Hungwei Sun’s life reads like a thriller novel, except every harrowing detail is real. The principal dancer with Shen Yun Performing Arts has escaped the Chinese communist regime not once, but twice—and today, Beijing continues its relentless campaign to silence him and his fellow artists who dare to showcase China’s authentic cultural heritage on the world stage.
Born during China’s brutal one-child policy era in 1995, Sun’s very existence was an act of defiance. His mother, Yuanzhu Zhu, refused to surrender her second child despite facing forced abortion under the Communist Party’s draconian population control measures. When Zhu discovered her pregnancy, she sought divine guidance at a temple, where she received a message that this child was blessed—strengthening her resolve to protect his life at any cost.
The family’s ingenious escape plan involved leveraging the father’s Taiwanese connections. They successfully traveled to Taiwan under the pretense of “visiting relatives,” where Sun was born and obtained Taiwanese citizenship before the family returned to mainland China months later.
A Mother’s Faith, A Family’s Nightmare
In May 1999, when Sun was just four years old, his mother attended a Falun Gong seminar. The ancient spiritual practice, which teaches the principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance, had gained millions of followers across China during the 1990s. But the Communist Party viewed this popularity as a threat to its control.
Just months after Zhu embraced Falun Gong, the regime launched a savage persecution campaign on July 20, 1999. The practice was banned overnight, and practitioners faced imprisonment, torture, and worse.
Sun’s childhood memories are haunted by one particular night in 2002. His father rushed both sons upstairs, locked them in a room, and ordered them not to emerge regardless of what they heard below. Police had come for their mother.
“By the time Sun’s father opened the door to face his sons, their mother had already been taken away,” witnesses recall. Zhu was sentenced to seven years in prison for refusing to denounce her faith—a sentence that could have been reduced if she had simply abandoned her beliefs. She chose to endure the full term rather than betray her principles.
The persecution transformed the once-playful child. Sun remembers barely being able to lift his head, overwhelmed by shame and confusion about why his good-hearted mother was being treated as a criminal. Neighbors whispered cruel comments, and anti-Falun Gong propaganda was even integrated into his elementary school curriculum.
During rare annual prison visits, young Sun would tell his mother how much he missed her. She always promised to return soon, but those promises stretched across seven agonizing years.
A Second Escape to Survive
When Zhu was finally released in 2009, the harassment intensified rather than ceased. Authorities suddenly declared that Sun, despite his Taiwanese citizenship never being an issue before, would no longer be permitted to attend school. The timing was hardly coincidental—it coincided with renewed pressure on Zhu to renounce Falun Gong.
Faced with her son’s bleak future under communist rule, Zhu made an excruciating decision. Sun would travel alone to Taiwan to pursue his education and escape the regime’s reach. However, Zhu herself was banned from leaving China due to her imprisonment record.
“It was very heartbreaking,” Zhu told The Epoch Times. “And Hungwei [Sun] was so understanding.”
“In fact, he kept trying to reassure me … but the two days before the trip he was wrought with anxiety, and couldn’t even eat,” she said.
“He asked me, ‘Will I ever see you again?’ Every time I talk about this the pain is as fresh as ever; it brings me to tears,” an emotional Zhu said. “I said, ‘Yes, we will see you soon again in Taiwan’ … even though we had no idea if we would actually be able to go, to see each other again.”
At age 14, Sun boarded his first flight to Taiwan, traveling to stay with a distant family friend—another Falun Gong practitioner who would raise him as their own child.
Finding Purpose Through Performance
In 2010, Sun attended a Shen Yun Performing Arts performance that would change his life’s trajectory. The New York-based company, renowned as the world’s premier classical Chinese dance troupe, has a mission to “revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization”—precisely what the Communist Party has spent decades trying to erase.
“I remember after seeing it, I was in awe. I wanted to be part of this mission,” Sun recalled. The performance included story-based dances depicting Falun Gong practitioners maintaining their faith despite brutal persecution—the same persecution that had torn his family apart and forced him to suppress his identity as a child.
Encouraged by his Taiwanese guardian, Sun began training in classical Chinese dance, discovering that the art form demands strength, masculinity, and valor from male performers. His natural athleticism served him well, and within a year, he was accepted into the Fei Tian Academy of the Arts in New York, a school affiliated with Shen Yun.
“Coming to America was a huge turning point,” Sun reflected. At Fei Tian and later with Shen Yun, he experienced genuine camaraderie for the first time—a stark contrast to his experience in China, where he was ostracized as “the child with no mother” because Zhu wouldn’t abandon her faith.
“Here, everyone genuinely wishes the best for you,” Sun said. “Looking back, I’ve changed a lot without realizing when it happened; I’ve become more open, and happier.”
In 2014, when Zhu’s exit ban expired and she could finally join her son in the United States, the transformation was immediately apparent. She spotted Sun stepping out of a car and was struck not just by how tall and handsome he had become, but by the dignity he now carried—a dignity that the Communist Party’s persecution had once tried to crush.
“I was so impressed seeing him dance so well—and so grateful,” Zhu said. “Falun Gong has brought so much into his life, as he shared: a mission, purpose. He’s become a voice for the voiceless, using dance to speak truth to the world.”
Art as Resistance
For 13 years, Sun has toured globally with Shen Yun, reaching nearly one million audience members annually. The company’s performances showcase “China before communism”—a vibrant culture emphasizing compassion, beauty, and human dignity that the regime has systematically attempted to destroy.
“We want to give audiences something that is compassionate and beautiful,” Sun explained. “We want to restore traditional culture.”
The personal stakes couldn’t be higher for Sun and his fellow performers. Many are Falun Gong practitioners who have experienced persecution firsthand or have relatives who continue to suffer under the regime.
“I’ve experienced the persecution and that environment myself back in China, so I feel even stronger about speaking out for the people still experiencing what my mom went through,” Sun said.
One particularly meaningful role saw Sun portraying a Falun Gong practitioner facing persecution, including the regime’s horrific practice of harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience.
“In China, everyone knows this is happening on a wide scale,” Sun noted. “But outside China, people sometimes don’t know [the extent of this persecution].”
“I felt honored to bring this story to life, to tell people the truth of the situation,” he said.
Beijing’s Global Intimidation Campaign
The artists’ courage comes at tremendous personal risk. The Epoch Times, along with other media outlets and human rights organizations, has extensively documented the Communist Party’s ongoing efforts to sabotage Shen Yun performances worldwide. These tactics include diplomatic pressure on theaters and governments, hiring protesters to harass audiences, and threatening family members still living in China.
Last season witnessed a significant escalation in harassment against theaters hosting Shen Yun performances. The intimidation campaign reached alarming heights with a false bomb threat that forced the evacuation and thorough security sweep of the Kennedy Center Opera House earlier this year.
Sun condemned these tactics, noting how minimal effort from threatening message senders forces theaters and law enforcement to expend maximum resources on security measures. Despite the escalating threats, no Shen Yun performance has been canceled.
Dreams of Homecoming
Despite everything he has endured, Sun harbors hope for the future. Like many Shen Yun members, he dreams of one day performing in China itself.
“Actually, most of us are from China, maybe two or three generations removed if not directly, and many experienced persecution first hand. Of course we really want to go back—it’s still our homeland, and we want to bring the truth to the Chinese people,” he said. “We very much want Shen Yun to perform in China.”
Until that day arrives, Sun continues his mission from stages across the free world, transforming his family’s suffering into art that preserves China’s authentic heritage and exposes the regime’s ongoing crimes. Through classical Chinese dance, he has found not just a career, but a way to honor his mother’s sacrifice and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
His journey from a persecuted child hiding upstairs while police arrested his mother to a principal dancer on the world’s most prestigious stages represents more than personal triumph—it embodies the indomitable spirit of a culture that no amount of political oppression can truly destroy.
