(Clearwisdom.net) Audiences are awe inspired by her lithe and graceful movements, changeable as floating clouds. The life of well-renown ballerina Tia Zhang follows the flowing rhythms of a ballet drama. Ms. Zhang, 63 years old this year, teaches ballet at the Canada National Ballet School. Along with continued success in her career, she enjoys unlimited vigor in her artistic life.
Tia is among one of the first generation of Chinese ballet dancers trained by the Russian experts. After graduation, she represented China in countless large-scale performances. She stayed to teach ballet at the school for nearly 20 years. She trained and educated one group of excellent dancers after another for China, until she immigrated to Canada 20 years ago. Although she spoke no English, the international ballet school in Canada welcomed her unmistakable talent.
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| Tia (middle) teaching her students | Tia (right) with her dance students |
As the only Chinese teacher in the ballet school, she has trained and educated countless exceptional, ballet dancers to the international level for over 20 years. Ballet is a cruel career, easily terminated by age, physical deterioration, and loss of stamina or patience. But Tia has loved ballet all her life, winning respect and acclamation from her colleagues in the field of western skills. As a result of her painstaking efforts, she is truly an evergreen tree in the artistic world of ballet.
Over the past three years, while busy teaching school, she has also organized the Lotus Arts Performance Center. Each year, they give voluntary performances for community centers in Toronto. In 2002, she was honored by the Toronto municipal government as an "Outstanding Volunteer". When you look at Tia, brimming with energy, you can hardly imagine that she recently led a hesitant and helpless life.
Seven years ago, her husband of over 36 years died suddenly. It was a heavy blow for Tia, who put love over anything else. She felt hopeless and did not know how to face the rest of her life. She began to think about the question: What on earth is the purpose of living as a human being?
During this most difficult period, Falun Dafa was a great help. It gave her a completely new attitude towards life, her career, obstacles and successes. She came to understand that all her past pain resulted from a history of self-indulgence and attachment to others' comments.
After learning the Falun Dafa practice, she changed her view of life completely. She learned to always think of others and treat everyone around her with kindness. She sincerely cares about her students' growth, teaching them to be good people, think of others first, and not to fear difficulties. She uses Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance as criteria for herself and doesn't worry about others' comments or competition. With her teachings, many students are freed from their lack of confidence and stop limiting the meaning of their lives to the success or failure of their ballet career. They would rather face the great pressure involved in high-level elimination majors, with a healthier state of mind. Her colleagues said: "Tia changed fundamentally after she learned Falun Dafa. She has become more patient and kinder to people, and loves the people around her much more." Students also consider her their best friend. On weekends they gather at her home. One student said: "My teacher helps me a lot. Without her, I would not be what I am, dancing one hundred times better than before."
Since China started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, Tia has been busy in many big cities in Europe and North America. She said: "I am a ballet dancer. I only want to practice the Falun Dafa exercises and be a good person. I want to share my experience of this new life and great benefits with my friends, and to expose the lies made by the Chinese government. In China, there are thousands like me who want to be good people. They are not only stripped of their basic human rights, they are even tortured to death. I must step forward to say something fair for Falun Gong: "Falun Dafa is good." This year, I am 63 years old, but I have the physical and mental heath of a person in her 20s. This is my greatest testimony.
