Who's afraid of Shen Yun?

On May 11, the Chairwoman of European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights Ms Heidi Hautala wrote to the PRC Ambassador to the European Union to inquire about Jiang Feng. Jiang, the husband of Shen Yun’s erhu virtuoso Mei Xuan, had disappeared in Shanghai while trying to board a flight to reunite with his wife.

In her letter, Ms. Hautala wrote: “it is widely believed that Mr Jiang Feng was abducted by security agents and is being interrogated and abused in custody.”

In reply, the PRC Ambassador to the EU, Song Zhe, confirmed that Jiang had been jailed. An excerpt from his letter reads:

The rest of Song Zhe’s letter goes on about Chinese rule of law and there being “no basis to the so-called claim that Jiang is ’subject to abuse’.” Jiang had previously been imprisoned for three years and Mei Xuan for four. Both had been tortured regularly throughout their imprisonment.

This was the first word of Jiang’s whereabouts in nearly three months since his February 18 disappearance. PRC authorities did not even notify his family and Mei Xuan had to find out where her husband is through the European Parliament.

Through the assistance of kindhearted people, Mei Xuan has since learned that Jiang Feng is being held in the Number 3 Brigade of the Anhui Xuancheng Forced Labor Camp. In this camp prisoners work in a coal mine as de facto slaves. Now, in addition to torture, brainwashing classes, and exhaustion, Jiang Feng faces the dangers of China’s most fatal profession.

We left Istanbul early in the morning on May 23. We reached the Bulgarian border around lunch and got through customs three hours later. From there up and down the roller-coaster, ill-maintained Balkan Mountain roads and to the Romanian border. Two and a half hours later we headed to Bucharest on roads that immediately made us miss Bulgaria. An over-night stop, a flat tire, and many potholes later we arrived at the Moldovan border and, after the routine three-hour delay, approached our hotel in the capital of Chisinau at 3am.

Four hours later we headed to the theater to setup for the show that night. But at 8am, when we arrived at the backstage entrance with the truck ready to offload, we were stopped at the door. “You are not allowed in.” “ There is no show.”

We waited for the theater director, Valeri Sircanu, who had told us the show would take place in spite of the pressures, to arrive. Sircanu, a young woman dressed in a pinstripe business suit pulled up in her Audi, brushed past us and darted into the hallway, shooing away our approaches with a flip of her hand behind her back as she disappeared into the theater. A few moments later she came out, rushed into her Audi and screeched away. She never returned, but in her stead came security guards who locked the door.

Hosting organization representative Tatiana Chiriac trying to enter the theater according to Shen Yun 's contract to perform there on May 25 (photo courtesy of Annie Li)

The backstage entrance had probably never seen such action before. Tatiana Chiriac, head of our hosting organization, the Moldova Falun Dafa Association, and a former judge showed up. She asked for an explanation why her contract with the theater was reneged. None was given. ProTV, Publika TV, and other media started piling in. They interviewed Shen Yun performers, but were also blocked at the theater door.

ProTV interview Shen Yun dancer Jessica Quach behind the National Theater's backstage entrance (photo by Annie Li)

This scene carried on into the afternoon and then approached showtime. At 6:45pm, when dancers usually finish the pre-show warm-up and go change into their bright costumes, when the musicians usually change into their tuxedos and black skirts, when backstage usually vibrates with our sopranos’ voices – we stood silently on the front steps of the square Soviet-style theater looking out at the plaza in front of us in the heart of the capital.

Shen Yun performers on the theater's footsteps at showtime (photo by Annie Li)

Hundreds of audience members, elegantly dressed as you would for a night at the nation’s opera house started pouring in. A boy wearing a vest and little bowtie looked confused. A woman who took a 30-hour train from Moscow was holding back tears.

The hosting organization held a makeshift press conference, their volunteers, who also came from Romania, Ukraine, and Belarus, held banners with still-fresh paint that protested the Moldovan theater and government giving in to pressure from the Chinese embassy.

Hosting organization holds a makeshift press conference with Shen Yun performers in the background on the theater footsteps (photo by Annie Li)

As audience members began figuring out what was going on, they came up to our dancers with bouquets bought at a flower market several blocks away.

(photo by Annie Li)

(photo by Annie Li)

Some ticket-holders rounded the corner to the box office and asked for a refund. As you see in the photo, it was impolitely refused.

Ticket office (photo by Annie Li)

Almost an identical scene repeated the following day, with audience members taking the microphone to vent their frustration. This time, the ticket office was locked. A sign had been put up – the theater holds no responsibility for refunding tickets. If you want your money back, contact the hosting organization representative (the one who was the victim of breech of contract), Tatiana Chiriac; here’s her phone number.

From the information I’ve been able to gather so far from meeting with a Moldovan government representative and from media interviews, here’s what appears to have happened:

-       The director of the National Theater, Valerie Sircanu, revealed that she had received daily visits from the Chinese embassy. She admitted this on several occasions, although later, on live television, she denied ever being contacted by the Chinese authorities.

-       The Ministry of Culture sent a letter to the theater director recommending that they cancel the show. On the same live talk show with Jurnal TV, the minister himself denied any Chinese authorities involvement.

-       A Foreign Ministry representative, who had served with the Moldovan embassy in Beijing, instructed the theater director that it was the ministry’s position that the show should be canceled.

-       The Chinese embassy also visited the mayor’s office to ask them not to support Shen Yun.

Oh, did I mention that last July the PRC promised Moldova a $1 billion loan (Reuters article)? At the time of the show’s cancellation, the Moldovan government is still eagerly waiting the check to come in.

It appears that at our press event in front of the theater we also had a few friends of the Chinese Communist Party eager to make a good impression. Take a look at these two photos – the second taken an instant after they realized we were photographing them. The photo is a little blurry, but you get the idea.

(photo by Annie Li)

(photo by Annie Li)

See Moldova’ Jurnal TV report here.

Flowers. Hugs. A letter from the EU to the PRC embassy – that’s how our Belgium run ended today in Louvain-La-Neuve.

Earlier this morning, our erhu virtuoso, Mei Xuan, and I visited the European Parliament to seek support for her husband, Jiang Feng. Jiang disappeared in China while boarding a flight in Shanghai on his (luckless) way to reunite with his wife in New Jersey. Mei Xuan believes he was abducted by secret 6-10 Office agents with the purpose of pressuring her to stop performing with Shen Yun.

We were warmly received by three people who are dedicating their careers to fighting for the rights of people they will probably never meet. They listened to Mei Xuan’s story –

how she and her husband were arrested when the persecution of Falun Gong first began; how he had been jailed for three years and, days before his release, she was picked up off the street and sentenced to four years; how she had been handcuffed to a chair for 75 days and not allowed to sleep; how she was tortured and knocked unconscious many times; how she saw her friends die in prison one after another; how she had escaped to the United States; how she and her husband, married for over ten years, had only been given a chance to spend a few months together; how they were to be reunited; how he disappeared, and how worried she is about him now, because she knows what they do to Falun Gong practitioners.

And when she was done with the basics, they simply told us – we would like to write a letter to the Chinese authorities about this case. We will draft it this afternoon.

We invited them to see our last performance in Louvain-La-Neuve, just outside Brussels, that night and rushed to the theater.

Mei Xuan played beautifully. She always does – an amazing feat considering she has no idea where her husband is and whether, while she is in the spotlight on the world’s most famous stages, her husband is under the interrogation lamp being tortured for a false confession.

But maybe it was something about having spent the day with her, translating her story, that made her moving music that much more stirring. Even the silent pauses between her notes were charged with conviction. The applause roared as she finished her own composition: “The Calling.”

Right after the show, at 11:00 pm, a security worker approached me backstage saying three people were waiting for Mei Xuan. As we worked our way around the curtain to the audience we saw our new friends with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. On top of the flowers was an envelope with a copy of the letter that they had already sent to the PRC Ambassador to the EU.

No one seemed wiling to part – they were touched by Mei Xuan and Mei Xuan was touched by their compassion and encouragement.

I must also mention that, while I didn’t have the honor to meet the representative, someone from Amnesty International also presented Mei Xuan with a flower bouquet at that how. Amnesty had just issued an “urgent action” about her husband’s case. The card on Amnesty’s flowers read: “We fully support you.”

Here’s a copy of the letter from the Chairwoman of the European Union’s Subcommittee on Human Rights Ms. Heidi Ms Hautala.

I’ve known erhu player Mei Xuan for three years – we’ve spent much of that time touring together with Shen Yun Performing Arts. Those who have seen her perform will remember that she plays the two-stringed erhu with tremendous emotional depth. Perhaps some of it stems from she has been through – Mei Xuan, a Falun Gong practitioner, spent spent four years as a prisoner of conscience in China. But her suffering doesn’t end there.

The persecution of her faith has also forced her to be separated from her husband of ten years. Late at night, after our shows, you could often find Mei Xuan sitting alone in the hotel lobby, calling her husband back in China. Until now.

Last Thursday, her husband checked in at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport, ready to board a flight for Newark, NJ, to be reunited with his wife. He passed through security and disappeared. He never made it on the plane. Airport employees suggested he was taken by the 6-10 Office, the special police force running the persecution of Falun Gong.

See the full Epoch Times story