had taken away his mother in Beijing to be tortured and “brainwashed.” This marked the beginning of his volunteer work to defend human rights in China. Two years later, Levi himself was detained in a Chinese jail outside Beijing for secretly meeting with Western reporters and protesting on Tiananmen Square.
Today, Levi serves as the Executive Director with the New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center – an organization dedicated to ending the human rights abuses against people who practice Falun Gong in China.
Over the past 20 years, Browde has been interviewed and quoted by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, the Associated Press, TIME Magazine, BBC, AFP, and other media outlets. He has spoken about Falun Gong and human rights in China at briefings on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, at the United Nations human rights sessions in Geneva, Switzerland.
Browde studied East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University and is an avid supporter of traditional Chinese culture. He founded several software start-ups, and lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
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A Sample of Appearances
Mini-Documentary: Unmasking China’s Gestapo
Watch at: https://tv.faluninfo.net/unmasking-chinas-gestapo-610-office/
Mini-Documentary: China’s Underground Media
Watch at: https://tv.faluninfo.net/chinas-underground-media/The China Unscripted Interview with Levi Browde
Watch at:
https://tv.faluninfo.net/china-unscripted-falun-gong-the-biggest-threat-to-the-ccps-power/
The Michael Harrison Interview with Levi Browde
Listen at: https://tv.faluninfo.net/the-michael-harrison-interview-with-levi-browde/
Levi Browde Exposes the New York Times’ Distorted Coverage of Human Rights| China In Focus
Watch at: https://tv.faluninfo.net/levi-browde-exposes-the-new-york-times-distorted-coverage-of-human-rights/
Leeshai Lemish has been with Shen Yun for 18 years. He earned his bachelor’s
degree in Chinese history and language from Pomona College, California, and his
master’s in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He has
spent extended periods studying, working, and conducting research throughout
East Asia, and has authored articles on Chinese current affairs in both English and
Chinese. He joined Shen Yun Performing Arts as an MC when the company was founded in 2006, and has since emceed close to two thousand performances with the company, taking the stage with Shen Yun at prestigious theaters such as Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center, the London Coliseum, Tokyo Opera City, and many others worldwide.
In addition to his performance role, he has tracked and documented on his website over 100 cases of
the Chinese Communist Party and its agents trying to sabotage Shen Yun internationally. He has testified
on transnational repression in front of Congress, has been a featured guest on television and radio
shows around the world and is the host of the podcast Shen Yun Voices.
Sample of Appearances
Leeshai Lemish on American Thought Leaders
Shen Yun shatters Communist Party narratives,
prompting attacks by China’s regime
China Uncensored
Why is the CCP trying to destroy this show?
Overnight with Susie Elelman radio interview
Sydney, Australia
Shen Yun Voices Podcast
Host of a talk show with Shen Yun artists and experts
Sample of Writings
Leeshai’s website documen2ng CCP interference with Shen Yun: https://leeshailemish.com/on-shen-yun/
On Tour Daily Diary: https://www.shenyunperformingarts.org/blog/view/ar2cle/e/q7ccljjAlcg/on-tour-daily-diary
Series of ar2cles on Falun Gong in the New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/author/leeshai-lemish
China Brief—Policing the Chinese Spirit: https://jamestown.org/program/the-610-office-policing-the-chinese-spirit/
