(Minghui.org) I am a Falun Dafa practitioner in North America. I have seen some misinformation and rumors attacking Shen Yun and Fei Tian Academy and Fei Tian College on the Internet recently, which really upset me. My daughter has been training in Chinese classical dance at Fei Tian for seven years now, and I would like to share some of her experiences from my perspective as a parent. I hope it will help people see a truer picture of Fei Tian and Shen Yun.
My daughter started to read Dafa books and do the exercises when she was very young back in China. She often told her friends in kindergarten and her nanny that Falun Dafa is good. She moved overseas with us when she was six and participated in many Dafa activities, such as parades and handing out informational materials.
My husband was persecuted back in China and was unlawfully detained for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. While in detention, he was brutally beaten and cuffed to a metal chair for days without any sleep. He was also subjected to intensive, coercive brainwashing. My daughter knew about her dad’s suffering even though she was only a child. Later, we moved to South Korea, where we were still frequently harassed by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents. They cut our internet connection and often spied on us at night. All this put a lot of pressure on my daughter, but at the same time, she also learned to be strong.
My daughter saw Shen Yun in 2008 for the first time, and since then she always hoped that she could join Shen Yun and become a dancer, thinking that this would be an ideal way for her to tell people about the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China.
We didn’t have the means to get her a dance teacher at the time, so she practiced splits by herself. Two years later, she asked me to help her enroll in Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, but she was too young to be accepted then. She was very sad.
Later we immigrated to North America, and our landlord happened to be a dance teacher. My daughter was very happy and practiced with the teacher every day. She was a little older then and her legs were a bit more stiff, but she never gave up even though the training was quite hard for her.
When she moved up to middle school (a rebellious age), she began to play with her classmates from mainland China all day long. By and by, she slacked off in her cultivation and seldom studied the Fa or did the exercises. She began to compare herself with her classmates in terms of material possessions. She spent most of her spare time playing with her cell phone and chatting on social media, and she also became irritable and indifferent.
Seeing the harm social media was having on my daughter, I was very worried and tried to stop her from accessing social media by unplugging the internet cable. This made her very angry, and she told me that my coercive way of doing things wouldn’t work on her.
Later, she became even more resistant to Fa study and doing the exercises, and behaved like an everyday person. I could feel the emptiness and helplessness in her heart, and she also felt the pain herself. She once said to me, “Mom, I am like a flower. Although the petals have withered, my roots are still in Dafa. Sometimes I really want to go to a quiet place where there is no one and read Dafa books for a whole day, but I can’t do it anymore.” I was very sad to hear this.
I looked within and began to change myself. I tried to be kind and understanding and stopped demanding that she study the Fa and do the exercises. Instead, I spent time chatting with her and bought her small gifts. I also told her stories from Chinese traditional culture and about my cultivation experiences. When she was in a good mood, I studied the Fa with her. She could feel that I was sincere and only wanted to encourage her. She began to understand that, for a cultivator, one doesn’t need to give up a normal life, one only needs to let go of the bad thoughts and behavior. As we grew closer, she opened her heart to me.
Northern Academy in Middletown, NY, started to enroll students when my daughter was in junior middle school. The dance teachers there all came from Fei Tian Academy of the Arts. I really wanted my daughter to go there, but I didn’t want to push her.
I said, “I hope that you can go there to study, but you must make your own decision. No matter what you decide to do, I will support your choice. But try to live up to whatever you decide.”
She was a bit undecided at first, as she had already planned to attend Toronto University in the future. After some serious thinking, she decided to enroll in Northern Academy and train as a dancer.
“Mom, I have chosen the hardest path, but I won’t regret it,” she said to me in tears.
“You should be proud of yourself,” I encouraged her with a smile.
My daughter was one of the first group of students at Northern Academy. At the time, the facilities at the boarding school were still rather basic, and the school work and dance training put a lot of pressure on her. The biggest challenge for her was that students were not allowed to casually surf the internet, and this made her feel very uncomfortable because she was already quite addicted to the internet by then.
In the first six months, my daughter called me often, telling me that she didn’t want to continue and wanted to come home. I encouraged her and chatted with her and studied the Fa with her for a little while almost every night before she went to bed.
As time went by, I began to notice changes in my daughter every time she came home for the school holidays. She was more respectful and sensible and had learned to be grateful, humble, and considerate of others. She was willing to bear hardships and was more self-disciplined and much calmer as well.
Getting admitted to Fei Tian Academy, however, wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. Her height was always a little short of the requirement (there have been changes in height requirements over the years). Even though she worked hard, she was turned down again and again when she went for interviews.
She said to me once, “Mom, when I came down the mountain (where the academy is located) after each interview, I really envied the trees, because they can stay there forever, but I have to leave again and again.”
I told her, “There is a saying: ‘The fragrance of plum blossom comes from the bitter cold.’ No one can succeed without effort. Don’t worry too much about the result, the process is more important. You can temper your willpower and endurance, which will be a lifetime wealth.”
My daughter was admitted to Fei Tian Academy at last, and she was so happy. Every time she came home for a short vacation, she would tell me about her life at Fei Tian nonstop.
I asked her if she felt nervous when she saw Master. “Not at all,” she said, “Master is like a kind father who takes care of us in everything. He often takes us out on our days off to eat delicious food and gives us snacks and other useful things, and he always hands them out to each one of us in person.” I was really touched by what she told me.
She said, “Mom, one big thing I have learned there is that I now know what is right and what is wrong. In my school back home, there were many unhealthy behaviors among the students, but nobody told us about it, and everyone just followed the trend. Even though I knew something wasn’t good, I went with the flow, so that I would not be considered ‘odd.’ In fact, I wasn’t very clear about many things myself.
“But at Fei Tian, everyone is a Dafa practitioner, and we all try to conduct ourselves by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. If anyone is selfish or wants to stand out, others kindly remind the person not to behave that way.
“I know that if you truly want to be a genuine practitioner, you will listen and amend yourself. If you stick to your own ways and are selfish, you will feel pretty out of place, because no one will try to please you simply because you want to have your own way. When people tell you what is right from their hearts, they are being truly kind to you.”
I was really pleased to hear my daughter say that.
She also shared with me how she let go of her ego and learned to cooperate with the group.
My daughter has always been competitive and always wants to be the best in everything she does. She was a lead dancer in the dance class in Northern Academy in Middletown before she went to Fei Tian.
She said to me one day, “Mom, when I first saw that some classmates who were not as skilled as me were selected as the lead dancers, I felt rather uncomfortable because my techniques were better. It was only that I was not tall enough. I even felt a bit jealous and unbalanced inside.
“But I don’t feel that way anymore,” she continued. “When I see people around me all thinking about the whole group, I realize my own selfishness. Later, I became the monitor in our class and was responsible for arranging dance formations. At first, I thought of putting myself in a more conspicuous place in a dance, but I found later that such an arrangement didn’t look good, so, in the end, I placed myself at the back.
“I now realize that my physical attributes are not good enough to be a lead dancer, so I focus more on taking care of daily issues in our class, because I know that my mission is to do well in every task assigned to me, and whatever everyone does is to support the whole group. Some well-known lead dancers have stopped playing important roles as they get older, but they still practice earnestly every day as they have done in the past over ten years. We all admire them very much.”
My daughter also told me about an incident that touched me deeply. Once, just before showtime, a lead dancer twisted his ankle and would not be able to perform. Very quickly, they rearranged their dance formations and gave a perfect performance that day.
“Did you rehearse beforehand to cope with such situations?” I asked.
“No, Mom. We can deal with such situations because everyone in the group thinks along the same line. We will quickly adjust to the situation and give a perfect show for the audience. No one thought about themselves, only about cooperating well with everyone else with tacit understanding.”
I was deeply touched and thought: Their strong sense of mission could be what drives all Shen Yun performers to create one miracle after another.
I was a doctor by profession back in China, and I know that my daughter will have to endure pain on the path she has chosen to be a dancer. It is something unavoidable for any dancer or professional athlete. For example, a ballet dancer may experience the pain of toenails peeling off and regrowing a number of times. Chinese classical dance causes much less physical damage in comparison.
During the past seven years while my daughter was training at Fei Tian, she didn’t suffer much pain, except for occasional soreness in her feet and hips. When students experience any pain or discomfort, their teacher would always suggest that they rest for a while instead of pushing themselves too hard. Teachers at Fei Tian never deny students medical treatment, much to the contrary of some rumors.
A girl in my daughter’s class is recuperating at home at the moment due to low back pain, and she is seeing a doctor regularly for consultation. Her parents and I live in the same city and we know each other well. Another student has just been admitted to the hospital for an operation for a foot injury.
My daughter calls me for advice sometimes if someone in her class has sprained her ankle, asking me how to apply cold or hot compresses or what kind of medicine is better. If it is a major injury, the school always advises that the student goes to see a doctor.
I once asked my daughter if she found it very tiring when they were on tour. “No, Mom, the annual tour is very good for us,” she said with no hesitation.
For professional dancers, in addition to having good physical conditions and strenuous training, they also need good platforms to present themselves and gain valuable stage experience. So my daughter cherishes every annual tour.
“A dancer’s professional life is relatively short, and performers in other ordinary companies might not be able to take part in more than 100 shows on world-class stages in their entire professional lives, but we give over 100 performances every year on such stages,” she said. “Of course we may face challenges and pressures in each place we go, but this allows us to gain a lot of stage experience and mature quickly, so I never feel tired, just very lucky. As a professional dancer, I know how to balance things while on tour without over-stretching myself. So, there is nothing to worry about, Mom.”
When my daughter was a child, she dreamed that one day she would be able to travel around the world. We could not afford to realize her dream due to our finances, but her dream came true when she joined Shen Yun, because they travel to different countries and cities, experiencing different cultures around the world.
During summer vacation this year, my daughter brought me a notebook from the British Museum and exquisite tea as gifts and told me about how to enjoy afternoon tea and some dining etiquette.
There is an old Chinese saying: “Read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles.” It is very rare for young people of my daughter’s age to have had such rich experiences to broaden their world view.
Back in China, we were considered to be a middle-income family, and our financial condition was just average after we moved overseas. Education fees are pretty high both in China and overseas. I hear that even for an average private university in the U.S., tuition alone can cost at least $30,000 a year, not to mention other miscellaneous expenses and living costs. It would have been absolutely beyond our means.
But for students at Fei Tian, everything is free, including tuition, food and accommodation. Students are also provided with clothing appropriate for the seasons and only need pocket money from their parents. When they are on annual tours as part of their practicum program, they are provided with free accommodation in good hotels and carefully prepared food. They are also offered performing subsidies.
I’m deeply grateful to Fei Tian Academy. It not only produces excellent students like my daughter but also bears almost all the cost involved for the parents.
I once asked my daughter what she would like to do after she finished at Fei Tian. She said, “Mom, if there is no special reason you want me to be home near you, I would like to stay on, even if I cannot dance anymore. I’m happy to do anything here. I like the environment. It’s like a big family. I won’t be able to find anywhere else as beautiful and pure as where I am.”
I used to suffer from an inherited heart disease, and when I was on the verge of death, Falun Dafa saved me and gave me a healthy new life—without asking me for a penny. When my daughter was affected by the moral decline in society and could not free herself, Fei Tian Academy changed her into an outstanding youngster, also without asking a penny from me. As a parent, no words are sufficient to express my profound gratitude to Dafa and Fei Tian.
I sincerely hope that my article can help clear up some of the confusion and slanderous remarks about Dafa, Fei Tian Academy, and Fei Tian College.
I also hope that those former students who have grievances about Fei Tian can calmly review their experience at the school, let go of their resentments, and have more kindness and love in their hearts.