Recalling the deep memories

After I came to Princeton, I ate American food every day and listened to popular American music on a daily basis. I thought I would spend the next five years in this strange land without any glimpse of authentic Chinese culture.

However, I no longer felt that way when I saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City in January. During the entire nearly three-hour performance, I was entranced. From the initial scene depicting the inauguration of the five millennia of Chinese civilization, through the historical legends and myths of each dynasty, to the depiction of modern-day China, the performance made me travel through a vast span of time and space, unraveling the authenticity of Chinese culture that I had been missing. It was just like a colorful history book, unfolding the history of thousands of years all at once.

“Shen Yun” means “the beauty of divine beings’ dancing.” Through classical Chinese dance, along with an animated backdrop and a live orchestra, the show magically transported me from the Qin Dynasty — when the huge Terracotta Army was built — to the Tang Dynasty — when the ladies of the palace danced with flowing sleeves and gracious majesty. Legendary historical figures such as Yue Fei, who served his country with unreserved loyalty, and Mulan, who, as a young girl, joined the army in her elderly father’s place, reminded me of the virtues that the Chinese tradition holds so dear: loyalty, filial piety, compassion and tolerance. The performance seemed to say that even in a colorful modern society, we can still learn from the character and behavior of ancient people.

One program in the show acted out a story from an ancient Chinese epic novel, “The Journey to the West,” which has been one of my favorites since childhood. In this story, a famous monk from the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzhuang, traveled a very long way to the West to bring the Buddhist scriptures from ancient India to China, thus beginning China’s flourishing age of Buddhism. His journey was full of dangers, hardships and interference from demons and ghosts, but the journey turned out to be a success with the help of deities and his three divine disciples: a monkey, a pig and an ogre. Though we had such stories in our school books in China, their meanings were somehow interpreted in a totally different way. They were taught to represent the struggles between social hierarchies, rather than ancient Chinese people’s respect for divine beings and the heavens, which I believe is the true essence of this novel. However, watching Shen Yun reminded me of the times when my father, a former teacher of Chinese literature, had patiently explained the true meaning of each story to me.

China was once known as “the land of divine.” In ancient China, people believed that Chinese culture came from the heavens and that art was primarily a means to explore the connection between humankind and the higher universe. Poets and artists emphasized virtues, study and meditation; their hearts were rooted in the ancient Chinese belief that to create true art, there must first be inner beauty and purity. Throughout the changing dynasties, Chinese people believed that the cultivation of virtue would lead to harmony and that belief in and veneration of the divine would maintain values and morality in society.

In modern-day China, however, the divine culture has been largely lost, and messages about divine beings can only be seen in scattered poems and historical relics. Shen Yun’s performance began with the creation of the world by a divine being, deeply moving my heart and reminding me of the precious memories and values that should be treasured.

I loved Shen Yun not only because I met it in a strange land, but because, to be honest, I haven’t seen such pure and graceful showmanship, even in modern-day China. Classical Chinese dance is part of the authentic Chinese culture and has thousands of years of history. The Shen Yun dancers seemed to not just express the characters and the feelings of each dance, but also to convey the bearing of history and the beauty of virtues established therein. I got the feeling that they must have really understood the essence of China’s traditional culture; only by doing so could they have expressed it so well in the form of classical Chinese dance.

In our modern world, we often indulge in money and fame and forget the true purpose of art, which is to give people beauty and enjoyment, as well as spiritual inspiration.

Shen Yun seemed to radiate a magical power, telling me: “Do not rush forward; take a look back at your path and the track of history. Do not forget those virtues and values that human beings rely on to thrive.”

Stella Ji is a graduate student in the chemistry department from China. She can be reached at huiwenji@princeton.edu.