They can try to attack us in the media, but they're not just coming for Shenyun and Fallen Gong. There will certainly be a day where people will see the truth.

Jared, thank you for coming. Shenun has been in the news lately a lot. And you are a Shenu MC for 18 years total. So, how did you get involved with Shenun?

Because I'd always been incredibly interested in traditional Chinese culture and I've always wanted to share that with the West. Uh, and I saw Shenyun as as checking all the boxes of things that I wanted to do, right? I've I I'd been on some TV shows before. I'd done different things like that. I I really enjoyed that. Uh, I hadn't done I'd done some things on stage as well.

So, I was very interested in in going on stage and performing. So, each show has roughly 18 to 20 pieces, dance pieces.

Um and maybe one or two pieces are about fallen gold.

The most the vast majority 90 plus percent of the show is are stories from traditional China from like Chinese history uh traditional stories stories of mythology uh stories of court dances different dynasties. Super excited to see to see that it's like the cyine chapel coming to life on stage. So did you watch Shen Yun before applying to be an MC? So I had seen the gala. I took part in a little bit of that. That was kind of the precursor to Shenyun and then it ended up the artists that were taking part in that especially the ones that did classical Chinese dance and then music had played professionally played instruments then they created Shenyun.

So Shenyun is predominantly classical Chinese dance and then we have an orchestra as well. Was Shen Yun already at the Dragon Spring location at that time? So, Dragon Springs started uh soon after the persecution, right?

That's 400 acres. Fall & practitioners had purchased this piece of land and they had they constructed it's still there a a temple that's kind of like a a Buddhist style temple but in Tong Dynasty architecture. So we don't have monks, we don't have rituals, we don't have worship, but that's is this is already we're preserving the traditional culture. Uh and this is in upstate New York. Mhm. And that's Dragon Springs and on that same piece of land, that's where Shenyun started. So in a different section from the temple, Shenyun had started. And we just had a little we didn't really have we had like one little building. We didn't have much going on and now that's grown significantly. Right. How many troops are there total? So, right. So, it started with one and then I was in the second one. Right now there are eight troops. So, that means eight full dance companies, eight orchestras.

Uh, so that's this is hundreds of people that we're talking about, right? And so now we have many buildings. We have many dance classrooms. We have music practice halls. We have theaters that we do rehearsals and train in. We have great facilities. Do they all live in the same place? So there are dorms for the students. Uh I don't I don't live there.

It's more of a campus. But can people come and go? Like can people from outside who are not involved with the school or with Shenyen just come? No, they can't. And just like any private high school or or private college or private business, you can't just walk in to any business or any high school because you want to. Some of the media now is making it look like they're using that term compound. We're at some compound. It's like it's not a compound.

It's it's a school. It's a temple. It's a two schools and it's a it's a private school. So there there's boarding options. So the students stay there.

That's why well because everything all the media all the news uh that's out there has been making Dragon Springs to be this great mystery and no one knows what's going on in there who lives there and who works there. So uh now it makes sense there are 70 to 100 million fallen practitioners. There is no way you could have that many people living on 400 acres. Right? So, you know, them labeling us a cult and trying to make it look like it's some sort of, you know, we're all on this compound doing this weird stuff is is just absurd.

99.999 literally percent of the people who practice fallen don't have anything to do with Dragon Springs. They don't go there. They are not part of Shenya.

They're not part of Fatan. They are just living their lives, doing their normal jobs, going about their life. Um, there's like I was talking about, there's no worship. There's it's just doing the exercises, reading the book.

You can get together in a group as a group to do this or you can do it on your own, whatever you like. So, Dragon Springs itself is the temple, the schools, and Shenyun. Got it. So, do are there minors in the Shenyun troop? So the high school and and college actually there is a a a practicum that students can apply for and they can be part of Shenyun. They can go on tour with Shenyun.

So 15% 15% of Shenyun are under 18. So basically what that means is there might be a few dancers, maybe a couple people in the orchestra and and the rest are over 18. Mhm. So there are some it's part of their training, their practicum.

You have to apply to it and only the best students, the best dancers, the best musicians uh will be accepted. So are they paid? Are everyone all the workers for Shenun uh paid? Yes, we're paid and and we're paid year round.

We're not like most performance companies where we where we leave and then and then we have to apply again. Uh once you're in, you you you can basically, you know, you just keep you can keep going. You don't have to be let go. Okay. Uh for students, students at F10, every student is on a full scholarship. Okay. Yeah. So they're they're on a full scholarship, which includes room, board, and then if they apply and are accepted to go on tour with Shenyun, then of course all all of those expenses are paid. All the travel room board everything like that is paid.

So effectively you can go through all of college and the college even has a master's degree in masters in fine arts. So you can get a master's in fine arts, graduate single with zero debt. Oh wow. No student debt.

In fact, that's that's every single student is like that. Uh-huh. And so, uh, sometimes, you know, I've seen some articles that try to make it look like students are being taken advantage of. Mhm. You know, there it's it's some sort of money-making scheme that's taking child labor. Yeah. Child labor.

And that's just factually that's just inaccurate, right? It's part of the practicum. Mhm. Uh the students apply to be part of this and many of their goal is after they graduate then they apply to be part of Shenyen and get on regular salary like the rest of us. There's no guarantees they might they might not get in but they graduate and they don't have any debt. Wow. I don't know a lot of students these days who graduate from college and and don't have debt. You can kind of think of it similar to uh college athletics. you know, a basketball team, football team, you know, they they often will get full scholarships as well, and then they they play basketball, they play football, they don't get paid. They get a full scholarship, but they never get paid with the goal of going on to to then try to get in the NBA. Most people who graduate from Fatan do get into Sheny.

Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Okay. Not not everybody, but but most do. Okay.

Okay. That's good. Um and are the students getting you know adequate education on on right so the education is monitored by uh New York state's department of education and uh that's the high school the academy and the university is monitored by the same board that uh accredits Harvard Yale so yes academics are traditionally very high at our school. Above average. Above average. Yes. Cuz they also, as far as I know, they have to train. They have to do a lot of dance practices. Um, right.

So, the tracks are going to be dance, uh, music and now we have theater production as well. At the same time, we fulfill all the requirements for standard academics. as a westerner um you probably when you're touring with the troop do you feel um you're part of the group or do you still feel like you know you're a westerner and they're Chinese there's some um gap between you well okay so a a lot of us have been touring together for over 10 years so from that point of view no there's no I mean we're all just like the best of friends you know and we've been and we know each other very Well, um, and again, I've been learning Chinese since I was 14. Uh, so for me, I don't I don't feel like there's a lot of of much of any, you know, barriers there. And I think a lot of them, you know, they they know me for a long time.

They know that I'm very interested in in in Chinese culture. And, uh, we'll have we'll have great discussions all the time. So, I I don't feel a lot of barriers. If it's somebody who uh maybe hadn't lived in China like me, doesn't speak Chinese, a westerner, you know, maybe we'll have have some who come uh there might be, you know, just kind of getting used to process. I mean, everybody, all the ones the westerners who who've known have quickly kind of gotten the flow and and figured out how it is. But it would be like, you know, going into any any culture that's not your own. Where did you study Chinese?

So I started in high school. Uh I grew up in De Moine, Iowa. And when I started high school that they had just begun a Chinese program there. So Chinese programs in the US now are a lot more common, but at that time that was the only program in the state of Iowa. Oh wow. That that that had Chinese in high school. So I lucked out. I because I'd always been very interested in Chinese culture. I'd read about Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, anything that I could find at that time before the internet was it was hard to find a lot of these things especially in English.

So when I heard I get to study Chinese, right? I have the opportunity to study Chinese in high school. I definitely jumped on that. And then when I was 17, I went with the school year abroad through Phillips Academy. This was their first year. They typically in the past they had done France and Spain. Right.

This was the very first year that a group of Americans in high school, group of high school Americans got to study at a high school in China. So, how long were you in China for? So, uh that was just a semester. That wasn't an entire year. That was just a semester. And then that was my last semester of high school. And then after high school, I went back to China for college. Um basically enroll in a Chinese college.

I went on to study I studied language for a little bit but then I predominantly studied Chinese medicine.

Oh wow. Yeah. Traditional medicine.

Traditional Chinese medicine. Because to me Chinese medicine is a very real manifestation of traditional Chinese philosophy. So before you went to China um as an exchange student for that one semester you were fascinated in Chinese culture but after you went to China was there a culture shock?

Yes. Uh when I first went to China, honestly, the biggest cultural shock was I had been reading a lot of books on Daoism and Buddhism, a lot of traditional Chinese thought and history, and I hadn't read much on communism and I was under the assumption that I would go to China and every Chinese person was operating at this at this very enlightened state. Yes. Yes.

Exactly. and everyone would be would be every word out of their mouth would be these these highle thing like that I literally that's that's what I thought I thought I was going to go to China and you want to know what I think if it was before communism it probably was something like that but you know I go and it was it was uh communism had had ruined a lot of that you know you you could really tell that a lot of people in China as well had didn't a lot of people I I met not everybody but a lot I met really were not fans of communism.

So much to the point they just wanted to leave, you know, they just wanted to go somewhere else. They just wanted wanted to leave China. But it was very hard. It was just hard to get a passport in those days. So, did you end up doing Chinese medicine? Yeah. So, uh I did my undergrad in China and then I got a master's degree in Chinese medicine in the US. Oh, okay. And then soon after that, I started to open some clinics. So I ended up I had three clinics that I had opened that was the early 2000s and so Chinese medicine was in the US but it wasn't as popular right as now. So did you need to close your clinics? Uh yeah I I sold I sold the clinics. So any regrets? No, not really. I mean it it you know it's it's my whole life's goal was to pass on Chinese culture and I think that I can do much more with that with Shenyun and I can reach many more people uh than I could with my acupuncture clinics and they they ended up sold to people who who had worked there. So I'm very happy they were able to continue the clinics. What would you say is the best thing the company has affected you in your personal life? I mean, I would say for me the the the driving force is the actual show itself.

And so, I really like going on stage. I really enjoy being an MC. And I really like seeing like I'll watch the audience come in and watching them just their whole everything changes.

It's it's the power of traditional Chinese culture. It's the power of the show. You'll see people in tears. You'll see them just totally moved. And then we'll see interviews of them after or sometimes I'll go and meet people uh after the show ends. Maybe I'll go in the lobby and I'll talk to people and you can just see people came in and they're excited for the show but they have all the pressure of the world and like everybody has on them and then after the show they just everybody in the audience seems to be glowing and they just they're praising the show and they just it feels like like they're a different person and that that to me is is very inspirational. I feel like there's a whole new wave of campaign against Fallong and Shen Yun as well.

How do you feel about that? Right now the media is there's there's media that is saying basically regurgitating a lot of what um the Chinese communist propaganda has done in the past. They're trying to do investigations. are trying to look into Shenuin and and and reveal, you know, whatever they're trying to reveal.

Um, some of these accusations that that that we had talked about. It feels like we overcame a lot from the persecution in China and it took a lot to get here.

And we we find inspiration from the practice. uh we find inspiration from 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture. So just having some bad press, it's not going to stop us. You know, we we we of course we we keep going. And there will certainly be a day in the future where people will will see the truth. They'll they'll see the truth of the the the propaganda in China. they'll see the truth of the propaganda that that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to force into America. Uh actually this truth is is already starting to come out. Um there was a guy by the name of John Chun who was a CCP agent in in the US. He tried to bribe who he thought was an IRS agent to do an investigation into ShenYun, but it was actually a sting operation by the FBI.

And so that guy got arrested and he put on trial like the whole the whole thing.

He was totally busted. And so we're starting to see more and more of that.

And that's honestly as fallen gold practitioners, we have been dealing with persecution uh from the Chinese Communist Party for over 25 years. What I think people don't realize is how much of of the arm of the Chinese Communist Party has extended into the West into the US. So they can throw out all of this, you know, they can try to attack us in the media, but the fact of the matter is the Chinese Communist Party is coming and they're not just coming for Shenyun and Fallen Gong.

They're coming for all of the Western world. And I I think very soon the western world is going to realize what's happening and they need to, you know, we need we need to wake up. We need to see see this for what it is. Uh what they're doing to Shenyun and fallong is just a test. It's a test to see how it goes in the