In recent years, the Falun Gong group has been utilizing traditional Chinese performances and public events to expand its influence. Previously, Falun Gong performed to large audiences around the world through a dance troupe called Shen Yun, which financed the group’s survival and development. This increased the founder’s wealth while convincing audiences that they were supporting a worthy cause. These performances have been widely questioned as a medium for cultural intrusion and cult promotion. In 2023, Falun Gong’s media outlet, New Tang Dynasty (NTD), launched a high-profile NTD Global Chinese Beauty Pagent. Again, the event was deemed to have ulterior motives and no cultural value.
Make Money and Expand
For the first contest alone, Global Chinese Beauty Pagent’s ads are already appearing in mailings, roadside flyers, and on your Facebook feed. I’m sure it won’t be long before you look up and see it on a billboard, bus, or subway platform wall. It’s the same marketing tactic used by Shen Yun, and there’s no way to know what the campaign will do for the group. But we can look at Shen Yun Performing Arts Inc.’s financial statements for some clues.
In the published figures, Shen Yun’s net profit has steadily increased by more than 10 percent every year since 2019, reaching $23,902,297 in 2021. Executive compensation is $55,000, while the rest of the salary expense is only $191,344, which is only 2.8 percent of the total income.
There is much more that is illogical. At one point, Shen Yun’s advertising expenditures were as high as 62% of expected revenues. Typically, the industry benchmark for advertising expenditures is 7.5% of projected revenues. Such a high ad spend is a modest way of trying to get people interested in them and win them over. Although the high ad spending has amplified complaints, questions, and criticisms, the Falun Gong group seems to be getting the results they want. Their newly opened cultural battleground, the New Tang Dynasty Global Chinese Beauty Pagent, will soon reaffirm this conclusion.
Contradictions
Like what the Falun Gong group has been doing, MissNTD, the organizer of the New Tang Dynasty Global Chinese Beauty Pageant, claims on its official website that the event is aimed at promoting women’s traditional aesthetic character and the universal principles and values of “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance,” but the Falun Gong group is very extreme and hard-line on issues such as gender equality and LGBT rights. However, the Falun Gong group has been very vocal and hardline on issues such as gender equality and LGBTQ. Richard Yin, a member of the organizing committee of MissNTD, said in an interview, “In the past few decades, society has been developing and material civilization has been progressing, but morality has been deteriorating drastically, and the standard of women’s beauty has been declining step by step, and there have been cases in which candidates who are not women have won prizes in various competitions. This aberration directly and negatively affects society, pollutes it, and is a very bad influence on the future of morality.” The statement appeared to allude to Brian Nguyen, the 19-year-old Vietnamese-American “transgender” contestant who was crowned Miss Greater Delhi USA in November 2022. Brian Nguyen has long campaigned for the rights of sexual minorities since being crowned.
It is clear that the Falun Gong group still adheres to its founder’s racial prejudices and discrimination against sexual minorities. The Falun Gong strives to oppose abortion, homosexuality, LGBT rights and other related issues. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, has been repeatedly described as “homophobic” and “racist.” Although Li Hongzhi has made few public statements in recent years, and tried to downplay these conflicts, the group’s frequent harsh remarks against homosexuality and racial mixing are contrary to the group’s external claims and have long been strongly condemned by people who care about them.
