Found on-line, a news account citing the proclamation by Austin Mayor "Lee Jeffingwell" welcoming Shen Yun Performing Arts, alleging that the Chinese government has sponsored a clumsy e-mail campaign against the the U.S.-based classical Chinese dance company:
By Wen Yuqian
Epoch Times Staff, Aug 5, 2010
AUSTIN, Tex.—The theatre manager of a performing arts venue here recently received an email that made him pause and scratch his head.
Purporting to be from the organizers of a classical Chinese dance company soon to perform at his venue, the Long Center for the Performing Arts, the email made a series of claims bizarre enough to lead the theatre to contact the organizers directly.
The organizers didn’t send the email, but argue that it reflects the latest in the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to spread propaganda against its enemies overseas.
Shen Yun Performing Arts, the classical Chinese dance company that will put on two shows in Austin on Aug. 7 , has been targeted by the CCP since its inception. The company draws on ancient Chinese traditions that have been all but wiped out in China, and is supported internationally by Falun Gong, a group also relentlessly attacked and persecuted in China.
Initially, Chinese embassies tried the blunt approach of direct dissuasion; but theatre owners in the US did not respond favorably, and some even went public with their indignation. Beginning this year, the Chinese communists appear to have stepped up the sophistication of their approach by sending emails purporting to be from Falun Gong practitioners themselves, giving outlandish pronouncements that would make anyone’s eyebrows raise.
Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline consisting of moral principles and slow-motion physical exercises, has been persecuted in China since 1999.
Mr. Li, who is in charge of hosting Shen Yun Performing Arts in Austin, says that the email he was shown by the theatre looked a lot like other harassing emails received by other theatres hosting Shen Yun shows. Typically, the email initially appears to be written from a Falun Gong standpoint, but then includes out-of-context quotes from Falun Gong’s spiritual teacher, moral exhortations meant to confuse, and a good dose of nonsense.
In the recent email sent to the Long Center, the sender, who identified himself as Haichao Jian, referred at length to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Jian then asked the theater to appeal to the audience of Shen Yun to follow the teaching of Falun Gong, then somehow linked it back to an improvement in the oil spill.
The communists in China are ridiculous.
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