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- [00:00]
Amanda Montel
The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
- [00:13]
Brace
They are training these quote unquote dancers out of their compound in upstate New York. If you want to say Sounds like a cult, there's nothing more culty than the words compound in upstate New York.
- [00:24]
Amanda Montel
The group very much manipulates recruits into doing free labor.
- [00:28]
Liz
You have that many billboards for a show that not a lot of people are going to see. There's going to be some questions. Questions. They were really early boosters of Trump. They were in with the QAnon people. They were like really tied into this like extreme right ecosystem and seemingly had limitless money.
- [00:45]
Amanda Montel
This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host, Amanda Montel, author of the books Cultish and the Age of Magical Overthinking. Every week on the show you're gonna hear an analysis and some little jokes about a different culty seeming group from the modern day Zeitgeist. From Mormon mom talkers to people who might just be a little bit too obsessed with Costco. This week we're finally discussing the cult of Shen Yun to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, how bad is it? Which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A Live youe Life, A Watch your Back, or a Get the Fuck Out? Because the thing is, these days, cultish influence can be found in all kinds of everyday places. Like, say you're driving down the street or you're strolling through the mall and you notice a billboard or a nice little booth, a little table maybe in the food court next to a Jamba Juice where a bunch of very pleasant but maybe traumatized looking people seem to really want you to accept. A purple pamphlet, a little brochure with like a beautiful ballerina on it, and even perhaps buy a ticket or 5 or 50 to one of the flouncy dance shows that they're promoting. If this description rings any bells to you, then you have likely brushed up against the international sensation that is Shen Yun, a heavily marketed Chinese dance and music group that puts on hundreds of performances every single year on all over the world, including at ritzy mainstream venues like New York City's Lincoln Center. Shenan possesses over $265 million in assets, allegedly, and is operated by the new religious movement cult Falun Gong. Which has been beefing with the Chinese government for over 30 years.
- [02:46]
Chelsea
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- [03:46]
Amanda Montel
These years of talking about everyday cults, I've kind of gotten the impression that when a group is really approaching that get the fuck out level, they kind of want to stay hanging out like the fringes of society so as not to attract too much scrutiny from the mainstream press or attention from the authorities. A couple episodes that we've done in the past that meet that description include, say, the Cult of Twin Flames or the Troubled teen industry. But by contrast, Shen Yun is really out there putting on shows in our towns at venues that we recognize and frequent, marketing themselves on billboards along streets that we drive down. The last Shen Yun booth that I saw was at a book fair that I attended just the other month. I was just trying to pick up a wee innocent little diorama that some bookish cutie pie had made of like a bookshelf with little mini copies of Nora Ephron's books on the little mini shelves. It was so cute. And as I'm double clicking my Apple pay Cult of Apple, I notice out of the corner of my eye there is a Shen Yun booth. So so many of us recognize Shen Yun's logo and marketing materials, which really begs a host of questions about who is running this thing and what they're trying to accomplish. Now on a more serious note, beyond just the sort of chilling Scientology esque vibes that tingle the Spidey senses of most regular people who come into contact with Shen Yun publicity, the group has been under serious investigation for for some time, principally by a pair of reporters named Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfeld at the New York Times late last year in 2024. In a series of New York Times exposes, Hong and Rothfeld revealed a whole poo poo platter of allegations about sketchy financial practices Shen Yun has engaged in. Allegedly, but also most notably, they also revealed truly damning stories about Shenyan's treatment of its performers, including emotional abuse, labor exploitation, fear tactics, and the installation of metaphysical beliefs. Like the idea that true loyalists could self heal their bodies if they hurt themselves while dancing with nothing but the power of their own mind. According to the New York Times, dancers were often, quote, discouraged from seeking medical care for injuries and often worked grueling hours for low pay while being subjected to emotional abuse and manipulation. And so much more. I won't lie to you, this whole Shen Yan story is even more fucking bananas than I realized. Now a petite disclaimer for you Sounds like a cult is most certainly not an investigative podcast. So we will be leaning on a lot of the reporting that Hong and Rothfell did throughout this episode today as we attempt to analyze Shen Yun as an everyday cult, compare it to other culty groups in society right now, and of course ultimately determine whether in our opinion, it is a live your life, a watcher back, or a get the fuck out level cult. This episode, rest assured, is going to be packed with allegedly. I actually have no idea how litigious Shen Yun is, but I do know that they are fielding their own set of lawsuits against them right now. So that's exciting and we will get into that later, y'. All. Shen Yun is a big topic. It is a complex story. So to help sort of frame our discussion today, we put out a call on Sounds Like a Cult Instagram at Sounds like a cult pod 4 listener submitted questions about Shenyan. And I kid you not, we received hundreds and hundreds and the most frequently asked of those inquiries will serve as our episode's sort of scaffolding. Today we're going to talk about what Shenyan even is, the ins and outs of their marketing strategy. We're going to talk about what going to a Shen Yun show is actually like. And then we're going to talk about some of the serious culty horrors that Shen Yun performers have had to endure as brought to light by the New York Times investigations. And then finally we're gonna have a little bit of discussion about what we as outsiders might be able to do to help or at least not support this maybe sort of innocent seeming but ultimately culty ass organization. Now, as you may have noticed, I am taking this week's episode solo. My lovely two co hosts, Rhys And Chelsea. Each had to work today, but they will be back next week. So joining me for this episode instead are two culty podcasters who, like me and many of you, wanted to know what the fuck is going on with Shenyan. But they took it a step further and entered the belly of the beast. Indeed, they actually attended a Shen Yun show. They live to tell the tale, and they're here today to share the whole thing with us. Welcome, Liz and Brace of the True Anon Podcast to Sounds like a Cult.
- [08:22]
Liz
Hello. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [08:24]
Brace
Thanks so much for having us.
- [08:26]
Amanda Montel
You know, I feel like it's maybe a long time coming. I feel. I feel as though we've been orbiting. Is that just me?
- [08:31]
Brace
Yeah. I think our spiritual key has been kind of orbiting each other for a long time.
- [08:36]
Amanda Montel
Yeah, it's the listeners. I think there's some overlap in listenership. It takes a certain listener to tune in to a podcast that covers really dark topics with a cheeky tone. So we're here to talk about the Cult of Shen Yun. Holy shit. Long requested. As you can imagine, on this here show, you two have some firsthand gonzo, I want to say, style experience with Shen Yun. Could you start with the beginning of your Shen Yun story? Where did each of you first come across Shen Yun and what was your first impression of it before you ever, like, entered the belly of the beast?
- [09:10]
Brace
Both of us growing up in the Bay Area, I remember being a kid and seeing protests a lot, especially in San Francisco, along the Embarcadero on the water, where there would be a bunch of people out there with big billboards, big signs that say, like, stop organ harvesting. Stop the Chinese Communist. Communist Party organ. No organ harvesting now. And I think it took me. I can't even remember when. But maybe when I was living in la, where I finally, like, put that together with the billboards for Shenya, and. And I was like, wait a second. Those are those people from when I was a kid.
- [09:43]
Liz
I remember walking at the Civic center in San Francisco and seeing a guy in a dog cage, like, mostly naked and being like, what the is this guy doing in here? But I would see they'd have these parades all the time, kind of reenacting these scenes. And then when Shen Yun started, I'd never seen anything advertised that heavily. I mean, eventually became like a meme. But, like, for years and years, they had the posters and, like, basically every single store you could imagine, they had big billboards up. But I had never known a single person in my life who'd ever gone and seen Shen Yun, I had no idea how they had the budget for it. And then I realized they were the same organization. And finally I was like, you know what? The advertising works. And so we went a couple of years ago and witnessed the performance.
- [10:28]
Brace
Beautiful weekend at Lincoln Center.
- [10:30]
Amanda Montel
Divine. And that's really what they're going for, as far as I can tell. So we're gonna get there. We had so many listener submitted questions about the show itself, but I want to give a bit of background before we like, fully dive in. Shenyan was created in 2006. Okay. We're talking new religious movements. Same year that I'm rocking some Delia's low waisted jeans and a freaking Abercrombie Kids branded sweater. Shen Yun is born, and it is birthed by its leader, Li Hongxi, who is the founder of Falun Gong. So Li, for context, is basically this classic cult leader ass dude. Allegedly he's in his 70s and he's convinced his followers that he's the creator of the universe and God on earth. So I sourced a gajillion listener questions from Instagram to frame this discussion today. The first one was simply, what is Shen Yun's connection to Falun Gong? I'm gonna try to summarize it the best that I can. So basically, Shen Yun's performances fully exist to spread the message and teachings of Li and Falun Gong. So Shen Yun's stated mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture whilst, quote, providing audiences everywhere with an experience of beauty. That's what they purport these shows are all about. But what really seems to be going on is that Li, the leader, is essentially treating Shen Yun as a way to portray himself and his tenants as divine and transcendent in contrast with the evils of the Chinese Communist Party. So Shen Yun is supposed to help Li quote on his quest to save humanity from a coming apocalypse. So that is a classic cult mission. This man's actual beliefs are confusing at best. Maybe you two can help enlighten me. But as I understand it, he does have some very troubling views about who gets access to the afterlife. And some of those notions are kind of abstractly portrayed in dance form in Shen Yun. Apparently, Lee does swear that even just by absorbing Shen Yun's message through the show, an audience member can be saved. Were you getting that when you attended? Did you feel absorbed by any sort of divine spirit?
- [12:53]
Brace
Well, there's definitely people who float in it, which was cool.
- [12:58]
Liz
I did like that. Listen, I'm not going to claim to be a theologian. I don't even know how to probably pronounce theologian there, but I've tried to kind of figure out what Lee's teachings are, and I've read a lot of them. They do not seem to make a lot of sense. And that does seem to be, like, one of the main purposes he says that Shen Yun serves is to, like, as a way of almost, like, proselytizing about the teachings of Falun Dafa Falun Gong. And by watching the show, by absorbing these 5,000 years of Chinese history, it will sort of save you without you having to actually join Falun Gong. And, you know, one of one of his things is that, like, Lee's teachings physically implants a secret, invisible, but still literally real Dharma wheel within the abdomen of his followers. Unfortunately, as he'll say, like, yeah, it's in there. Doctors can't see it, but trust me, it's in there. And so I'm assuming that during this show, at some point, probably after the intermission, that Dharma wheel was implanted in all of our abdomens, and we were sort of guaranteed at least a chance to go to heaven. The problem, though, with Li Hong Xi's vision of heaven, which is kind of displayed in the show in a sort of sanitized form, famously, he's against race mixing, because the problem, he says, is that every heaven gets its own race. And so if you're an interracial child, your soul doesn't unfortunately know what race to get to. I'm not really sure why they couldn't just come up with, like, a few more heavens, but I think, unfortunately, anybody else, I'm not fluent enough in these teachings to tell you where you end up, but hopefully you're fine after the apocalypse, which was hinted at being imminent several points during the show.
- [14:42]
Brace
Yeah, they had a bunch of angels come down from heaven. Some of them were riding on white horses in a kind of amazing apocalyptic scenario of the world kind of going up in flames and these angels and horses coming in to ride and save all of the believers as they all ascended into heaven. I think we should, like, make a point about the race mixing thing. And he's also extremely homophobic. He said to his followers, and especially in Shenyan, like, hey, you should downplay part of these teachings, basically being like, we live in woke times. And so you can't really, like, put this out there. And so a lot of people don't know about that, but it really is kind of a foundational part of the Falun Dafa Falun Gong Vision.
- [15:24]
Amanda Montel
Yeah. So I want to get into that a little bit more. Obviously. Several listeners wanted to know what the religious aspect of Shen Yun is, how it can be described, and the answer is complex. Now, Falun Gong, as I'm sure both of you know, maintains that it is actually not a religion. But if Swifty and Gilmore Girls stands and hardcore Sephora lovers are a religion, and here it sounds like a cult, we sure as shit tend to argue that they are, then Falun Gong, I think, would fit the bill. We don't have time to get into the whole ass history of Falun Gong. Parsing out the details of its ideologies is so challenging. As you mentioned, it is homophobic, it is racist. It thinks humanity's problems can be blamed on aliens and that modern technology is an extraterrestrial weapon. So cult stuff. I would love to kind of go back to discussing this phenomenon of, like, the beef that exists between the Chinese government and Shen Yun. The Chinese government has for a very long time now regarded Falun Gong as a cult. And what's interesting to me is that Falun Gong kind of regards them as a cult of sorts. Right back. Could you explain from your research the history of this cult y conflict and how it ultimately led Falun Gong to want to start a dance company in the form of Shen Yan?
- [16:45]
Liz
So it's interesting because Falun Gong wasn't the only association like Falun Gong to kind of come out of the same time period as it. It was part of this wave in the late 70s to ending in the 1990s that's kind of called Qigong Fever. And it's. It's based around the practice of qigong, which is like a physical kind of spiritual practice. You see people do it in the parks, in Chinatown, in San Francisco, at least a lot. But in the 1980s in China, a really big boom with this kind of stuff. And there were all these kind of gurus that in the very classical guru mold would claim, you know, to have some miraculous properties that they could do. Like Li Hong Xi's claim of being able to levitate and turn invisible isn't actually that unusual with the guys who started up these organizations. The problem was a lot of these organizations kind of ran into the same sorts of problems as, like, a lot of, like, the crazy Pentecostal stuff here or like, Christian Scientists, where they were like, we can cure your cancer. And, like, people ended up dying. They also just got really kind of wrapped up in also this kind of paranormal craze in China at the time. And People started to get really far out there, and they kind of started to resemble like a lot of the cults that we had in the 1970s and 1980s.
- [17:57]
Brace
Yeah, it's really similar. And that's why the Chinese Communist Party, the government, kind of stepped in because they're like, wait a second, we need people to actually go to the doctor when they're sick. We need people to not be denying all of this, like, science and running away from all of this, because this is actually really harmful to society. And so they kind of stepped in and were like, okay, this is banned. This is illegal. No more, no more. And most of the qigong cults, groups, whatever we want to call them, kind of fizzled out because they didn't have the money, the popularity. But Lee was able to kind of like ride above all of that and really positioned himself, himself, against the Chinese Communist Party as a way of kind of being like, oh, they're trying to come in and ban us, but we're going to be stronger. They don't know what they're talking about.
- [18:43]
Liz
And so he came over in 98. I think they're banned in 99. And they sort of try to ingratiate themselves with like, Canadian and American conservatives by being like, we're an anti China group in kind of the similar way, like the Moonies. Like, Reverend Moon's group was like this big anti communist group in the 70s and 80s. They sort of tried to do the same thing, but they're too crazy. And so, like, again, they were giving all these interviews in the. In the early 2000s, and they kind of became a laughingstock a little bit. They tried to integrate into this big anti communist network in, like, America and Canada. But they had some rough starts until they started accusing the Chinese government of harvesting their organs. And this is actually where a lot of people kind of encounter them too, even if they don't know it. Because if you have an idea in your head without knowing much about it already about Oregon harvesting in China, there's like a 99 chance that it came from a Falun Gong organization. Because a huge part of their mythos is allegations that they are hunted in a similar manner to the most dangerous game of all man throughout China by evil communist doctors. And then they have their organs harvested. Now, to be clear, there is not any indication that this is happening. There is no indication that there are Falun Gong practitioners in China who are sort of harvested like cattle and have their organs taken from them. But it factors heavily into a lot of their propaganda, and they have all these front groups that go about spreading these things, usually made up of like kind of crazy right wing QAnon style people, but sometimes with like respectable style people in it as well. But they have waged this war, unfortunately. The problem with Falun Gong is if they were like 30% less crazy, they could be like a great asset to the CIA or whatever. But they're too insane, right?
- [20:32]
Amanda Montel
They just like didn't know when to stop. Like so many of the worst cults. Because in a way, they remind me of so many protected organizations in the United States. Like fucking chiropractors.
- [20:43]
Liz
Don't get me started.
- [20:45]
Amanda Montel
Literally, though, like the origin story of Falun Gong and Lee, they remind me so so much of the origin story of chiropractors, which is another episode we've done on the show. But chiropractors are what, 50% less insane than Falun Gong. So like they've pulled the wool over almost everybody's eyes like it's nuts. But like, you're right, what it does have in common with QAnon is that the government actually intervened to a degree anyway, which was certainly a good thing, but also similar to Falun Gong. It sounds like QAnon ers think government elites are evil. And in a way that helped, but it also kind of fueled the flames because QAnon hates the government. That's like the whole idea. And so if the government is going to crack down on them, that's just going to make some of them dig their heels and fortify their existing beliefs. And that's a bit what seems to have gone on here. But it just is a very interesting subject to discuss on this particular show because sounds like a cult exists to critique cultishness in everyday life. Less like falun Gong or QAnon because everybody already knows those are a cult and more like mom fluencers and CrossFit and mainstream government bodies that are actually white culty upon closer inspection. But it is also important to kind of take a step back and ground ourselves and be like, there is actually a difference.
- [22:00]
Brace
Well, it's funny because I think that a lot of politicians in America have tried since Li Hongzi came over in the early 2000s to sort of help them because they thought, okay, any kind of organization that has a critique of China, especially one that is coming from China or expat, can be very useful for politicians who want to spread messages that are anti China or right wing politicians that are like, trying to make arguments against China, all these things, and time after time they've run into that same problem that Brace is saying, which is that, like, these guys are too crazy to be useful. And so over the years, they've come in and they said, okay, you got to tone down the racism, you got to tone down the whole miscegenation thing. It's not going to fly. The whole homophobia thing, it's not going to fly. And like out of that is where you get Shenyan, which still, like, we haven't mentioned it yet, but there is a very, I think, to them, they believe, moving to me, quite strange scene of actual organ harvesting in Shenyan, where you're watching modern day Falun Gong practitioners be kidnapped by evil CCP agents to then have their organs harvested stage right or whatever.
- [23:12]
Amanda Montel
Okay, so how did this whole history lead to falun Gong in 2006 being like, you know what? I think it's time to start a dance troupe.
- [23:20]
Liz
So Shenyan started as part of the Falun Gong, sort of like image crafting in the West. When they came over, they were banned by the Communist Party of China In I think 99, because five of them lit themselves on fire. A 12 year old girl died. And the. The government was like, this is getting too crazy. You can't do this anymore. Lee Hongji had already left the country. He like, not voluntarily. He wasn't like exiled. He just left and moved to upstate New York. They realized that like, he was giving all these interviews where he's like, I can fly. And then the interviewer, this happened in time would be like, you can fly. Like, how can you fly? And the guy's like, well, have you seen David Copperfield? He can also fly. So I can fly. Kind of like that. And I think someone at Falun Gong headquarters was like, this is getting too crazy. We're sounding like nuts. We gotta start like a dance company and like a media outlet to kind of like get ourselves back to the graces.
- [24:09]
Amanda Montel
It was like a damage control cleanup. Exact situation. Yes.
- [24:14]
Liz
And so I think it's sort of like they've realized that it's been pretty successful and they. So they funnel a lot of the money from their other, oftentimes more very explicitly unsavory practices back into the dance company.
- [24:29]
E
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- [26:30]
Amanda Montel
I want to pause for a second and unpack the subject that we got the most questions about, which is Shen Yun's marketing from y' all two's perspective, how would you describe it? Like if you were to pull up some Shenyan publicity materials, a brochure for example, could you explain what it looks like? I'd love if you could illustrate an image in listeners heads.
- [26:53]
Brace
I'd ask if your listeners are familiar with the publication the Epic Times because when I think of Shenya and advertising, I think of placed peace in right wing propaganda outlet the Epic Times.
- [27:06]
Liz
Yeah, I would say, I mean obviously the famous image of. I mean it's a pretty whatever image but this sort of, you can picture it in your head right now if you live anywhere in America is like a prancing dancer with maybe like an orange background and some some banners there and it'll say like Shenyan and Then sometimes it says 5,000 years of Chinese history, sometimes it says China before communism, something like that. And then it'll give some kind of dates. And then oftentimes I feel like there are like sponsoring organizations now. I think one of the biggest mysteries about Shenyan that sort of the layperson has is that like, how do they afford all of this advertising? Now the answer to that seems to be donations from followers. And like they do have like street teams where they like go out and like put up the flyers. And then also right wing media like the Epoch Times, which is funneled back in. And then also crime, which seems to be a really big aspect of the entire organization because there's really no separating Shenyan from like Falun Gong, from Epic Times or anything. It's all the same fucking thing. It's just like different kind of branches of it. In fact, they have like hundreds of companies under their control.
- [28:15]
Amanda Montel
So I want to clarify a few things. We mentioned the Epoch Times, there were a couple, couple questions about that. Basically, for those who don't know, the Epoch Times is a far right news publication. It was founded by Falun Gong. It's kind of like you were saying, just another property in their portfolio. Though they try to deny that or at least keep it on the DL. The Epoch Times has basically written thousands upon thousands of articles promoting Shenyang while quote, attacking its critics as agents of the Chinese government. That's according to the New York Times. Another thing I learned from the reporting that I'm citing throughout this episode is that back in June, the Epoch Times chief financial officer was arrested and charged for money laundering conspiracy. So they're getting the kind of attention that they deserve.
- [29:05]
Liz
They may interject there. I think his like money laundering company was called Making Money Online llc.
- [29:11]
Brace
It was, and it was a cryptocurrency Ponzi, as you could imagine.
- [29:16]
Amanda Montel
As you could imagine, indeed. Okay, so let's unpack a little bit further. Some of these like shady marketing approaches and how Shenyan is able to afford all that they do to publicize these shows. So basically Rothfeld and Hong for the New York Times looked into their marketing budget, how they're affording all of this, and. And the answer to how Shenyan has such a giant marketing budget is simply that they don't. This is what they do. Shenyan's leadership convinces followers to do their marketing for them and put on their shows for free, kind of like volunteer work or donations, as you said. So all of those flyers and billboards and posters that you see, in addition to expenses like venue costs and performer accommodations. A lot of that shit gets paid for by a network of mini flags. Franchise organizations like little nonprofits that the Falun Gong leader Lee convinced his followers to form in cities around the world, including la, Philly, et cetera. According to the New York Times, these mini satellite groups spend millions every year on advertising, keep just enough of the ticket sales to cover their baseline expenses, and then send the rest to Shenyan. So here's an example of how those numbers shake out. According to tax records reported by the New York Times, one of Falun Gong's Atlanta based offshoot organizations spent around $1.6 million in 2018 for seven Shen Yun performances. They made about $2.1 million from those Atlanta shows. And then after all the accounting, Shen Yun pocketed almost half a million bucks. Also, though, sometimes these efforts aren't profitable. And if a satellite organization is not able to earn back in ticket sales what it spends, they have to eat that cost, which is definitely something that has happened. So followers can end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt due to Shenyan. Not to mention the shame of feeling like you failed your leader if the shows that you produced and advertised didn't make a ton of money. So long story short, it'd basically be like if your church decided to form a propagandistic traveling circus and then manipulated parishioner to pay for it. That is basically the answer to why Shen Yun has so many billboards. Okay, now I think we have to talk about what Shen Yun's actual show is like. We received scores of questions about the performance itself, about the show, Questions as vague as what happens and is the dancing good? Is it safe to attend? So can you just walk us through the first moments of your Shen Yun audience member experience? Like, what did it feel like to walk in there? Who are the other attendees? Paint a picture.
- [32:08]
Liz
Our real first entree to the show was this very enthusiastic pair of people sort of introducing the show. A Chinese woman and this Mormon style white guy.
- [32:18]
Brace
It was like Colin Jost, he was Jost, but Uncanny Valley version AI slop Colin Jost in Lincoln center relaying a Chinese cult message.
- [32:30]
Liz
And I was fascinated by this. So they introduced the show. And honestly, I didn't really know what to expect because we'd read some reviews of it, none of which were particularly charitable. But I was very curious about the audience of this because I'm like, this show is not cheap. It was like, I think a couple hundred dollars a ticket or something.
- [32:45]
Brace
Yeah, it was not cheap for a matinee For a matinee.
- [32:49]
Amanda Montel
For a matinee, no less. You're not even having wine. I mean, maybe you are, but it.
- [32:54]
Brace
Was a good, exact house. Packed house.
- [32:58]
Liz
Liz, how would you describe the people there? I couldn't really get a read.
- [33:02]
Brace
It was a mix. But do you remember Brace? There was, like, a couple next to us that were clearly on a date, and I, like, really felt for them. And it was funny because I think it was, like, right before the intermission. So the show is kind of split up in two parts with an intermission in the middle. And, you know, the first couple performances in it are very much like old, ancient Chinese dance before the Communist Party. This is kind of what China was like. Okay. And then there's a performance right before the intermission that gets a lot more propagandistic towards some of the things the Falun Gong believe. And I remember kind of out of the corner of my eye, seeing the guy who's on this date with this girl kind of like lean over and be like, wait a minute. Like, people started kind of looking around at this point to be like, wait, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because they just said some weird shit.
- [33:52]
Liz
Yeah. Remembering this now, I'm like, I feel for that couple. Because I'm assuming this is maybe unkind of me, but I'm assuming it was the guy trying to be like culture, to be like, yeah, do you want to go see a dance performance with me on Saturday? It's like Chinese dance.
- [34:05]
Amanda Montel
Okay. Okay. So you got the understanding that there were some people there who, like, had absolutely no context. Like, they were truly just responding to the equivalent of an Instagram ad.
- [34:17]
Liz
Exactly.
- [34:18]
Amanda Montel
That is absolutely fascinating. Could you sort of explain, in a nutshell, the scope of the performance? Liz, you did have some notes about the quality of the dancing. Just like, what the fuck happened?
- [34:30]
Brace
I mean, I thought the dancing was very stiff. I'm gonna be real. You know, I don't mean to come off as some, like, big connoisseur of dance. No way. Not claiming, however, I was not impressed. And some of that, you know, maybe we can chalk that up to the fact that they are training these quote unquote dancers out of their compound in upstate New York, which, if you want to say, sounds like a cult. There's nothing more culty than the words compound in upstate New York. Like, you just never want to hear that. And so everyone, including the underage child, quote unquote, volunteers up there to the more older performers, I'm just going to say, I, you know, I didn't think the quality was great. The backdrops, we should say. There was a little bit of a handmade quality to some of the props, which I found quite charming. But then the backdrops were just digital. Late 90s, early 2000s, video game digital backdrop, which was very odd.
- [35:27]
Liz
Would I recommend for any listeners to go to the show, leaving aside the question of how much money it is and then all that money going to this, you know, actually legitimately horrible cult. No, because the show, frankly. 5,000 years of Chinese history in your head, not so long on stage forever. It was infinite. Now, when it got to the modern stuff, I will say again, because that's them putting their own little spin on everything.
- [35:52]
Brace
Yeah, they got the juice there.
- [35:54]
Liz
I feel like if you actually want to see Chinese dance, you probably go to somewhere that it's like a real dance troupe that takes their art very seriously. This was mostly pretty boring, except for some of the acrobatics and then the four or five, like, organ harvesting style dances I found captivating.
- [36:11]
Brace
Yeah.
- [36:12]
Liz
But my recommendation is if you're thinking maybe I could take my funky little hinge date here. No, no. Take the hinge date to Kava. Do not go to Shenyan.
- [36:21]
Amanda Montel
Oh, wow. That's like, really important insight. I'm disappointed to hear that, frankly, but also relieved because the temptation is sort of quelled.
- [36:35]
E
Jack Daniels is proudly served in fine.
- [36:37]
Liz
Establishments, questionable joints, and everywhere in between. So no matter where you go in every bar, you'll always know someone by name.
- [36:48]
Amanda Montel
Jack Jack and Coke.
- [36:50]
Liz
Shot of Jack.
- [36:51]
Chelsea
Jack Daniels, please.
- [36:52]
Liz
Right away. That's what makes Jack Jack.
- [36:55]
F
Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademark copyright 2025 Jack Daniels. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume 80 proof.
- [37:04]
Amanda Montel
With the Venmo debit card, you can Venmo everything. Your favorite band's merch. You can Venmo this or their next show. You can Venmo that. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license by Mastercard International Incorporated, the card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply. You mentioned the sort of cognitive dissonance of watching these performers who maybe seem at best unhappy, at worst ill and threatened. We need to talk about the cult of Shen Yun from the performer side. And this is really the focus of all these New York Times investigations that I keep referencing. We received a lot of questions from listeners asking if the performers are exploited, if they're paid if they're forced to do the show. Have they spoken out? So I want to get into all of that. Basically what Hong and Rothfeld found is that Shinyana's not exactly cultivating a genuine love of artistry in their performers. The group very much manipulates recruits into doing free labor, pushing them to dance through injuries and endure emotional abuse, all using these really pernicious psychological tactics. Someone wanted to know how dancers were recruited. So performers are recruited from all over the world to dance with Shen Yun. The vast majority of them come from a Falun Gong family or are related to followers of the group. Apparently, Falun Gong's followers view performing with Shen Yun as a sacred honor. So performers live and train inside this 400 acre compound overseen by Lee and his militarized posse. The compound is called Dragon Springs and is located in upstate New York. The compound has a college and a boarding school. Because some Shenyan trainees are very, very young, certain performers might start touring with the group when they are just 12 years old. And again, as the Times reported, these kids are not allowed to leave the compound unless they get special permission. And they might only see their parents once per year during a two week summer. So basically, the reason they know all this is because more than two dozen former Shenyun dancers, musicians and teachers confided in the New York Times. Some even allowed their real names and photographs to go on the record. Here is some of what they shared. So to make this more interactive, but also just to get our bearings and help us distinguish exactly the level of cultishness that we're talking about here, I'm going to read a list of these abuse allegations and ask you, Liz and Bracelets, to say whether you think that each one is Shen Yun being culty or just an asshole. This is sort of a franchise on Sounds like a Cult sometimes. Because there is a difference between, you know, something being evidence of cult behavior and just being like, shitty. And I would love to hear your take. So first of all, whenever performers get sick or hurt themselves within Shenyan, they're told allegedly that it's due to a problem with their spiritual stuff state. According to the New York Times, ex performers said that they had to dance through dislocated kneecaps and sprained ankles lest they have their loyalty to Lee called into question. Additionally, the dancers had no access to doctors or physical therapy. Culty or just an asshole?
- [40:11]
Brace
Culty, for sure. Culty.
- [40:13]
Liz
I want to say culty, but also, I've had jobs that have treated me not that different. Than that without the Lee Hongji part. Kind of similar.
- [40:21]
Amanda Montel
Okay, next one. Former performers said that female dancers were subjected to weigh ins and name calling when they did not maintain a stick thin frame. Culty. You're just an asshole.
- [40:31]
Brace
I'm going to say an asshole.
- [40:32]
Liz
I'm also going to say an asshole because I feel like that's every fudgeing dance. I've never seen any of the movies that are about dancers but they all seem to have stuff like this in them.
- [40:40]
Amanda Montel
Okay, you're just like it's run of the mill black swan behavior.
- [40:43]
Liz
Exactly. That's something like don't they do that Always some lady yelling at you.
- [40:47]
Amanda Montel
See with that one I would say culty. We're just used to it it because lord knows if they made men stop eating we would notice. All right, next one. Performers training, rehearsal and performance schedules could entail 15 hour days and 800 show tours allegedly without pay at first and then $12,000 a year or less. Culty or just an asshole?
- [41:09]
Brace
I don't want to say asshole because I don't want to let them off the hook. But I do think that this reminds me of so many terrible labor practices that they're obviously taking advantage of to further the kind of like cult behavior behavior or inculcate people. But I also think that there's unfortunately like so many businesses that rely on this sort of illegal labor practice.
- [41:33]
Liz
Yeah, I'd say the same. I would say it's culty in the fact that like people are more willing to put up with it because of a spiritual reason or whatever. But it does sort of mirror especially in like entertainment business. Like kind of like making somebody work all this insane amount with the promise that they'll get to some. You know, in the case of Li Hongji, you'll get to your racially non diverse heaven I guess. But in entertainment world you'll be able to get I don't know what like.
- [41:57]
Amanda Montel
A job riding on big mouth, a new IMDb credit. Yeah, it is true. I think the distinguishing factor here to your point is that the metaphysical threats are being held over their heads. But indeed it is so easy to take advantage of artists labor. And obviously like Shen Yun is different from a kind of like D list movie set. But it is curious to point out the similarities in as well. Let's move on. Former performers also said that leaders threatened that if they messed up during a show they would quote doom their audience to hell.
- [42:32]
Brace
I'm gonna get culty.
- [42:34]
Liz
I'm gonna say culty. I'm gonna say Culty. But I'm gonna defend this because Liz.
- [42:37]
Brace
And I give this the same way.
- [42:39]
Liz
Same thing every single time before we do a show, we look at each other and say, essentially, a variation of that.
- [42:45]
Amanda Montel
Oh, my God, that is absolutely hilarious. It is true, and I relate to it. Every time I do one of my live shows, I feel like I will do myself and everyone here to hell if this is not a delight to witness. Okay, next one. Ex performers spoke of Shen Yun's control over the media they consumed like that they weren't allowed to watch anything mainstream, and there was even control over their love lives, including arranged relationships. Culty or just an asshole?
- [43:12]
Brace
That's textbook culty. Classic cults.
- [43:16]
Liz
Classic cult.
- [43:17]
Amanda Montel
I should say so. Next one. Dancers were scared to leave Shenyan because they were allegedly told they'd go to hell, lose their leader's protection, and have to pay back the cost of all their schooling and accommodations over the years. Culty. You're just an asshole.
- [43:31]
Brace
That's culty.
- [43:32]
Liz
We're going cult in that one. Definitely.
- [43:34]
Amanda Montel
Definitely. No, we're escalating here. And the last thing I'll read to you is that Shen Yun has denied all of these claims. When Shen Yun found out that former dancers were talking to the New York Times, they said that this was just, quote, a relatively tiny, disgruntled group who were making up bizarre and dramatic things about Shenyan, Shenyan gaslighting. They're whistleblowers. Culty or just an.
- [43:55]
Brace
I'm gonna say it's culty in this scenario because of the content.
- [44:00]
Liz
I'm gonna agree with that. And add on that. Actually, I've talked to several journalists who worked for college newspapers in different towns who were writing articles critical of Shenyan and Shenyan, targeted them specifically, and tried to get them fired from their college newspapers and get the. Get the article shut down. So they are very up on media consumption habits.
- [44:20]
Brace
They don't have the resources that Scientology does, but they are just as dogged about following people and some pretty serious attempts to, like, get people fired, deplatformed, all sorts of things.
- [44:33]
Amanda Montel
Yeah. Before we kind of get into where Shenyan is legally right now. And then a little game and then our verdict. I did want to ask a personal question, just from me. What do you think Shen Yun's visibility right now and all of these recent exposes say about the state of cultishness in our society at large at present? Like, Shenyan's been around for a while. These exposes weren't coming out five years ago, 10 years ago. 20 years ago. They're coming out right now. Why do you think that is? Like, what's going on in the ether?
- [45:03]
Brace
I think one thing to remember is that Shenyan had a kind of weird surge during COVID for a couple of reasons. I think people might think, like, oh, when I first found out about Shenyan is like, when I was getting, like, direct mail, it was like, 2019, 2020. And then they went really hard on marketing in 2020 and 2021. And you talked about all these organizations and NGOs in their portfolio. They were able to kind of basically find a bunch of loopholes in a lot of the Pandemic Relief Fund programs in order to collect about 48 million, I think close to $50 million of government funds, which they've been using to fund a lot. And so I think that having all of that money in these, like, recent years helped bring them to a new prominence, which then sparked a lot of new investigations into what they were doing. And we mentioned the epic Times being this sort of, like, wing of their program. And again, during COVID the epic times grew exponentially, mostly through Facebook and YouTube, where more and more people were being exposed. During that time, they were pushing a lot of anti, anti China COVID policy stuff, a bunch of anti vax stuff, a bunch of, like, pandemic kind of stuff. And so I think that kind of sparked a renewed interest into what was going on here from places like the New York Times and all of that. And, you know, those kind of investigations take years.
- [46:36]
Liz
Yeah, I think that they kind of overplayed their hand with some stuff. First of all, you have that many billboards for a show that not a lot of people are going to see. There's going to be some questions. But also, like Liz said, the Epic Times stuff, they made a lot of enemies with that, that because they got really big in 2015, and then Facebook changed the algorithm and they kind of receded and then came roaring back with the pandemic. They were really early boosters of Trump. They were in with the QAnon people. They made a movie about a Chinese cell phone company, Huawei, with Steve Bannon. They were, like, really tied into this, like, extreme right ecosystem and seemingly had limitless money. And so I think a lot of the Shen Yun coverage that we're seeing from a lot of mainstream outlets today, particularly New York Times, kind of stems from earlier investigations into the Epoch Times and their crazy sphere that they had created. And there's also a lot of labor trafficking and, like, pretty gross and clear violations of employees. I put quotes around that rights with. With epic times as well.
- [47:34]
Amanda Montel
Yeah. I have such unbelievable respect for the journalists who are doing this investigative reporting into cults like Shen Yun because they are the ones that are taking note of these abuses and gathering the testimonies of ex performers and those who've endured all these culty horror. And they're looking at all of the ways in which Shen Yun is thriving and getting away with this. And they're actually doing something about it by publishing these investigations. And there has been serious legal fallout from them. It is famously difficult to sue a cult or to hold a cult accountable in a court of law. But Shen Yun is facing legal trouble these days. For example, the labor department is looking into Shen Yun child labor and failure to pay people minimum wage. And then separately, a former dancer sued the group this past December for forced labor and human trafficking. This dancer was recruited Taiwan when they were 13 years old, stayed with Shen Yun for over a decade and said that as soon as they arrived, they entered, quote, a system of coercion and control that extended to nearly every aspect of the dancers lives. Shen Yun is not thrilled with this suit, as you might imagine, and is kind of making all these arguments that the world's against them, et cetera. But that is the story of Shen Yun in a nutshell. The only other question that I wanted to pose from listeners was simply just, is it bad to pay for tickets to Shenyan and how can we kind of like not support this cult as outsiders?
- [48:53]
Brace
I would say if you don't want to support the cult, don't go Sushan yet.
- [48:57]
Liz
Yeah, I'm just saying you should legitimately, even if this was completely disconnected from a cult, these tickets are way too expensive. The show stinks and stinker. This is so easy. It's not like if like Safeware or whatever was run by like a crazy religious organization. You can avoid this one very easily simply by not going to a 200 boring bad show by like horribly exploited cult victims.
- [49:23]
Amanda Montel
You heard it here. Now we're going to transition into playing a game. As if there weren't enough juxtaposition of laughing and wincing throughout this episode. We're gonna play a game and it's just a classic. Would you rather. All right, so I'm gonna read three. Would you rather scenarios involving Shen Yun as well as some other culty situations. And there are no wrong answers, but you're gonna simply say which one you'd rather do the first one. Would you rather have to change your podcast logo so the True Anon logo to the Shen Yun logo. That leaping dancer forever. Or have to go through one week of Shen Yun dancer training on the compound in upstate New York.
- [50:04]
Liz
Logo. Easy.
- [50:05]
Brace
Yeah, I think we gotta do the logo.
- [50:07]
Liz
It's already. It's already instantly recognizable. We could kind of piggyback off of some of those success. And if the DOJ investigation really heats up, then frankly, we could probably take complete ownership of it.
- [50:17]
Amanda Montel
Oh, my God. Genius. And that is on reputation repair. Okay, next one. Would you rather have to attend a Shenyan performance anywhere in the world? So, you know, you can be in Paris, wherever, every Friday night for the rest of your life, or only listen to Taylor Swift music for the rest of your life, meaning whenever you want to listen to music, it has to be Taylor Swift.
- [50:37]
Brace
Swift. I guess I'm gonna say Taylor Swift. I really don't want to have to see Shenya in every week.
- [50:43]
Liz
Every Friday is tough. I'm gonna say Taylor Easy. Yeah, she's got a huge catalog.
- [50:48]
Brace
Yeah, the catalog's big enough. Different eras.
- [50:51]
Liz
She's got different kinds of music. Right. She's played acoustic guitar and then at other ones, she's like bisexual. I gotta just stop listening to music or something, you know what I mean? Like, I could just.
- [51:00]
Brace
Yeah.
- [51:00]
Amanda Montel
Or just like get into podcasts.
- [51:02]
Liz
Yeah.
- [51:02]
Amanda Montel
Okay, last one. Would you rather get Shen Yun in Chinese characters tattooed on your lower back 90s tramp stamp style, or have the Tesla logo branded with fire onto your hip?
- [51:15]
Brace
I'm gonna do tramp stamp style 100%. Nothing Elon Musk related is going anywhere near my body.
- [51:22]
Liz
Tramp stamp is so easy because I could do a classic reversems on the someone getting Chinese that they don't understand tattooed on them. And I could tell people it means whatever. You know what I'm saying?
- [51:33]
Amanda Montel
Totally. I mean, Ariana Grande just did this, so you. Well, you look just alike. I've been thinking about this this the whole time. I was like, oh, God, he looks familiar. Ariana Grande.
- [51:43]
Liz
Wicked.
- [51:44]
Amanda Montel
Holding space for you. All right, now it is time to ask the ultimate. Sounds like a cult question. Brace and Lynn, out of our three cult categories. Live your life, watch your back and get the out. Which one do you think Shen Yun falls into? How is there a pause?
- [52:13]
Liz
Well, I'm gonna say get the out, you know, but it could be as easy as just no longer picking up your phone unless you live on the compound. You kind of just be like, I'm out of here. They're like, like fairly disorganized on some level. And so like, I don't think they can really like Black Baggy and bring you back to like Scientology style. So I would say just get out.
- [52:31]
Brace
Yeah, you gotta get out.
- [52:33]
Amanda Montel
Right? You know, if you need a dance cult to join. I was really into line dancing for a little while and that was just great. It was positive.
- [52:41]
Liz
Yeah, people love that.
- [52:42]
Brace
That sounds nice. Also pro social.
- [52:44]
Liz
I have a recommendation too, if you. But if you still want a little bit of an insular, freaky little element moment, why not become a blue Man?
- [52:50]
Amanda Montel
Oh, Blue man group.
- [52:52]
Liz
Yeah. And I recommend. I just saw this the other night, Blue Man Groupie, which is a self made documentary about a woman who was sexually obsessed and indeed successful at sleeping with several blue men.
- [53:02]
Brace
What? Several?
- [53:03]
Liz
Not just one, I think. I don't know.
- [53:05]
Amanda Montel
How could she tell them apart?
- [53:06]
Brace
That's such a good question.
- [53:08]
Liz
Yeah.
- [53:08]
Brace
Oh my God. How do you tell such a good shout though?
- [53:11]
Amanda Montel
Thank you for that, Blue Man Group. I feel like that should go on the list of Sounds like occult topics to cover in the future. So culty and weird actually went once in Vegas against my will. It's long story. Point is I did go and the first thing I thought was this is such a cult because they open up the whole entire performance with this chant and they're really like trying to get people indoctrinated and whipped up. So great point. Thank you both so much for joining this episode of Sounds Like a Cult. Very juicy. If folks want to keep up with you and your podcast, where can they do that?
- [53:41]
Brace
You can listen to Trunon wherever you listen to podcasts. I think it's a very.
- [53:46]
Liz
Yeah, true and on one word, beautiful.
- [53:49]
Amanda Montel
Thank you so much. Well, that is our show. Thanks for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty.
- [53:58]
Liz
But not too culty.
- [54:08]
Amanda Montel
Sounds Like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality and Word A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network, Studio71. And be sure to follow the sounds like a cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse soundslikeacultpod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com soundslikeacult.
- [55:03]
Liz
As a.
- [55:03]
F
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Chelsea
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