From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, where sometimes we cover groups of swastikas
in their logos, and a good chunk of them are probably not great.
We are your podcast hosts, Taylor and Chelsea.
And Chelsea, this may actually come as a surprise, seeing as how we've been talking about these
people for several hours.
This is one of those times, and maybe you should Google the Falun Gong and check out their logo.
What? How did this surpass me? Huh.
Yeah, it's not even a little bit of swastik.
In all of the googling I've done about the Falun Gong, this has not come up yet.
Yeah, there is no less than five swastikas in their logo.
You should know it's not due to Nazis.
It's actually a very prominent Buddhist symbol.
When I was in Korea, if you look at a map of the city, you'll see swastikas on it,
and that's where Buddhist temples are.
Yeah, and it's all over Asia.
But nonetheless, there are five swastikas in their logo.
It's hard to believe we made it over two hours of talking about this group before it came up
in the podcast, but it made it nonetheless.
You find those groups usually use it to show that they're so enlightened,
and that it's a good, nice symbol, and the cults and bad people don't usually use it for that reason.
Yeah, oh, and it was used a lot before the Nazis came to power?
Yeah.
Robert Evans actually just did a behind the bastards episode on swastikas not that long ago.
I listened to it, yeah.
And there used to be a town in Ontario, Canada called Swastika.
Chelsea, you can actually look it up.
The Edmonton Swastikas was a hockey team.
What?
The more you know.
Oh my god, look at this hockey team photo.
That's not good.
You really can't use that symbol anymore.
Yeah, it's definitely a different time to be alive than then.
A lot less dysentery, a little more negative views of swastikas.
Yep, very negative views.
But anyhow, let's get back on track.
We've got a lot to cover still with the Falun Gong.
What we've been covered for a while.
Just give you a little reprieve there.
Chelsea, we learned a lot of the bad side of Falun Gong in the last episode.
Where we're going to pick that up now is how it's impacting the world that we live in today.
Oh, I thought we're going to do the good side of the Falun Gong.
I mean, that first episode was the best representation.
That was it?
I'm willing to do that.
I'm willing to do.
But they don't get sick.
They don't get sick.
That actually.
They don't need hospitalization.
Let's stop focus on that.
Let's focus on how they're impacting the world today.
So Chelsea, this group has a lot more sway in the modern world
than I would really like to say a cult should.
We're going to start off looking at some of their business endeavors.
The first one being ultra surf.
What is ultra surf?
Well, in 2001, it was founded by Chinese dissidents in Silicon Valley.
Basically what it is, it's a VPN for users in China to evade government censorship and monitoring.
As of 2011, ultra surf reported over 11 million users worldwide.
During the Arab Spring, it recorded a 700% spike in traffic from Tunisia.
So it is actually like worldwide used.
It's basically a way to avoid internet censorship.
I mean, that's not a horrible thing, but it's also owned by the Falun Gong.
And I should say too, similar traffic spikes occur frequently during times of unrest in other regions
like Tibetan Burma.
Some people have called it the most important free speech tool on the internet, but.
I don't see it being a horrible thing.
No, it seems like a good idea.
This is the best thing they've ever done.
It's anti-communist for sure, because it's meant to specifically get around the great firewall of China.
There is some good parts to it, but let's talk about the rest.
Some technologists have expressed reservations about ultra surf's model.
However, in particular, its developers have been criticized by proponents of open source
software for not allowing peer review of the tools designed, except at the discretion of its creators.
Moreover, because ultra surf operates all its own servers, their developers have access to the user's logs.
This architecture means that users are required to trust ultra surf not to reveal user data.
Ultra surf maintains that it keeps logs for a short period of time and uses them only for the
purpose of analyzing traffic for signs of interference or to monitor overall performance and efficacy.
The company says it does not disclose user logs at third parties.
However, we got to take their word on it.
Yeah, because they don't let anybody else look at it.
In an April 2012 report, Jacob Appelbaum with the Tor Project criticized ultra surf
for its use of internal content filtering, including blocking pornographic websites,
and for its willingness to comply with subpoenas from U.S. law enforcement officials.
So it's anti-government, except in the case of the U.S.
Is that weird?
Appelbaum's report also noted that ultra surf pages employed Google Analytics,
which had the potential to leak user data and that its systems were not all up to date with
the latest security patches and did not make use of forward security mechanisms.
It is a little weird, but this group and connection to the U.S. government is going to come up a
lot in this episode.
Oh, okay. I was like, why would they just choose the U.S. government? But okay.
That made sense.
Furthermore, Appelbaum claims that ultra surf client uses open and free software,
but it's not disclosed. And this use and lack of disclosure is a violation of the licenses to
use these products. In response, posted the same day, ultra surf wrote that it had already resolved
these issues. Again, they don't actually let anybody else look at it, but they're saying that
they do.
If you were like, let me look at it to see and they're like, sure. I mean, that would immediately
put doubt into your minds of who they're giving it to.
Apparently a top secret NSA presentation revealed as part of a 2013 global surveillance
disclosure. They dismiss ultra surf's response there as I'll talk in no show.
Like they're just saying it.
And then in a really weird coincidence, a Trump appointee named Michael Pack, who's the head of
the U.S. agency for global media, made a real big push to get government funding for this project.
The ultra surf?
Yeah.
Is that not Ray's red flakes?
Michael Pack made a big push to stop federal funding for open technology fund, which develops tools
that allow people to get around controls on internet access, which received 20 million in
government funding as of 2022. So just cut it off. And then the last I could find on this is that
this was from 2021, I believe in November. Mr. Pack provided ultra reach internet corp, which is the
overarching company that does ultra surf nearly $1.8 million in federal contracts. Now as the
time of the article I read, they'd only received 250,000, but still it was a push to move government
funds from one project to a Falun Gong project in the tune of millions of dollars.
That's weird. Is it because China hates them?
No, not necessarily. And we're going to get to it in the next part, which is if you've had an
interaction with Falun Gong, it's going to be through this group or the next one we talk after
it. But the next one I want to talk after is the bigger surprise for Chelsea here. So we're going
to start with this one.
By after, do you mean part four?
No, no, it will be in this episode.
Falun Gong owns the Epoch Times. This is a newspaper.
Yes.
Did I sound shocked?
Yes. And for those of you wondering why I titled the episode, so this is the payoff finally.
Let's go into it a little bit. The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by John Tong,
spelled T-A-N-G, and other Chinese Americans affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious
movement. Tong was a graduate student at Georgia at the time, and he began the newspaper in his
basement. Founders said that they were responding to censorship inside China and a lack of international
understanding about the Chinese government's repression of Falun Gong. In 2009, Lee Hongjur,
the founder of Falun Gong, appeared in the newspaper's headquarters in Manhattan and called for the
expansion of the Epoch Times to, quote, become regular media, end quote. Lee has called the Epoch
Times our media, as in the Falun Gong's media, along with their other arm, the new Tong Dynasty
Media Corporation. They're not going to come up as much, though. Two former employees said that
the top editors traveled to meet with Lee at Falun Gong's compound, Dragon Springs, where he weighed
in on editorial strategic decisions. However, the Epoch Times denies that these meetings take place.
Of course they do. I believe I've used the Epoch Times for a year and a half.
Yes. And I said, you know, that's owned by a cult, right?
Yes, I remember that. That's in fact where I learned that they own this.
Former Epoch Times employees have noted Falun Gong practitioner's involvement in management and
editorial process, and three anonymous former employees said the Epoch Times workers were
encouraged to attend weekly, quote, Faw Study, end quote, sessions. Outside work hours, study
Lee's teachings. Former employees have said that criticizing the Epoch Times amounts to disobeying
Lee. According to an NBC news article, the Epoch Times quotes generally stayed out of US politics,
end quote, before 2016, unless they dovetailed with Chinese interests. Ben Hurley, a former Falun Gong
practitioner and Epoch Times writer until 2013, said the paper was critical of abortion LGBT people
and that Falun Gong practitioners saw communism everywhere, including in international figures
like Hillary Clinton and Kofi Anand, who was the head of the UN at the time. But there was more
room for disagreement in the early days. Since 2016, according to NBC News, the Epoch Times has
promoted favorable coverage of Trump's campaign and presidency and emphasized topics like Islamic
terrorism, illegal immigration to the US, anti-global warming conspiracies, great replacement theory.
This is weird. I mean, it makes sense. It has also emphasized what the publication claims is a
labyrinthian global conspiracy led by Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama to tear
down Trump. A former Epoch Times reporter who covered the 2016 campaign, Steve Klatt said his
editors had encouraged favorable coverage of Trump after he won the Republican nomination and that
quote, they seem to have this almost messaonic way of viewing Trump as the anti-communist leader
who would bring about the end of the Chinese Communist Party, end quote. After Trump was
elected, the Epoch Times hired Brendan Steinhauser, a Tea Party strategist, to reach out to more
conservatives and encourage the Trump administration to oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. So, yeah,
they definitely linked to very pro Donald Trump conspiracies and QAnon. And if you go to their
front page right now, there is literally on their front page a 2020 election fraud article.
On my way. Oh, they cover Canada. Oh, yeah, it's in 80 countries.
How am I supposed to look at this? One sec. Let me go to the front page.
I went to Canada. So now it's showing. Oh, I went to the US one. But...
Oh, it keeps redirecting me to Canada. Canada, factual and unbiased news provided in-depth
coverage. There's a video playing right around Epoch Times. Oh, yeah. And if you read number three,
trending videos, number three is thousands of 2020 votes misreported. Oh, great. Yeah.
That's a Trump thing. That's a Trump thing. Yeah. Not even like past it. Like this happened
four years ago and they're still pushing it hard. And it had a huge presence on Facebook
right around the time of the 2016 election. I don't really get into it, but it's a scandal where
they were running Facebook groups that didn't really talk about how they were the Epoch Times.
And we're just like, they'd share pictures of puppies and things like that and then slowly
leak it over into talking about conspiracy theories and QAnon and things like that. And like,
they would have groups of five million people on Facebook that were there originally because they
were talking about puppies sharing. Yeah. Misleading information. Anyhow, they've been banned from
Facebook since then for being misleading ads and not saying where the actual money is coming from.
And also there was a big controversy too because they were faking subscribers by making fake accounts
and like they got caught because they had celebrity pictures. It's just like random people who were
in the group. I just came here. Trump Flags terrorists, slams border deal, catastrophe waiting to happen.
I actually came across that today. He said a terrorist attack was 100% going to happen under
this administration. And Chelsea, like you can see at the very top, it's all the languages
it's reported in. So you can go Chinese, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, like this. This is crazy. I'm just scrolling through this. Some of the articles
that they have on here. Don't read too much because there's a surprise on this page that leads us
into the final part of the epoch time section. Okay, don't be a jerk at the gym. Not only did they
push Donald Trump part in 2017, the German edition, epoch times, Deutschland, which became
wet only in 2012 was ascribed by online magazine, the China file is aligned with the German far right
and attractive to supporters of the alternative for Germany, AFD party and the anti immigrant group,
Pajita, Stephanie Albright, a reporter for the German broadcaster RTL who spent several days
inside the epoch times Berlin office while investigating the far right said that the staffer
she met were all felon Gong practitioners who had no journalistic training and did not check facts
trusting instead in the alternative sources they consulted during her times the epoch times office
albright was exposed to debunked conspiracy theories such as pizza gate m trails weather
changing machines and the great replacement theory. In France, the epoch times gives quote an
unfettered platform to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the patriarch of the French far right and his daughter
Marine Le Pen, who leads the nationalist party her father founded, who by a very narrow margin
lost to Emmanuel Macron by a very narrow margin, the group that epoch times wants to lead the
country just lost. The epoch times also publishes climate change denial content. It promotes
doubt about modern science and medicine in line with Falon Gong's teachings. The epoch times has
increased its revenue just over the last couple of years by 685 percent. What? It makes a hundred
and twenty two million dollars as of 2021 annually. And since 2019, it has gone mostly digital
spending millions on Facebook and YouTube advertisements. Although again, it was kicked
off Facebook for that controversy I just told you about. Let me just find the name of it real
quick. The beauty of life is the name of the facet group that caught all the controversy and got
them kicked off. Are they on and they probably have another one? They probably do. But I honestly,
I don't go near Facebook anymore. I don't really want to look as of 2023. It is the fourth most
subscribed newspaper in the United States, which is just mind boggling. Yeah. None of this stuff
makes sense to me. I read a few people who used to work for it who were Falon Gong practitioners.
And they said at first they were not paid at all. It was all volunteers. And then eventually they
got paid twenty thousand dollars a year to write for them. Their headquarters is in Manhattan.
So like nobody can actually afford to live there if they're paying twenty thousand a year. Yeah.
And they're expected to pump out five articles a day for that salary. That doesn't seem like
something anybody would want to do. Doesn't give any time to actually reflect on what you're writing.
No. During covid, absolutely a rat nest of anti covid conspiracies. And I believe pretty much
everybody in Canada in the U.S. got a free copy mailed to them during covid with anti covid
conspiracies in it. That's nice. Do you remember I got a copy of it in the mail once and it was
right around that time during covid. Yeah. I've never seen it in print. I mean, I don't think.
I found this website healthfeedback.org. It has a lot of the claims they've made in specific articles
just to give you an idea of things that they've said in the article or in the headlines.
Rat study alleged to link covid vaccine to autism. This is unsupported, but a statement they made.
Natural immunity is better protection than covid 19 vaccine. Miss leading title. Study in Italy
shows nearly one in three covid vaccine recipients have neurological side effects. Not correct.
An accurate reporting by Pfizer would have shown equal numbers of clinical trial deaths
in the vaccine and placebo groups and thus no benefit of vaccination. It is incorrect.
Covid 19 vaccines are responsible for killing 17 people, 17 million people incorrect. Those are
like very different numbers. 17 versus 17. Yeah, I'm just looking through their covid right now.
Soaring childhood obesity after covid 19 lockdown poses lifelong health threat study. So yeah,
very strange. Seeing as how do you remember from the first episode that Falun Gong practitioners
are forbidden from being political in any way? Yeah, it seems pretty political like incredibly.
Though they may not know because they don't have time to think about what they're writing.
Yeah, and I do just want to give you guys, I did read one article on here and it is specifically
titled because there are so many articles from other news groups saying like these guys are
terrible because they don't actually do any journalism and just report Trump great all the
time. Wave of hip pieces reveal why establishing this terrified of this defiant newspaper. This is
from the epoch times and it basically says we didn't change. Everybody else just became anti-Trump
for some reason and they're evil. We are unbiased and we only interpret everything from an anti-communist
standpoint, which again isn't unbiased in itself, but let's not worry about that at this point.
I love the spin they put on it. Do you think that they're funding Trump potentially? I don't know
for sure, but I did find an article. Where is it? I need to find it really quick. GOP presidential
candidate Larry Elders, who people may remember that name. He was running against Gavin Newsom to
become the governor of California and he received from the epoch times between one million and five
million dollars. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me that they're heavily funding some of these things.
Because when you're running for any government office, you have to do financial disclosure.
He reported earning between one million and five million dollars from the epoch times.
And I just want to say too that I am not slandering the epoch times by calling them extremely far
right or conspiratorial. And in fact, they sued a journalist for calling one of their journalists
extremely far right and spreading conspiracy theories such as Antifa is behind the January
6th riots. The court concluded that no, in fact, they were very correct. They may have made an
overgeneralization, but they were incredibly correct for calling you guys far right conspiracy
theorists. And it wasn't like they sued the New York Times either. It was like the main bugle
or something like that. Like it was not somebody who has all the money behind them. But yeah,
they had people at January 6th who were reporting and they said, oh yeah, Antifa's here doing all
the violence. Why? This doesn't make sense to me. They believe that Trump was going to bring about
the end of the Communist Party in China. Okay. So they went all in on him and they appeared to have
a working relationship at this time. Remember, this is not the first cult that we have seen
Donald Trump have a relationship with as he came up in the Mooney's episode two. Also,
for those listening at home, which is not all of you, if you're in the car, this probably applies
to you too. Out on the streets, do not listen. Washington Times and epoch times now are the
two cult related new sources that we should be avoiding because they're both cults. But remember,
Washington Times, not Washington Post. Washington Times. Yeah, we've brought them up. They were
in the Mooney's episode, they're owned by the Mooney's. Right. Okay. So epoch times are Washington
Times. Who has the bigger epoch times? It's the bigger breach. It says weird. You will still see
epoch times coming up in conspiratorial circles and far right circles. And you should know absolute
all their journalism is actually dog shit and has a slant towards bringing about the end of the
Communist Party in China. And Chelsea, I've been looking for all the stuff they have here. They also
have new Tong Dynasty news media, which has a lot of association with YouTubers. And I just have this
one part from the rational wiki. I always like using the rational wiki because they use very
colorful language when covering these types of things. This is what they say about the epoch
times. Besides its usual anti PRC diet tribe that asked readers to resign from the Chinese Communist
Party regardless of actual membership. The paper often publishes woo and conspiracy such as chemtrails,
UFOs, an entire section titled beyond science. The beyond science section includes such things as
12 million year old vehicle tracks, ancient Sumerian spaceships, and hype over meditation and near
death experiences. Former employees noted the secrecy of the publication's ownership and funding
and tendency to promote red baiting as well as anti abortion and homophobic views. Other former
writers noted it's almost slave labor like work environment where they need to meet a quota of
writing five articles per day and reaching 100,000 views and are paid in virtue, a white substance
in another dimension that you gain when you do good things. Falun Gong associated editors then
remove mentions of issues which conflict with traditional values as well as those unfavorable
to Trump. This is not surprising since it was promoted by Chris Kitts of fake news website
before it's news. They have an entire section called beyond science and that clicks something in my
head. Chelsea do you ever remember it's like years ago there was a guy named Mikey Chen and he was
doing a YouTube show called beyond science. No. And it was all like more paranormal or
fringy news science stuff is what he was doing. Let me take a look. Yeah, take a look. I'm sure
you've seen this guy and he also has a thing where he like goes and eats food and learning about this
I learned that this guy is a Falun Gong practitioner. Really? Yes. And I learned that his subreddit
is absolutely like the coast to coast subreddit and it is hilarious how much they hate the guy.
I love that. I look at the history. Yeah, this guy's in his mid 40s. He married somebody who
was 23 a couple of years ago. It was super sketchy. They went over all the controversy in there.
They talk about how he's clearly balding now and just like he tries to cover it up in terrible ways.
They just got divorced him and his 23 year old wife. Super sketchy. Anyhow, it turns out they
have quite a few YouTube personalities who have millions of followers like Mikey Chen who push
Falun Gong things and that's through their new Tong Media group. I didn't know that the epoch
times was owned by the Falun Gong and even if I didn't know, I didn't know the history of the
Falun Gong. And so you put things where they're putting so much money into Facebook ads and doing
deceptive things like that. They're going to get a big following and if they're just sharing things
especially during COVID, it probably amassed a huge following just with that and that's where
there's a huge problem with it. We should know all their journalists are producing like five
articles a day. Not all of them are just pro-Trump. They have things that are relatively normal
that distort people down their pipeline. Yeah. And then I mean you just kind of push the narrative.
So it seems like they're just distributing them into society to just see what sticks to see.
And then just I mean then you're just going to be reading articles or not even reading
articles just being like yeah I read it in the epoch time. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah there's an entire
media group behind it. The epoch times is not the only one. They also through this own
New Tong Dynasty television which was on the air. I think it still is in Canada. It's offered
through Roger's Cable. They also own the where is it. I had one more I needed to talk sound of hope
which is a radio channel that this all goes through as well. But Chelsea now I do want to draw your
attention to that top part and one of the things that's always pinned at the top of epoch times
is up there and I want you to say what it is. Okay. I feel like we're looking at different
page. Are we really. Yeah. Is it not on the Canadian version. Mine too looks like yours.
No it's not. Interesting. I'm trying to delete Canada but it keeps bringing redirecting me back
to oh no it keeps redirecting me back. That's okay it actually does show up here still.
It's still like not in the same way on the Canadian version but there's always an article
that on the front page about Shen Yun and Chelsea have you ever heard of Shen Yun. No but I have
actually I haven't heard of it but I've seen it. As in you've seen advertisement correct.
Not you've been to a show. I don't know maybe that's what I did I see it in China. No you didn't
because remember Falun Gong is banned in China. Well I don't know they love Shen Yun apparently.
No Chelsea actually on the on the Canadian version where it says feature Canadian news just below it.
There's a bunch of Shen Yun. Yeah it will always be there no matter where you're watching it it
will always be there. Right above there's an ad for Shen Yun that says special coverage underneath
there's an article and then you can if you go I just. Chelsea can you read the article title.
There's a sense of the divine in Shen Yun says California theater goer. Actually just click
on the Seymour and read a few top vertical headlines. What the hell is this Shen Yun China before
communism Wikipedia came up when I googled Shen Yun and what it just said was this makes me question
what this is China before communism Shen Yun's London performances leave CEO in awe of Chinese
history Shen Yun's presentation of classical Chinese dance astounds Kamikura audience.
Shen Yun is truly good and inspiring says Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Shen Yun is very uplifting
very spiritual says Emmy award winning filmmaker is that James Cameron. I don't think it is.
This is weird look at this is like a very nice age find a show near you. Yeah and I knew about
Shen Yun up until like probably a year ago I didn't realize there was a relationship with
Alan Gong and I always thought it was like a Chinese equivalent of Cirque du Soleil like I saw the
advertisements that's what I got from it but I did see these like weird because they always get like
viewer reviews of it and they're just so oddly worded like there's a spiritual. I have to give
you another one. Okay Mastercard VIP says he felt connected to God during Shen Yun. Okay these are
all the nice reviews and then directly to the right Shen Yun faces unrelenting interference from
Beijing in South Korea. Sorry one more one more Shen Yun performing arts wraps up 2023 world tour
amidst audience praise and acclaim. I really like this one it's right near the top Shen Yun is
built on the values of goodness and commitment to traditions says physician and you'll notice
when we're telling you who give this review it's not the New York Times it's not the New Yorker it's
not like any reputable reviewing company it is people who they say saw it and have really weirdly
spiritual connections to it. So you can narrow it down on the side it says global review USA Canada
Europe Asia Oceana Latin America I thought you could just choose like a review from Canada like
Canada but if you open it you can do Calgary Edmonton Hamilton Kitchener and it's all over yeah
Bremen Burgess like you can click on specific cities and it's the same thing all of these reviews
of how amazing it is and life changing it. Yeah from Vancouver business owner Shen Yun makes you
want to be a better person says Vancouver business owner. This is so you can narrow it down by your
specific location in case anybody is curious what they're talking about in your location about Shen
Yun. This is so weird. Like I said these aren't reviews from like actual reviewing companies
who go to plays like this or performances like this. Yeah I found the New Yorkers review or at
least somebody from the New Yorker who saw it and did an article in the New Yorker about it
I just need to take out some highlights. Okay. After we took our seats two hosts with animatronic
smiles speaking both Chinese and English began introducing a series of dances which were called
things like goodness in the face of evil and the world divinely restored. The female dancer moved
in hypnotic swirls the male dancers jumped and flipped behind the stage was an enormous screen
upon which digital backdrops ancient temples royal gardens the cosmos appeared along with
digital dancers who would walk to the bottom of the screen and then pop out via the appearance of
a living dancer on the stage. Living wow. The colors were near neon and unnatural they reminded me
of the glowing hues of photo hunt the tabletop bar game. The host started talking about a spiritual
discipline called Falendafa and they then introduced a dance in which a beautiful young
follower of Falendafa was kidnapped and is imprisoned by communists who harvested her organs.
Whoa I'm hallucinating. I whispered to my brother in the dark.
It keeps going. Do you have something to say though? Is this Falengong's dance company?
It's exclusively Falengong's yes. Okay this makes a lot. I guess I don't know what I was
thinking there but yes that does make sense. Okay it seems incredible though. Look at all these
good reviews. Yep from every city. And you will see if you go on YouTube and try to find it you
cannot find anything from the actual performance. They keep that incredibly hidden and all you will
see are these reviews. I mean the reviews look great. Would everyone like to learn a little
Chinese? One of the hosts asked. He intoned a phrase and asked the audience to repeat it.
That phrase means I love Shengyun he said. I felt my forehead the dances continued. Sleeves swirling,
skirts rippling. A man came on stage to sing a song in Chinese which was translated on the screen
behind him. We follow Dafa the great way he began. Yeah he singing about a creator who
said mankind and made the world anew. This is a quote from the actual play. Atheism and evolution
are a deadly ideas. Modern trends destroy what makes us human he's saying. At the end of the song the
row of older white people sitting behind me clapped fervently. In the final dance number a group of
Falendafa followers who wore blue and yellow and clutched books of religious teachings battle for a
space in public square with corrupt youth. The corruption was evident because they were wearing
black looking at their cell phones and in the case of two men holding hands. Chairman now appeared
and the sky turned black. The city in the digital backdrop was obliterated by an earthquake. Then
finished off by a communist tsunami. A red hammer and sickle glowed in the center of the wave.
Days I rubbed my eyes and saw a huge bearded face disappearing in the water. Was that? I said to my
brother wondering if I needed to go to the hospital. Carl Marx he said yeah I think that tsunami was the
face of Carl Marx. Shen Yun according to Shen Yun means the beauty of divine things dancing. It can
be translated as the rhythm of a divine spirit or more simply God's melody. The Shen Yun performing
arts organization was founded in 2006 in New York's Hudson Valley and put on its first touring show in
2007. By 2009 there were three touring Shen Yun companies. Today there are six companies each
consisting of 40 or so dancers. All of them trained at the Feitian Academy which is situated at Dragon
Springs in upstate New York. The dancers are accompanied by an orchestra that incorporates
Chinese instruments. Each troupe includes about 80 people in addition to this 96 American cities it
is touring this year. Shen Yun would also visit Vancouver, Berlin, Auckland, Taipei, Daigou
and a dozen other places. Shen Yun is a non-profit. In 2016 it reported more than $75 million in
assets and more than $22 million in revenue. Given the amount of money the organization seems to
spend on advertising it's hard to believe that it could be in the black but the Guardian has
reported that each city's Shen Yun advertising campaign is sponsored by the local Falendafa
association. The ad blitzes are carefully coordinated. Shen Yun ads is basically a season on the
calendar now. In January I decided to double check my Woozie memory and buy a ticket to see Shen Yun
again in Lincoln Center and after the purchase went through I received a survey that asked me
which of the 36 different versions of Shen Yun ads that ran into a New York. Newsday spots,
Metro North posters, brochures, and mail had convinced me to buy tickets. Shen Yun's saturation
has reached such a ludicrous intensity that it has in recent months become a meme. Part of the
seeming strangeness of Shen Yun could be attributed to a latent orientalism on the part of Western
viewers including those of us who are Asian descent but the real root of Shen Yun's meme-friendly
eeriness is that the ads brightly and aggressively broadcast nothing at all. That's why it's so
easy to imagine them popping up in Ebbing, Missouri or in the extended Blade Runner universe or on
Mars. The ads have to be both ubiquitous and devoid of content so that they can convince more than
a million people to pay good money to watch what it is, essentially religious political propaganda
or more generously an extremely elaborate commercial for Falendafa's spiritual teachings and his
plight vis-a-vis the Chinese Communist regime. The Chinese embassy for its part warrants the
American public to stay away from the so-called Shen Yun performances of the Falun Gong Organization
so as to avoid being deceived and used by the cults. I think I can end it there with that quote from the
Embassy. This is bizarre that they have a dance company and so I saw they have some performances
here in Vancouver and it's very weird I put reviews and it's all five-star reviews but then
you go to Reddit. I just like this one somebody says has anyone actually gone to Shen Yun and it
says I've seen so many ads I'm genuinely curious who has actually seen the performance and some
guy commented that they've seen it twice and they're like why have you gone twice and he said it was
a decade apart one of my kids wanted to go it's just religious propaganda and symbolism it's
expensive too like I don't think you can get in there for under a hundred I just looked no it's
a hundred dollars for the back and it's just people being like reminder Shen Yun is a cult it's the
Falun Gong and you will see posters for it everywhere I saw one where I live in Kelowna a poster
when I've been in Vancouver I've actually seen like the performers have to go out and like advertise
it in malls like they'll just stand in the middle of the mall and hang out wired no I have seen it in
a mall that's where I know it from I have just the mall right here yeah all the reviews where you
can review TripAdvisor are all five-star amazing this is so weird yeah but like straight up
cult propaganda if you see an advertisement for Shen Yun it is cult propaganda and all of the
dancers are part of the cult and the ABC investigation that I talked about in the last episode
one of the people who left the cult she was mixed race and had sexual thoughts about women so she's
oh no that's bad for her she ran into huge problems with them but she also and this is part of the
article I just want to read at this time master Lee was establishing the professional dance troupe
known as Shen Yun Anna's mother encouraged her to train to be a Shen Yun dancer quote she thought
that it was the highest honor possible and that it would guarantee me getting into heaven essentially
end quote but Anna felt that she was not as gifted as the other dancers and then there was the incident
at the summer dance camp in New Jersey Anna's teacher placed her in front of a mirror and lifted
up her shirt quote she grabbed my stomach shook it and then turned to the other kids in the class
there were several of them and she said do you see this everyone this is an example of how a woman
should not look at the age of 13 Anna ended up hospitalized with anorexia and that's part of
the reason she ended up leaving the cult wow not that they were good to begin with yeah and you know
what I found these on it was the st. Louis subreddit and they said Shen Yun was coming through and I
seen it this comes from macaroni incident it was posted in 2022 people think they're an amazing act
their marketing is everywhere who wouldn't in reality they got a lot of their ads and free
stuff by bugging the shit out of their companies for in-kind donations in the form of ad space
because they will relentlessly ask until you give in I used to work for a nonprofit arts company we
ended up letting them use one of our dance floors for free for their performance in our city they
also got tens of thousands of dollars in ad space in our playbills management just wanted them out
of their hair and then this one coming from pjamas 41 two years ago as well in 2022 I've done
advertising business with them before they will low ball the hell out of you and push until they
get a firm answer a few years ago I gave up and just said no haven't worked with them since so
not exactly a great group to work with Chelsea were you able to find any one star reviews this one
just says very bad performance is very unprofessional because I feel like this is a good way to end it
jeez this is all about the staff is this actually Shenyun no I know I just noticed that it's all
not it at all it's all about the theater itself I know same that's what I found so fortunately
we're just gonna have to revive rely on the new yorker for their one star review although I think
it might have irony level of like a four out of five stars but those are the ways that we've all
have interactions with Fallon Gong that we didn't know crazy no I had no idea I hope that this at
least gives you some sort of ammo the next time that family member tries to share a news article
with you and you can say you know that was published by a cult right yeah or when someone's
like I just want Shenyun I am actually just like mildly actually curious to go see a Shenyun
performance but I do not want my money to actually go to them I know that's my exact train of thought
that I just had in thinking about it I hope this has been useful this is a huge group and is still
very active today I feel like it was necessary to take this time to focus on these people and
nobody knows anything about them I appreciated it spanning three episodes it was a fun one yeah
and I have been Taylor here with Chelsea we are Journey to the Fringe thank you all for listening
and we'll see you next week bye thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe if you have
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