Saturday Night Live helps make Shen Yun a household name—exactly what China’s CCP didn’t want
A recent Saturday Night Live sketch featured a character playing China’s Trade Minister who joked that he attends Shen Yun performances just to picket them. While delivered in jest, the line lands in an unexpectedly significant way—offering a surprising moment of cultural clarity.
Whatever the intent, SNL did Shen Yun a favor.
For a company that has spent nearly two decades reviving 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture—without Communist Party censorship—even a brief mention on a show as iconic as SNL marks a milestone. It signals that Shen Yun has fully entered the American cultural lexicon. What once felt niche is now familiar. The name Shen Yun is being said aloud—on national television, in comedy clubs, on street corners. And that’s something the Chinese Communist Party is desperate to avoid.
The irony, of course, is that while the sketch may have been intended as satire, it unintentionally mirrors real-world tactics used against Shen Yun: performers and audiences across the United States have faced bomb threats, mass shooting threats, and slashed tires, all as part of a coordinated campaign to silence them. The difference is, in this case, the joke backfired—in the best way possible.
By putting the name Shen Yun in front of millions, SNL helped undermine the very campaign of erasure that Beijing has spent years and millions trying to enforce. Even comedy, it turns out, can carry cultural weight—and sometimes, it amplifies truth more powerfully than it knows.
This wasn’t just a one-liner. It was a signal, unintentional or not. Shen Yun is here. The public is noticing. And now, even late-night comedy is helping shine the spotlight.
Schedule an interview with a Shen Yun spokesman today!!
Relevant Article(s)
Mention of Shen Yun is at the :35 mark
OPTIONAL Q&A:
- How did Shen Yun and its performers react to the recent SNL sketch referencing your performances in the context of CCP picketing?
- Do you believe the writers at SNL were aware of the very real threats and violence Shen Yun has faced in the U.S. when they wrote this sketch?
- In what ways has the Chinese Communist Party attempted to intimidate or suppress Shen Yun’s presence in the West, and how has this evolved in recent years?
- Can you speak to the impact this kind of satire—especially when it echoes real-life harassment—has on the safety and morale of Shen Yun performers and audiences?
- Ironically, SNL’s mention of Shen Yun may boost your visibility. Do you view this moment as a sign that your message is breaking through more powerfully than ever?
- What does it say about Shen Yun’s cultural impact that even mainstream comedy shows now see the group as widely recognizable enough to reference in their sketches?
- Given that many of your performers have fled religious and political persecution, how do you reconcile artistic freedom with the risks associated with growing public exposure?
- What message would Shen Yun like to send to audiences—and to media outlets like SNL—about the very real costs of making light of authoritarian repression and its victims?
- Where can we learn more about the beautiful art of Shen Yun, and how it motivates others?
- The official website can be found here. Tickets to shows are also available there for purchase.
ABOUT LEESHAI LEMISH…
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.
ABOUT LEVI BROWDE…
Levi Browde 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.
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.
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.
Samples of Levi on camera:
https://tv.faluninfo.net/unmasking-chinas-gestapo-610-office/
https://tv.faluninfo.net/levi-browde-exposes-the-new-york-times-distorted-coverage-of-human-rights/
ABOUT YING GHEN…
Ying Chen is an orchestra conductor who has been with Shen Yun from the very beginning. She can offer insights and personal stories about how Shen Yun started as an all-volunteer group of first- generation immigrants, and through hard work, faith, and a relentless dedication to a grand vision to revive a culture almost destroyed in communist China, created the fastest growing performing arts company in American history.
Ying can also tell the horrific story of her family’s detention and torture in China, an experience that helped drive her and the entire community at Shen Yun to create a production that would shed light on the tyranny of the Chinese communist regime, while also inspiring people around the world with hope and a renewed sense of our common humanity.
The story of Ying, her family, and community at Shen Yun is a quintessential tale of facing the evils of the world with resilience and faith, and never letting others, even the largest totalitarian regime on earth, take away one’s hope.
CONTACT: Todd Baumann at 512-966-0983 or by email Jerry McGlothlin at bookings@specialguests.com.
