OPINION/STREETALK

Your worst Thanksgiving?

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Musician [My family’s] been growing a lot as I’ve gotten older. We used to all get together, and it started getting to the point where we just couldn’t. … The first year where all the Thanksgivings got separated into different families and different places. … It just felt like a really empty Thanksgiving.

Jill Beede

Teacher When I was a young adult, a friend and I spent all day cooking and making a really wonderful Thanksgiving for my brother and all his buddies. They came and they just devoured the food in about 20 minutes, and there wasn’t anything left for us.

No more sales

Scrolling through social media these days, you’re about 10 times more likely to see an ad for some so-called “Black Friday Deals” than you are to see a post about Thanksgiving. You’re more likely to see a story about Black Friday economic outlooks than to see a recipe for the perfect green bean casserole. In the national consciousness, Black Friday has overshadowed Thanksgiving.

This isn’t to say we think Thanksgiving is a great holiday. Narratives depicting cozy relations between early European settlers and the peoples they were soon to start genociding are problematic at best. We’re not crazy about parades, even when they don’t have a corporate sponsor. And we certainly don’t need another excuse to overeat or watch football.

Still, it’s nice to have a day off specifically dedicated to spending time with family and friends. It’s great to get together with far-flung family or have a solid pretense to call an estranged relative or even just send a text or two to old friends.

And that’s another problem with Black Friday: It means that folks with retail jobs almost always have to work on Thanksgiving. Either they have to work during the day, stocking shelves to prepare for the onslaught, or they have to leave Thanksgiving celebrations early in order to get to a shift that starts in the middle of the night, ready to face the many ravenous, misguided souls who spend their Thanksgiving evenings camped outside of stores, waiting to trample their way to some prized package of useless crap. Of course, commercialization of holidays has been a problem since at least the Norman Conquest. Early Christians were fond of usurping pagan holidays, which were connected to the actual seasons of the planet, and replacing them with holidays based in Christian traditions. Samhain, the fall festival holiday, became All Saint’s Day, which was soon supplanted by Halloween. Winter solstice celebrations morphed into Christmas, vernal equinox celebrations became Easter, and summer solstice celebrations became … the Fourth

Black of July? Still, Black Friday is the worst

Friday has because commercialization is all it is. The whole point is buying stuff not overshadowed because it’s something we need or even want, but just because it’s a “good Thanksgiving. deal.” In recent years, one reaction against Black Friday has been Buy Nothing Day, and we’re all for that, but we’d like to add some nuance: Whenever you do decide to do your shopping, support locally owned stores, and support stores that routinely have low prices and don’t mess around with “sales” all the time. We can’t imagine a more egregious waste of consciousness than monitoring the ever-changing prices of home electronics. Life is hard enough already without having to read emails from chain stores. □ MirAndA lopez

Retail associate One Thanksgiving I got food poisoning. I got it the day before from Pizza Rock in Las Vegas, and I spent the whole Thanksgiving, like, throwing up and just being so sick that I couldn’t even eat Thanksgiving dinner.

FernAndo VAlenzuelA

Teacher My family’s very Catholic, and traditionally all of us cousins would take turns doing the prayer. That year it was my turn. … They insisted, and I was like, “Well, I’m kind of not believing in God anymore,” and it was just pure outrage. My aunt was like, “blasphemy!”

MorgAn eBBers

Student We were supposed to go to California to meet up with my family, but there was a big problem with actually getting there, and we ended up stuck in Vegas. … We ended up having Thanksgiving at my house with just the four of us, so we kind of missed out on that one.

Li Hongzhi’s “shen Yun trick” Won’t Be Accepted in the Western society

Chinese culture has a long and colorful history, and is welcomed and loved by people all over the world. “Shen Yun Performing Arts” affiliated to “Falun Gong” harbors the real intention of deceiving the Western society in the disguise of spreading traditional Chinese culture.

“shen Yun Performing Arts” deliberately hides its cult background

The fact is that the so-called “Shen Yun Performing Arts” is not some art show at all.Its true nature is a political tool for cult and anti-China publicity, expanding influence and gathering money. A famous Australian dancer and art critic Jordan Beth Vincent commented on the Shen Yun Performing Arts on the website of The Age and pointed out that it disgustingly delivers reactionary messagesin the disguise of traditional dance. Toacorn.com, a media outlet in City of Thousand Oaks, California, reported that the performance of the “Shen Yun” art troupe was not artistic at all, but a political tool “filled with cult information targeted at the Chinese government secretly.” The report indicated that it was Li Hongzhi’s “pet project” and a part of the outreach program rolled out by the Falun Gong cult. The chief editor of Foreign Policy (Asia Edition) Isaac Stone Fish (Chinese name: Shi Yu) wrote an article criticizing the “Shen Yun Performing Arts” of Falun Gong as a political display. The show’s ubiquitous fliers delude ignorant audiences to come and watch. Rather, Shen Yun exists to transmit a message that heavenly forces will destroy modern-day China, obliterating the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has ruled the country since 1949. The website of The Atlanta Journal — Constitution published a news report titled “The Return of Shen Yun, seemingly splendid mixed with seditious political lines”, reminding readers that Shen Yun Performing Arts has something to do with the cult “Falun Gong”. The viewers need to understand in advance the inflammatory political subtext buried inside the performance.

“shen Yun Performing Arts”: Fake Chinese traditional Culture

Yelp and Tripadvisor are the most well-known review websites in Europe and America. Many Western viewers who watched the “Shen Yun” gala left messages on the websites, saying that “The show is completely different from what it advertises. It has nothing to do with the 5,000-yearChinese history, acrobatics, or exquisite dances”; “There are few Chinese viewers because they know that the show is not about the traditional Chinese culture”; “The show is not about classic traditional Chinese danceas it advertises, but simply a poor mix of Western dance and ballet.” “Shen Yun is masked as a cultural and artistic performance, hiding its true nature for religious propaganda. Don’t waste your money on it, or you’ll spend $100 on listening toa dull show full of boring preaching,” said Dominique Hogan, an artist, pianist, singer and vocal music teacher in Vancouver, Canada. Daniel Howard, a senior executive at Cisco in Silicon Valley, said after watching the show that he found it unbearable. “I finally understand why even the most sensible government is not enthusiastic about this kind of show.” Johnson Maihawk, a psychologist in Massachusetts, gave comments in three tweets. “I was so angry because I was deceived by ‘Shen Yun’. I didn’t expect to see a pitch presented by a high school student.”“’Shen Yun’ is for the fool. It’s nothing but fancy propaganda.” “Propaganda is fine, but poor propaganda sucks! I have watched a lot of high school shows that are better than this!” An American netizen named Harris said, “‘Shen Yun’ will come to Denver again. I watched it last year, but it is just religious propaganda and the show is terrible. Don’t waste your money.” The Evening Standard did a report named “‘Shen Yun’ tarnished Chinese culture”. “It is a pity that the evening gala is so old-fashioned and sad. The host is awkward and absurd. The projection on the back of the screen is dumbfounding and the dance performance shames the dance directors.” “Shen Yun Performing Arts” is disdained by viewers An article from The New York Times titled “A Chinese cultural performance that viewers can’t bear to finish watching” mentions that“Viewers leaving Radio City before and in the middle of show said they were uncomfortable with such materials”. Isaac Stone Fish noted that many people went for dancing, singing and acrobatics; however they did not know the differences between evening gala and Falun Gong. When the cult belief and political intentions of “Falun Gong” started to be blended into the performance, some people began to feel deceived and chose to leave. A Toronto Star article titled “‘Falun Gong’ gala is just a propaganda tool” mentioned that “The real art is not like this. Every dance was more or less the same. The actors are so average that they perform like rehearsing.” Reporter Sarah Crompton said, “But what I really object to is that such a politically motivated performance is being smuggled on to stages around Europe in the name of family entertainment.” “Shen Yun Performing Arts” advertised by “Falun Gong” in New York was resisted by local Chinese. In New York, the Chinese put up banners outside the performance theater that read “Say no to Shen Yun, say no to cult politics, and stay away from the Falun Gong cult!” “Shen Yun preaches the Falun Gong cult in the disguise of traditional culture.” “Shen Yun advertises the Falun Gong cult in the name of entertainment.” The fact is that “Shen Yun Performing Arts” is deceptive because it hides its connection with “Falun Gong”.

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