Chinese Performers ‘Communicate By Heart’

All the cameras were trained on the trim man in the blue suit, with silver square-rimmed glasses, who sat ramrod-straight in his wheelchair next to Idaho’s governor.

Deng Pufang is not just chairman of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. He’s also the son of former Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao Tse-tung and ruled China from 1976 to 1997.

A paraplegic, Deng came by his disabilities violently. Red Guards threw him from a window during the cultural revolution.

But that’s not how he’s best known now in China. A revered national figure, he’s a humanitarian, an outspoken champion of children and the disabled. “We believe that we should treat our disabled citizens as others,” Deng said through an interpreter at a packed press conference Friday in Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s office.

But most of the press needed no translation. Reporters and camera crews from three Chinese television networks were there from Beijing, along with a Washington, D.C.-based reporter for the Xinhua news agency.

Deng was in Boise on Friday for the first performance of a six-city tour by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation Performing Arts Troupe. The glittering show includes dance and music, all performed by disabled artists.

After Boise, the show goes to Provo, Utah, and then it’s Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco and a final show in Hawaii.

So why was Boise on the list?

It has to do with a nonprofit adoption agency in Boise called the CASI Foundation for Children, which is sponsoring the troupe’s tour. CASI has placed more than 600 children in adoptive homes since its formation in 1992 and has launched special projects to assist orphaned children in China, including providing medical care and orphanage improvements, as well as adoption services. That’s given it a high profile in China. Many of the youngsters up for adoption in that nation are disabled.

Ted Johnson, a Boise attorney, retired judge and CASI board member, said on a recent trip to China for CASI, he and other CASI representatives were invited to meet with the Chinese president. “The president asked our suggestions on how the laws in China can be reformed to aid in the adoption process,” Johnson marveled.

“There are so many children out there who need homes,” he said.

“We want to help with that.” CASI also arranges adoptions for children from the U.S., Haiti, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The tour marks the first U.S. performance by the troupe, which includes musicians who can’t see, dancers who can’t hear, and others whose artistic performances belie their everyday disabilities.

Deng said the troupe has performed in 30 countries and extensively in China. There, the performances have drawn an outpouring of support from people from all walks of life, who are moved by the performers’ demonstration of their talents.

The tour will bring that experience to U.S. audiences. Plus, he said, “It is a good opportunity for the people of China and the U.S. to communicate by heart.”

Kempthorne called it “a great honor” to have Deng in Boise, and said the performance shows “the true spirit of humanity.”

Asked by a reporter for the Chinese state television network about Americans’ limited knowledge of China, Kempthorne said, “There is no substitute for people being with people.”

Kempthorne, who traveled on a trade mission to China and has promoted trade between Idaho businesses and the Communist nation, said, “This cultural opportunity goes beyond just the business and the politics of government to government. This is an opportunity for the people to meet.”