Mrs. Bong Wright, a former Vietnamese refugee and a practicing Buddhist. (The Epoch Times)WASHINGTON—Mrs. Jackie Bong Wright was delighted by what she experienced during her fourth time seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts. She is the President and CEO of the Vietnamese American Voter’s Association. The August 25 Shen Yun performance was an exclusive, invitation only opening night at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington DC.
Mrs. Bong Wright, a former Vietnamese refugee and a practicing Buddhist, said there is a deep message behind Shen Yun, and it is wonderful.“I love it so much. Every time I bring my friends and I have to accompany them. And the more I go to show, the more I like it—I love it.”
“I think there is a deep message behind the wonderful performance—it’s compassion, tolerance in the face of violence, terrorism, or whatever people do to you bad, you respond by being kind and generous, and this is wonderful,” she said.
Mrs. Bong Wright’s first husband was assassinated by the North Vietnamese. She was later forced to flee Vietnam, with three young children, after the communist north took over the south.
“And coming here to the US, I had to start from zero,” she said.
In 1979, she established the Indochinese Refugees Social Services to help resettle fellow Vietnamese refugees in the Washington D.C. area. She is married to retired United States Diplomat Lacy Wright.
“I try every day to pray. I pray [to] Buddha every day. I follow the methods of Buddha ... to have compassion, tolerance and do the best you can. So this is why here in the US at aged nearly 70 years old now, I try my best to do everything I could, and help other people as well,” she said.
She said through the social work that she is involved with, she hopes refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam can become independent and prosperous.
“Therefore I urge them to vote, for them to have power, for them to have a voice, for them to show they have human rights and I think this goes very well with the show tonight,” she said.
Mrs. Bong Wright won the Ms. Virginia Senior America Pageant in 2004 and in 2008 became the director of the pageant.
“I would like to have beauty in my life. So I like singing and dancing, as an amateur, and when I saw these performances of these professional people, I felt so inspired, I felt so good and so happy,” she said.
Mrs. Bong Wright’s memoirs, entitled Autumn Cloud, was published in 2002. She currently lives in Virginia with her husband.
A six show run will be held at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center Opera House from August 26 to 30.
No comments:
Post a Comment