Christians and Falun Gong and Scientologists, OH MY!!!

So it’s Friday night awhile back, and I’m going from the ESPN ZONE (pro-athletics on the projection screens, anti-athletic food on the table), in Times Square to the A train, up to Fibi’s in Harlem. If you never had the pleasure of walking underground around the Times Square area anytime from the 1970’s to the mid-90’s, you would be hard pressed to understand just how much these tunnels have changed.

While not gorgeous, they seem wider, better lit, certainly cleaner and better smelling. The walk from Times Square to Port Authority just isn’t the hellish trudge it used to be. While you don’t feel you are going to be shot, stabbed, assaulted, or targeted by the body fluids of assorted lunatics, there are still those seeking to lead you off your intended path.

Right at the stairs to the 7 train is the Areana of RELIGIOUS KOMBAT! (FIGHT!!! CHOOSE YOUR RELIGION! CHOOSE YOUR SPIRITUALITY! FIGHT!!!)

First was a Christian with literature spread over 12-15 feet of tables, signs suggesting with extreme prejudice that you “THINK JESUS”. If you didn’t get that message, more verse was computer-stitched on the back of his hoody, complete with different colors, bold face and underlining.

New York has long been a target for Christians looking for not-Christian enough folks. I remember one time a couple of years back, a whole choir of blond, blue eyed Southern teens and their long haired pastor were crooning “There Is Power In The Blood.” near Bryant Park. Of course, my first thought was to ask him for their passports and how much for the lot of them. (Isn’t that always everyone’s first thought on seeing a choir of Southern gals from an unaffiliated church singing on 42nd street?)Instead, I chuckled to myself and walked on.

In all fairness, they were more polite and cheerful in their p.d.f. (public demonstration of faith) than most.

And a couple of them gals was really, really cute. So why be rude?

The guys at the table by the 7 train? Not so pretty or cheerful. They were much more in the “Believe-or-go-to-hell-and-die” tradition. Still, they didn’t go out of the way to stop you from goingwhere you were going.

And they were actually honest about what they thought about you.

Right after passing the tables and tables of Chick tracks we came upon back-lit billboards for the “Holiday Extravaganza.” This was one of the many covert/overt efforts by the Falun Gong to publicize both their practices and the persecution by the Chinese government. After a couple years of failed, very blatant protests, they’ve shifted tactics. These last two years, they had followers spread throughout New York in traditional Chinese costumes, some even making it onto network morning shows.

Looking and sounding like, well, blissed out cult members, they’d talk up the traditional Chinese values and splendors of their show, while not mentioning a thing about it being a Gong show. And, from many posted reports, people who actually went were bored to tears by bad performances and anti-Chinese propaganda.

Now, the commonplace persecution of well… not just the Falun Gong but about anyone who doesn’t toe the Party line in China deserves protest and condemnation. We’ve been bad here in the US, they’ve been worse. If you don’t get that, start reading some different newspapers and history books.

But the Gong’s manipulative practices, like the bait and switch of the Holiday Spectacular, doesn’t help their cause. Just because the PRC’s actions are wrong, doesn’t mean the Gong are right, or shouldn’t be a cause for concern. After all, if a group is generating cult-like devotion, making cult-like claims of the powers of its’ beliefs and practices, and acting in really creepy ways, well, maybe they are a cult.

Just because you have two wrongs, doesn’t mean you have to choose one of them as right.

Also, maybe the MTA should get around to rotating it’s subway ads more? Just a suggestion.

So guess who we ran into next? Think cults, un-scientific claims, manic devotion and sleazy practices.

Right by the stairs to the downtown the A.C.E and the RAG shop, were our friends, the Scientologists. Big tables, lots of E-meters and books, three Sci guys, one person having a reading taken and not much else. They were looking a little down. This was right around the time Tom Cruise’s private rant leaked on video, just before Anonymous started doing it’s net-vigilante thing.

As we passed, I remarked “Sorry, I’m a suppressive.” And kept going.

Too say I don’t indulge my scorn the these particular cult flunkies would be both dishonest, and pointless, given that it’s here in plain html. But tearing into them doesn’t do much good, and is just plain self indulgent.

Unlike posting on a blog 4 or 5 people may actually read.

All the same, to take a stroll through the depths of the Earth being accosted by false prophets and their advertising buys was a strange way to start a Friday night.

So what did we learn on this stroll?

One- Strange things in NYC always come in threes.

Two- Overbearing religious zealots are just that. Overbearing religious zealots. But a little bit honesty on their part helps

Cute blonde girls in pastel with lovely singing voices helps as well.

Three- While the underpasses beneath 42nd street may be less crime ridden than they used to be, sometimes it’s still safer to walk above ground.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/puop/201003/t106863.htm

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Stance toughened on Falun Gong radio in Indonesia

The Communications and Information Technology Ministry, through the Radio Frequency Spectrum Monitoring Center (BMSFR), plans to force Era Baru Radio station off the air.

Since the radio began airing in 2007, the Chinese government has conveyed a strong protest to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry as it often aired news on the Falun Gong movement, which is banned in China.

BMSFR head P. Perangin Angin told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that his office had so far sent the radio station four warning letters requesting that it stop airing its programs, but had gone unheeded.

Perangin Angin said if the radio station insisted on staying on the air, the BMSFR would request that the police, the Prosecutor’s Office and military police help enforce a closure in the near future.

He did not disclose when they would take the measures, but said his office would invite a number of related agencies, such as the police, military police and the Riau Islands Office of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPID) to discuss the issue.

“While waiting for the agencies to meet, we will invite law enforcers to formulate measures to ban the Era Baru Radio station from airing,” Perangin said.

He added based on Law No. 32/2002 on broadcasting, the operator of an unlicensed radio station could face a two-year prison sentence or be fined up to Rp 2 billion (US$200,000) if found guilty.

Riau Islands KPID head Parlindungan Sihombing applauded the tough stance on the issue.

“The government should be firm in upholding the law, whatever the consequences are. The Era Baru Radio station has been airing for more than three years without a permit, and this really sets us back,” Parlindungan said.

Riau Islands Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Anggaria Lopis said they had received a copy of the warning letter from the BMSFR.

“We are still waiting for the report from BMSFR before taking action. The violation is already clear.”

Era Baru general manager Rachmat Pudiyanto said they would continue to operate as usual from 5:30 a.m. to 12 midnight every day, because the ministry had not given a deadline on when they should cease their operations.

“We will just wait because we also need legal certainty on our business,” Rachmat said.

“The government tends to be indecisive because the BMSFR has issued warning letters four times and we were offended by them.”

During a recent media conference, Era Baru Radio director Raymond Tan admitted they aired news on Falun Gong.

“We have received four warnings to stop airing from BMSFR,” he said.

Radio Era Baru airs 30 percent of its programs in Mandarin and targets the Indonesian-Chinese community as its market segment.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/Reports/World/201002/t106654.htm

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Print Media Coverage of Falun Gong in Australia and New Zealand

To cite this article: Kavan, Heather. Print Media Coverage of Falun Gong in Australia and New Zealand [online]. In: Horsfield, Peter (Editor). Papers from the Trans-Tasman Research Symposium, ‘Emerging Research in Media, Religion and Culture’. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2005: 74-85. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=038886418229029;res=IELHSS&gt; EISBN: 192116669X.
Paper presented at the symposium on
Emerging Research in Media, Religion and Culture.
Melbourne 12 July 2005

Heather Kavan
Department of Communication and Journalism
Massey University
Palmerston North

Abstract

Since 1999 Falun Gong and the Chinese government have been locked in a propaganda war. The Chinese press characterise the spiritual movement as an evil cult, while Falun Gong – via the Western press – portrays itself as a harmless group who just want to practise their breathing exercises. With few objective sources, journalists cannot be sure how accurately they are depicting Falun Gong.

This paper assesses the accuracy of articles on Falun Gong published in Australian and New Zealand newspapers, using primary sources and first hand knowledge from ethnographic research conducted in New Zealand. I found that the information given to Western reporters is misleading. I argue that, in contrast to the press’s tendency to discredit new religious movements, reporters have been sympathetic to Falun Gong – often to the extent of tacitly supporting a religious and political agenda.

Introduction

Falun Gong was virtually unheard of in the West until 1999 when 10,000 members made international headlines by protesting in Zhongnanhai. The religion has since featured prominently in the news with stories of protests, torture of members, and alleged self immolations. Analysing the relationship between Falun Gong and the media, specialist in Chinese studies Patsy Rahn (2000) writes of the need to go behind the publicity and investigate what is really happening. In this paper I take up Rahn’s theme, and focus on New Zealand and Australian newspaper stories.

In Australia and New Zealand, Falun Gong appears to have received more media attention than any other new religious movement, with over 500 articles in the newspapers alone. Most recently the religion became front page news when Chinese defector Chen Yonglin claimed that more than a thousand secret agents were monitoring and persecuting Australian Falun Gong members. Although studies of the Australian media found that the press tend to discredit new religious movements and magnify their deviance (Richardson, 1996; Selway, 1992), reporters seem to be receptive to Falun Gong, minimising the religion’s unusual beliefs and presenting the movement as compatible with mainstream activities.

This paper begins with an introduction to Falun Gong and its relationship with the media. Then I explain the background to my research, the methodology, and the problems of independently verifying material. Next I analyse the newspaper reports, focusing on the extent to which they are supportive, and critically discuss the main themes. I conclude by noting the need for replacing misinformation with a deeper, more accurate coverage.

Background to Falun Gong and the media

Former trumpet player and clerk, Li Hongzhi, founded Falun Gong in 1992 as an offshoot of Qi Gong. Qi Gong is mainly comprised of breathing exercises that are believed to activate one’s qi (life force), but Li added teachings of a world filled with demons, aliens and apocalyptic adventures. His first two books, Zhuan Falun (Revolving the Law Wheel) and Falun Gong, were published by the Chinese Communist party. These books read like an Asian equivalent of the X Files, and were instant best sellers. At the height of Falun Gong’s popularity, Li shifted to New York.

At first Falun Gong received little media attention. However, Li’s opposition to official ideology and to science, and his claim that only he could save China (and humanity) inevitably brought controversy, and by mid 1996 Chinese journalists began to publish critical articles about his practices. In response, Li preached that members must defend the fa (way or principle as outlined in his teachings) whenever it was attacked. Practitioners relentlessly protested any negative media reports, initiating over 300 protests between April 1998 and mid 1999, forcing dismissals of reporters and receiving public apologies (Deng and Fang, 2000; Zhao, 2003). Such were the protests that Beijing authorities introduced a black out against any negative media reports on Falun Gong (Zhao, 2003).

Despite the blackout, physicist He Zuoxin published a critique of Falun Gong in an obscure academic magazine, describing Li’s teachings as superstitious and a health hazard. The article might have been forgotten, except that six thousand Falun Gong protestors occupied the University for three days, demanding a retraction. The editors refused, responding that academic publications do not print retractions. Police broke up the protest, arresting 45 people.

To appeal their alleged defamation and the arrests, in 1999 over 10,000 members assembled on the sidewalks of Zhongnanhai, adjacent to Tiananmen Square. Their version of the event is that they went to explain that they were harmless, and that during the appeal they were orderly, did not make a sound, and even picked up their own litter. The government’s interpretation is that they besieged the compound and surrounded the Communist headquarters with a menacing silence.

Falun Gong was outlawed as a threat to public safety. Tens of thousands of members were arrested and sent to labour camps without trial, and many were tortured. The Department of Propaganda launched an immediate media assault on Falun Gong. In the first month after the ban The People’s Daily ran over ten articles a day denouncing Falun Gong, and several TV stations ran marathons of special features 24 hours a day for days on end (Kutulowski, 2004; Yu, 2004). Newspapers, magazines and broadcasting stations published lurid stories of members dying from suicide, and cutting open their stomach to find their inner falun. The blood and guts footage was especially compelling because criminal acts and suicides are usually underreported in China.

Falun Gong members took to the Western media for support, accusing the government of torturing and killing practitioners. Members have repeatedly hijacked Chinese satellite signals, sabotaged cable TV transmission lines, and broken into television broadcasts to broadcast footage of their leader. Since then Falun Gong and the Chinese government have been locked in a propaganda war, with Falun Gong dissemination its message to the Western press.

Background to the research

Several years ago, Falun Gong practitioners sent hundreds of letters to academic institutions requesting that unbiased research be done on them.

I was keen to find out what lay behind the headlines, so, when a group advertised in New Zealand, I approached them. When I discovered that their meetings were outdoors at 6am every morning, and involved holding one’s hands above one’s head for what seemed like interminable periods of time, I understood why few, if any, academics had acted on the research request. Nevertheless, I spent 12 months practising with them each morning. They told me that they were used to outsiders because before the Government crackdown in China, undercover spies sometimes attended meetings – often for several years.

From the outset I had the idea that this was interesting research. In fact, I was only at my second meeting when a police officer arrived. He just watched and said nothing, and I mention this incident because I experienced first hand the puzzle that readers of recent newspaper reports must be experiencing: Why was there all this surveillance for a group of middle-aged women doing breathing exercises? The story just did not make sense.

At most meetings nobody spoke, and when they did it was often in Chinese. Usually, there were no greetings on arrival. We took a place in a circle, closed our eyes, did the exercises, and left without saying goodbye to each other. It would be an exaggeration to call this participant observation as I was not watching the others (except for occasional peeping to make sure I was in sequence). Instead, I used a methodology drawn from Bellah’s (1970) ideas about symbolic realism, of shifting into the person’s religious reality to understand (and show respect for) their spiritual path. My approach is consistent with Falun Gong members’ expectations that researchers experience their practice before they make judgement on it.

A limitation to this research is that, in my quest for understanding, I was perhaps more keen than the participants. At the beginning of 2004 there were eight participants, but as we usually practised outdoors, often in temperatures below zero, numbers rapidly declined, (especially during the Manawatu flooding). Increasingly I began to suspect that the remaining people were only there because I – the outsider- was enthusiastically at the practice sight with my hands in the air every morning. So, as well as my observations being limited to a small number of people, at times the mere fact that they were participating may have been because I was. While this could suggest that the findings cannot be generalised, Falun Gong practice is relatively standardised around the world.

A second limitation of the research is that I have never had any contact with the Chinese government or its embassies. Therefore while I had sufficient time, and access to information, to see negative aspects of Falun Gong, I have no first-hand knowledge of Chinese government practices, and no experience of what it is like to be repressed for one’s religious beliefs.

When I began this research I felt a strong empathy for the group and hoped that my research would help them. They generously gave me reading material, tapes and videos. However, the more I investigated the sources, the more I found myself questioning the information that Falun Gong spokespeople were telling the media. I began wondering why journalists were not probing deeper, and assumed that this was due to tight deadlines and lack of interest (one reporter dismissed the religion to me as “not sexy”). Later I discovered how Falun Gong’s ability to mobilise large numbers of members quickly, and their propensity for law suits and protests, make it difficult to publish unfavourable material.

Newspaper analysis

I gathered the central themes of newspaper reports by reading all stories published in Australian and New Zealand newspapers since Falun Gong was first mentioned in May 1999 to the end of June 2005. A colleague, Beth Houston, retrieved them from the Factiva database by typing Falun Gong, and the religion’s alternative name, Falun Dafa, into the search engine. The database contains articles from all major newspapers, including tabloids. I also obtained articles that were missing from Factiva by searching Newztext Plus and the Internet. I excluded all items that did not show evidence of the way Australian and New Zealand journalists report on Falun Gong. Excluded items included irrelevant stories that mentioned Falun Gong in passing, letters to the editor (almost all by Falun Gong adherents), and stories from newswires, such as Reuters, that did not appear to have been picked up by the Press. This left 501 articles: 361 Australian and 140 New Zealand.

After reading all the articles, I decided on the main themes: popularity, exercise and meditation, human rights abuses, and spy stories. I also classified the articles into eight groups: (1) extremely positive – appeared to be verbatim from Falun Gong sources; (2) totally positive – contained only positive material, but without an exaggerated tone; (3) mostly positive – gave alternatives perspectives but concluded in favour of Falun Gong; (4) evenly balanced – gave alternative perspectives, but left no impression of which perspective was the most favourable; (5) neutral – reported facts that no party would be likely to dispute; (6) mostly negative – gave alternative perspectives, and left an overall negative impression of Falun Gong; (7) totally negative – reported members’ activities or non Falun Gong perspectives that gave a bad impression, and (8) extremely negative – appearing to be from anti-Falun Gong or anti-cult propaganda.

Sources

My chief challenge was assessing the accuracy of the information. Information from the Chinese media was clearly unusable because this material comes from the state-run Department of Propaganda, and it is difficult for an outsider to verify. Equally slanted, but from an opposing viewpoint, is the Epoch Times, a free newspaper with a pro-United States flavour, which prints only unfavourable news about China. Although Falun Gong members say that the paper is not a Falun Gong publication, as Rahn (2005) observes, Falun Gong adherents are involved in its founding, and the paper is staffed by volunteers who are often disciples and whose main jobs are unrelated to journalism. Also, in his most recent speech Li speaks approvingly of media outlets that disciples have set up as part of society’s media which can support the pro-democracy movement (Li, 2005b).

The Western media get most of their international information about Falun Gong from press releases from the Rachlin media group. What we are not told is that this group is essentially a public relations firm for Falun Gong, managed by Gail Rachlin – one of Li’s most avid disciples who is also spokesperson of Falun Dafa Information Centre. At the start of my research I sent two emails to the Centre asking how they perceived the media coverage, and whether there was any aspect of this coverage that they might be keen for me to research. I received a polite reply to one of these emails saying that they were too busy to respond.
 
On local matters, journalists get their stories from interviewing participants. The first limitation of this is that practitioners themselves get most of their information from reading the media (often if I asked them if something was true they replied “yes – I read it in the newspaper”), and therefore the same misinformation is often repeated.

A second limitation is that, when speaking to reporters, practitioners tend to be evasive about their beliefs, and resort to superficial principles and repetitions of their slogan “truthfulness, compassion, forbearance”. This may be because Li forbids disciples from talking about what he calls “high level things” to ordinary people. Instead, he instructs members to get sympathy by telling listeners about the persecution, with the hidden intention of later turning them into converts (Li cited in Rahn 2005, see also Li, 2003b). While to Westerners this recruitment tactic may seem deceptive, a Falun Gong spokesperson told me that by focusing on the persecution and not pushing their religion or leader, members were being inoffensive. Nevertheless, Li’s (2001a p. 67) threats that if practitioners inadvertently alter the teachings when speaking to outsiders, they will be attacked by demons and die, appear to be taken seriously by practitioners. This therefore colours the information they give to the press.

I gathered more information from reading Li’s books and speeches. Copies are available on the Internet, but they’re not necessarily the same as the originals. For example, in response to Chinese exposés, Li and his followers appear to have removed a section of his dubious autobiographical claims from Zhuan Falun, as well as from the Internet (for a fuller discussion see Penny, 2003). Other vital material has been removed, Chinese translations often differ from English ones in critical parts, and the most anti-gay, racist and anti-human scriptures have never been translated into English (Deng & Fang, 2000). Also, in 2001, Li instructed followers to destroy any unauthorised versions of his speeches (2001a, pp. 76-7).

Findings

Quantitative material

In contrast to a body of academic literature observing the press’s prejudicial treatment of new religious movements (for example Beckford, 1999; Richardson & van Driel, 1997; van Driel & Richardson, 1988; Wright, 1997), I found that journalists have been supportive of Falun Gong. 61% of reports were favourable, 33% were neutral, and only 6% were negative. The Australian articles were slightly more favourable than the New Zealand ones.

19.5% of the articles were extremely positive to Falun Gong. These articles were so impassioned that they often appeared to be verbatim from practitioners’ sources, and many contained strong anti-Chinese sentiments. They included: (1) alchemy stories of practitioners (all female) being healed of serious illnesses, testimonies of psychological benefits and even a reversal of the aging process; (2) heart-rending atrocity stories of members (mostly female) being tortured or kidnapped by the Chinese government, and (3) articles that had a propagandist tone.

31.1% of the stories were totally positive to Falun Gong, but not to the point of appearing to have been authored by participants, or being highly exaggerated. These included numerous stories of protests against human rights abuses, as well as success stories in which the interviewees (all male) linked their success to practising Falun Gong.

10.4% of the stories gave alternative perspectives, (for example Chinese embassy’s views, and reasons why Air New Zealand banned a Falun Gong airport advertisement), but gave a positive impression of Falun Gong. In this category I also included positive articles in which the author made qualifying remarks, such as “Leaving aside the rationality or otherwise of the Falun Gong religious movement . . .” (Fitzgerald, 2005).

13.2% of the articles gave alternative perspectives, but left no impression of which side the author favoured. Examples include reported debates about a Falun Gong float being banned from a Christmas parade, and comments about Falun Gong members being prohibited from using loud hailers outside the Chinese embassy.

19.8% were neutral reports of facts, which no party would be likely to dispute, such as protests. Most of these articles were brief summaries of international news.

2.6% of articles gave alternative perspectives, but Falun Gong came out looking negative. Most of these were reports of negative activities, where the authors added that Falun Gong members denied responsibility. Examples include reports of practitioners allegedly self-immolating in Tiananmen Square, and hacking into Hong Kong newspaper websites to redirect people to a site containing Falun Gong messages.

3.4% of articles were negative towards Falun Gong. These either reported negative activities, such as alleged Falun Gong members slashing their wrists at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre, or only quoted sources critical of Falun Gong, such as the Chinese embassy or Rupert Murdoch. No articles were extremely negative, in the sense of appearing to have been authored by anti-Falun Gong or anti-cult sources.
 
Qualitative material

In this section I critically discuss the main themes in the articles.

Theme 1: Falun Gong’s popularity

In 1999 when the first articles on Falun Gong appeared there were varying reports of membership numbers, but since 2000 almost all articles put the number of adherents at 100 million worldwide. Usually journalists add the phrase “70 million in China”. The first primary reference to this statistic that I can find is Li’s (1999a) “A brief statement of mine” when he speaks of having helped 100 million people achieve health. Falun Gong members say that Li is quoting the original Chinese public security bureau statistics, but I have been unable to trace this report.

In any case, it seems unlikely that today one in every 58 people in the world is a Falun Gong adherent, or that one in 10 people in China practise Falun Gong. (see Major religions, n.d, p. 24 ). Bruseker has completed a thorough analysis and places the membership figure at between two to ten million (2000, p. 52). Deng and Fang (2000, p. 4) note that hard core members in China now amount to 40 thousand, not 60 million. I would estimate that the numbers of members in Australia and New Zealand are 3,500 and 100 respectively.

Theme 2: Just an exercise group

Several newspapers, quoting participants, say that Falun Gong is not a religion, just an exercise group like Tai Chi and yoga. However, as sociologists Wong and Liu point out, Falun Gong seems unusually proselytising for an exercise group (1999, p. 67). Also, most exercise teachers do not demand that participants practise in public places, on busy streets at rush hours. Additionally, Li himself said at an Australian press conference that Falun Gong and yoga are “totally different” (Master Li, 1999), but this statement does not appear to have been published in the media.

Nor do most exercise classes ask you to believe that the moon is hollow (Li, 1998b, p. 10), and that Li Hongzhi is not just a god, but the best god (Li, 2003a, 2003b), and that evil aliens are plotting to take over humanity (Li, 1998a, 1998b, Interview, 1999). On the few occasions reporters asked participants about these unusual beliefs, practitioners replied that they were not aware of them.

Similarly misleading are the descriptions of the exercises as easy – just a few gentle arm movements and a seated exercise. However, holding one’s arms over one’s head for long of periods of time requires stamina (especially at 6am). The gentle “seated exercise” is actually in the Lotus position, and in my experience usually goes on for over an hour. Li acknowledges that this can cause intense burning pain in the legs, but teaches that the pain is karma being burnt off – and therefore one should remain in position (Li, 2001b, p. 72; Li 2003b, pp. 139-40).
 
Many reporters describe Falun Gong as a meditation technique. The Townsville Sun, for example, offers an appealing invitation: “With spring here, why not try the ancient and powerful meditation-exercise system of Falun Dafa to revitalise body, mind and spirit?” (Meditate the Falun Dafa way, 2002). Readers who follow the newspaper’s advice and visit Falun Gong may get a few surprises. Newcomers are given scriptures in which Li warns that they will be attacked by demons while doing the exercises (Li 2003c, pp. 211-219), and that when they start practising Falun Gong they will suddenly experience numerous tribulations in their life, for example they are likely to be hit by a car after a meeting (Li, 1997, p. 12; Li 2003c, pp. 141-4; Li 2001b, Li, 2001a, p. 60; p. 72, 154). Later they will discover that Falun Gong isn’t about doing the exercises at all, in fact Li is contemptuous of those who just do the exercises everyday (Li, 2001a, p.62; Li, 2003c, p. 25). The real purpose of Falun Gong, as set out in Li’s teachings, is to save people from the imminent apocalypse.

Falun Gong’s concealment of their apocalyptic doctrine from the public is illustrated by Falun Gong members’ responses to the media in 1999 when Li visited Sydney and spoke at a convention. Journalists asked the conference organisers to release an English translation of the speech to the press. The organisers declined, but one told the Australian Associated Press: “Essentially it (Master Li’s address) could not be summarised,” but that the movement’s “teachings were based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance and involved cultivation of body, mind and soul in a way which most people would describe as a form of meditation” (Stavrinos, 1999).

However, the transcript of this speech (now available online), shows little instruction on meditation, and instead much apocalyptic rhetoric that the end of the world is upon us. Li tells disciples that they are in the last days (the time of the “great havoc”), and thousands of demons are entering the world. This, he says, is evidenced by numerous evils including interracial marriages, homosexuality, and ugly toys for children. Only he can save humanity. His teachings, he says, surpass those of Jesus and Buddha, and his spiritual body is so large that disciples would be looking upward from under his big toe (Li, 1999b).

Even more significantly, in this speech Li preaches that true followers do not seek medical help – a teaching that participants deny when questioned by outsiders. For example, when a reporter questioned a New Zealand practitioner about followers not seeking medical treatment, the woman responded by laughing, and exclaimed “That’s ridiculous” (Disturbing the peace, 2001).

The inevitable outcome of keeping Li’s teachings secret and passing the apocalyptic religion off as a healthy exercise plan, is that practitioners are left unable to explain why Falun Gong is illegal in China. Unable to say that Falun Gong was banned because Li’s divine claims and other unusual teachings were considered to be a threat to public safety, and his ability to mobilise large numbers of protesters was a political threat, they tell reporters, that they are “mystified” by the ban. “It was not possible to make truthfulness, compassion and tolerance illegal,” one practitioner exclaims disingenuously (Vic, 2001). Members imply that they are arrested because of their wholesome life style: “As a practitioner of Falun Gong her (the practitioner’s) lifestyle of meditation and exercise led to her arrest . . . and . . . two year sentence in a Chinese labour camp” (APAP, 2003). Reporters seem to agree: “It seems hard to believe that shutting your eyes and gently waving your arms around could threaten a nation’s safety, but insecurity works in funny ways” (Greeks, 2001).

Theme 3: Human rights abuses

In a recent speech, Li criticises the media of “each country in the world” for not reporting on the persecution and “keeping silent while crimes and sins are committed” (2005a, p. 2). Yet the newspaper reports about Falun Gong frequently mentioned human rights issues, and 11% of articles gave specific, personal examples of disciples being tortured, beaten or kidnapped. There can be little doubt that these events happened – that adherents have been detained and sent to labour camps, and many have been tortured. Several Falun Gong families in Australia and New Zealand have been affected by this. Practitioners describe – to name a few methods – members being shot with electric stun guns, hanging from shackles on the wrist for prolonged periods, and piercing with sharp bamboo sticks. Protestors often re-enact scenes in public demonstrations. Banners with photographs of victims highlight the harrowing nature of the experiences.

There is no way of verifying the numbers of human rights abuses. The press often quote Amnesty International, but Amnesty’s reports are not independently verified, and mainly come from Falun Gong sources (for example, Amnesty, 2000). A slightly more reliable source is the Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights, which is actually not an organisation, but one man – Lu si qing. However, statistics of arrests from both Amnesty and the Hong Kong Centre are often much higher than those reported by Western journalists who were at the scene in China (Rahn, 2000), which suggests that other information may be similarly exaggerated.

Nevertheless, one aspect of the persecution that is well-reflected in the media is the predominance of women as victims. Sixty eight percent of the articles involving torture or kidnapping of Falun Gong members were stories about women. This proportion seems to match the composition of Falun Gong, in which women comprise over 70% of adherents. Chang (2004, p. 129), however, suggests that women may have been singled out for abuse.

One of the most powerful stories, which The Canterbury Express quotes, is that of Wang Lixuan, a 27 year old woman who was arrested in China with her eight-month-old baby. Police allegedly hung the baby upside down to force the mother to recant. Wang Lixuan refused to renounce her faith, and both she and her baby died of torture (Peaceful art, 2001). For Falun Gong members, Wang Lixuan is a heroic martyr. She went eight times to Beijing to protest, including three times while pregnant and twice while carrying her child (Clearwisdom, 2001).

Readers may be left wondering what is it about Falun Gong that inspires such intense devotion that a woman risks her baby’s life. Participants I spoke to were unanimous that the appeal of Falun Gong was the sensation of peace they feel. After a compelling meditation outside Wellington Parliament building, one practitioner asked me rhetorically, “Can you see why people are willing to be shot for this?” Having little or no exposure to other spiritual paths, members believe this peace is only available through Falun Gong.
 
However, meditation benefits are rarely the only impetus for martyrdom, and there is another angle to this story. Li teaches that he has only planned enlightenment for a limited number of Falun Gong members. So, with allegedly swelling numbers and the imminent end of the world, he is fast weeding people out. Members therefore have to pass a test called “stepping forward” (Li, 2000a, Li, 2001c). Stepping forward means activism and the resulting martyrdom forces the victim’s karma to be burnt off, thus gaining them a place in Li’s paradise. There are strict criteria for stepping forward. When enduring severe torture, practitioners must not recant their faith, even if their retraction is insincere. This is a serious “disgrace” (Li, 2001c), and those who recant are “malignant tumours” whom Li purposely orchestrated the torture to expose (Li, 2000b).

Theme 4: Spy stories

Falun Gong members have long complained that they are harassed by Chinese spies, and accusations reached a peak in June 2005 when Communist party defectors told the media that a thousand Chinese spies in Australia monitor Falun Gong. Within a week the number jumped to 2,000 and then to 3,500. As this works out at one spy to every one to four members, the majority of these spies are obviously informants. Nevertheless, the stories became increasingly dramatic, with allegations of people being abducted by the Chinese government. The claims continued, although the Sunday Age interviewed security experts who described the idea of 1,000 spies as “ridiculous” and “absurd” (Spy scandal, 2005).

During the year I spent with Falun Gong I was not aware of any evidence of spies; however I was not looking for them. Undoubtedly, Chinese embassies identify Falun Gong members so they can stop them from entering China. However, this would not require a sophisticated network of spies because members meet outdoors publicly, often in front of Chinese embassies, and meeting times and places are easily accessible.

My main reservation about the spy stories is that members attribute events to spies when there were more obvious explanations. Claims that practitioners are photographed while doing the exercises may well be explained by the fact that they are inclined to practise in parks outside tourist spots such a parliament buildings, libraries, railway stations – places in which people, especially Chinese tourists, typically take photos. Also, any religious group that proselytises outdoors and blocks pedestrian access is likely to receive complaints, but some members attribute these criticisms to interference from the Chinese government.

Final comments

When the research was finished, I was quoted in a press release on new religious movements, in which I said that the FBI’s definition of a potentially violent religion was so broad that several groups in New Zealand would fall into it, and cited Falun Gong as one of several examples. Falun Gong members monitor the media daily, and discovered the press release even before I did. They were offended that they were classified with other religions that they perceived to be “totally evil”, and I received several emotionally–charged phone calls requesting the press release be removed from the Internet. A member relayed accusations that I was being paid large amounts of money by the Chinese government, and repeatedly said that the situation was “extremely dangerous”. Another warned me that I would be deluged by a hundred callers from a Falun Gong email list.

The response was understandable, in the sense that during the time I shared with Falun Gong I never disagreed with them and seemed to be enjoying their practices, yet now I was speaking in an academic voice. This experience nevertheless highlighted for me the similarity between Falun Gong’s view of what constitutes fair media treatment and the Communist party’s model, which suppresses any dissenting voices. Public opinion is very important to members, and they are willing to protest and bring defamation suits against those who write less than favourable material.

In the case of Falun Gong, the negative treatment that the media often give to new religious movements seems to be redirected into anti-Chinese sentiments. Much of the information is misleading. While I do not in any way support the Chinese government’s ruthless treatment of Falun Gong members, I share Rahn’s (2000) concern that unsubstantiated media reports influence government policy. For example, in 2003 the United States Senate House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution demanding, amongst other things, that the Chinese government cease using diplomatic missions to spread falsehoods about the nature of Falun Gong (United States Senate. 2003). This statement, and other parts of the resolution, seems to be influenced, at least in part, by media reports.

Journalists have tight deadlines. Nevertheless, there are more objective sources that they could consider, and other angles to the Falun Gong story. I would like to see more challenging questions in the newspapers (especially of suspicious claims), more expert or academic opinion, less canned propaganda spouting from both sides, a deeper look at Falun Gong beliefs, and less publishing of Falun Gong marketing material without attribution. It would also be helpful if trusted organisations, such as Amnesty International, acknowledged their sources when speaking to the media about Falun Gong, and were careful to add that their statistics could not be confirmed.

References

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Wright, S. (1997, Dec.). Media coverage of unconventional religion: Any good news for minority faiths? Review of Religious Research, 30(2), 101-115.
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N. Couldry & J Curran (Eds.), Contesting Media Power: Alternative media in a networked world (pp. 209-224). Lanham. Rowman and Littlefield.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/Views/201002/t106533.htm

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Shen Yun Performing Arts at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Last night I took my mom to Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to see Shen Yun Performing Arts (神韻藝術團) show. We thought it was Chinese traditional dance show, but it was actually not all about arts, and more about the religion Falun Gong (法輪功)…

It was our first time to Music Center in Downtown LA. This place is beautiful. Very nice courtyard with artsy statues and water fountains.

I hate their parking lot though. It has a very steep and narrow exit that goes around and around and around for like 7 levels. And with that many cars going out from this little exit, of course there would be traffic. I didn’t mind the traffic going out so much. But had to stop and go, stop and go, on that steep hill going around wasn’t fun at all.

We were really looking forward to the show before. Shen Yun was selling their program for $5, but we didn’t think it was necessary to spend that money. It was a little confusing to find our seats. We had to take elevator to the 3rd floor for the higher balcony seats.

No photo allowed during the performance. The show was about 2 hours long with 15 minutes intermission. They did a number of dances with colorful costumes. The dances were entertaining, but it got really repetitive with the same movements. About half way through the show, I started getting bored watching the same dances just with different costumes. The were a host and hostess talking in both Chinese and English between every acts. Besides dancing, there was also some singing. They sang in Chinese about Falun Gong. The host/hostess talked about Falun Gong. The dancers danced about Falun Gong. The did a few numbers of how China government tried to put Falun Gong members in jail to beat them, or breaking up families, and how the gods came down to protect the Falun Gong members, and take the deads to heaven. They had big writing on the back screen on stage saying “Falun Gong is Good” (法輪大功好). So we had no idea that was what the show was all about. Honestly, the religions thing was a big big turn off for my mom and I. We were just there to watch Chinese culture arts, not there to learn about this religion.

We didn’t like the show. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against this religion. I do believe people should have the freedom to choose their religion. But I don’t like how they falsely used “Chinese culture arts” to lure people to the performances to learn about their religion. I did enjoy the dancing parts, but the religion thing was too much for us. I will never go to their performance again.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/puop/201002/t106249.htm

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‘Chinese New Year Spectacular’ @ the Buell

“Chinese New Year Spectacular” easily consumed the Buell Theater’s wide stage last weekend.

These virtual pages may seem an odd place for a review of a cultural variety show that contains zero guitars, Chuck Taylor All-Stars or patchouli-scented necklaces. But even when Reverb was printed in the Denver Post’s Friday arts section (oh, those halcyon days) we wrote about more than just straight-up musical events. Classical string quartets? Modern dance? Anarchist gatherings? Your mom’s knuckle-headed bakesale that ended in a smoldering pile of child clown shoes? You get the idea…

Due to previously-made plans, I only caught half of the “Chinese New Year Spectacular” premiere at the Buell Theater on Friday night, but that hour-long stint contained enough spectacle to fill a phone book’s worth of reviews. You can read a brief history of “Chinese New Year Spectacular” in a piece I did last week, or you can scan the production company’s website, but here’s the short version: The show purports to offer an accurate take on traditional Chinese culture, certainly more so than anything the current Communist government could present. This show, its organizers contend, is the antidote.

Even before the show started it felt like a regal affair steeped in history. My friend Paul and I found our way into a pre-show VIP party where Mayor John Hickenlooper and various Chinese ex-pats, artists and media types were chatting, sipping cocktails and eating sushi from silvery platters (was P.F. Chang’s closed or something? Sushi is Japanese). Costumed women greeted you at the door, and the soft strains of traditional Chinese music filled the air. Hickenlooper read a proclamation about the show’s first appearance in Denver before show advisor Erping Zhang and choreographer Vina Lee spoke gratefully of their reception here. Paul and I felt woefully underdressed in our Casual Friday attire.

In other words, the show was a bona fide cultural event, and indeed, “Chinese New Year Spectacular” has found worldwide success over its three years of touring. It is reasonable to assume the show will return to Denver in a bigger, better and more colorful way. From the start, the pageantry of the costumes, grand symmetry of the choreography, and marriage of melodic strains and smoke machine-addled lighting made for an stunning audio-visual feast. So stunning, in fact, that if you were unprepared for the onslaught you may have felt a bit pummeled.

Here’s how it broke down: Each five-to-ten minute vignette (there were 19, divided by a 20-minute intermission) was preceded by an intro from a pair of well-scrubbed hosts trading English and Chinese-language jokes and phrases. Some were painfully forced, like a game show host reading from a teleprompter (especially male host Jared Madsen, who had all the warmth of a mannequin) but mostly they were friendly and helpful.

The “Nymphs of the Sea” dance blurred the line between performer and scene as the dancers obscured themselves behind long, silky, deep blue veils. Digitally-projected, animated ocean backdrops helped the heighten the illusion. Fluttering veils parted to reveal a line of women, each hitting flawless marks while running through classical Chinese dance moves. Other bits, like the “Mongolian Bowl Dance,” included moments of “will they/won’t they” circus tension as each dancer balanced three bowls on her head and glided across the stage or turned quickly on one foot.

If anything, the show’s shortcomings were its occasional lack of subtlety, especially when religious overtones appeared and lingered heavy in the air. Falun Gong contributed the bulk of the show’s messages, even if they weren’t always spelled out. From the piano-soprano duet “May You Understand” to the baritone performance “Truth Alone Sets You Free,” the not-so-subtle lyrics and politics oozed from the stage.

“Fruits of Goodness” found two young Asian punks trapped in a temple during a sandstorm, where statues eventually came to life and granted them enlightenment. “The Risen Lotus Flower” demonstrated Chinese Communist repression and violence against jailed Falun Gong practitioners, culminating in a triumph set against a backdrop of projected digital effects that would bewilder most video game aficionados. (Most surreal moment: Dancers in black outfits with red hammer-and-sickle emblems mock-beating the other dancers).

The way the show veered from secular to devout threw me, and probably a few others in the crowd. Of course, what can you expect from a troupe called Divine Performing Arts? One audience member (a Chinese expatriate from Westminster) sent me a note yesterday saying he felt he’d been duped, that the show was “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and that he resented “being subjected to a religious rally unwittingly. Falun Gong has the right to stage any performances, but they do not have the right to misrepresent themselves!”

I don’t quite feel that harshly. Causes that champion truth, understanding and non-aggression are certainly more palatable than most, if not all, ideologies. But I can see how someone with only a passing knowledge would be unprepared for the show’s overt religious dimension. Fortunately, it didn’t dominate the night.

And I only caught half the show.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/puop/201002/t106152.htm

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When does a faith become a cult?

FALUN GONG’S CHALLENGE TO CHINA: Spiritual Practice or “Evil Cult,” by Danny Schechter. Akashic Books, 2000, 225 pp., $ 24 (cloth).

Last year about this time, I visited Tiananmen Square, mingling with tourists and day-trippers enjoying the warmth of the midday sun. As I reminisced about this historic spot, where students had erected their headquarters in 1989, a police van pulled over and I saw a more subdued form of protest and crackdown.

A middle-age woman in a purple sweater sitting a few meters away was questioned, brusquely, by two police officers. They grabbed her and led her into the van; she offered no resistance. The van took off, gliding past the marble pedestal that had been damaged by tanks and gunfire in 1989.

The incident troubled me. Who was this woman? What right did the police have to arrest her? How did they know if she was Falun Gong? Was I witnessing the heavy-handed suppression of religion, or was the Chinese government shrewdly nipping a dangerous cult in the bud?

“Falun Gong’s Challenge to China,” a reader assembled by New York media critic Danny Schechter, attempts to answer some of these questions. Schechter recognizes the futility of trying to explain Falun Gong single-handedly and instead presents a diverse range of viewpoints, allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

The “blind men” describing this elephant of a “meditation group” range from Chinese government commentators, human-rights advocates, Western scholars, PR experts and the self-proclaimed “Master,” Li Hongzhi himself.

Oddly enough, Li offers the least informative account of all. He is cryptic at best, oblique and obscure at worst. While his followers flock to Tiananmen Square to face certain arrest, what, if anything can be made of this pronouncement from the master. “Shall we swat flies or mosquitoes when they come inside? If you cannot drive them out, then killing them is no big deal.” On Beijing’s reaction to his movement, Li offers this chilling comment: “There could be another Tiananmen incident, a second mass massacre.” Elsewhere he sounds outright naive, if not disingenuous, when he says that the Falun Gong movement, composed of an alleged 100 million followers, “doesn’t have an organizational structure at all.”

Talking of the demons that haunt mankind and legitimize his quest, Li sounds simply nutty: “The aliens come from other planets. Some are from dimensions that human beings have not yet discovered.” He also says he can fly and control people from a distance and that scientists would agree with him if scientists weren’t too politicized to see the real truth.

Having lived in Japan during the time of Aum Shinrikyo, just hearing talk of levitation and special powers by a guru with messianic aspirations makes me cringe. Seeing ordinary people put themselves at risk and get hurt in the name of some fat cat guru in luxurious exile is painful. It predisposes me so much against the grandiose pretensions of Li Hongzhi that I am ready to give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt on this one: Falun Gong looks like a cult, smells like a cult and by any reasonable definition is a cult.

The Chinese argue that Falun Gong must be smashed to protect human rights and free speech. Sounds like communist doublespeak you say? But incredibly enough, there is a point beneath the harsh rhetoric: Cults lack transparency and hide the truth. During Aum’s short, inglorious history, it targeted publications and television stations that dared to challenge its right to be “left alone” to pursue its bloody agenda. Cults are notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to media criticism, and Falun Gong is no exception. The first few big rallies in Tianjin and Beijing were directed at unfriendly media coverage, long before the group was deemed an evil cult and banned.

Early in the book, Schechter writes, “In 1996, for reasons that haven’t been fully explained, Li, who speaks only Chinese, came to the U.S. with permanent visa status for him and his family.” One wishes that Schechter had followed up on this and other interesting hunches, such as his initial sense that Falun Gong was a CIA plot to destabilize China. The deeply illiberal, antihomosexual rhetoric of the movement is duly noted but not grappled with.

Schechter offers an insightful account of how Beijing’s flowery anti-FLG rhetoric was not initiated by the Chinese government, which tolerated the sect for a very long time, but by ex-members who had had a falling out with the master. He Zuoxiu’s “How Falun Gong harassed me and my family” is one of the earliest texts to criticize Li and his followers. This text was later co-opted by the Beijing propaganda apparatus in word and tone. Schechter hints that the Communist Party was divided on how to proceed.

So, what is the real story? Schechter is better at asking questions than answering them and 200-plus pages later we still don’t know, though not for the author’s lack of trying.

Schechter’s own observations on the cult have an unapologetic liberal bias: He sees religion where others might see a cult. And in a contrarian, sporting sort of way, he has taken a liking to the unlikely revolutionaries now challenging China. He comes close to bending over backward for them. But he is a sober observer and doesn’t dally on the primrose path for long.

The author’s critical faculties are fully operational when it comes to his appraisal of the Beijing establishment and the Western media. On the alleged suicidal tendencies of cult members, he shrewdly notes, “To the Chinese state, it appears that anyone who challenges its authority is acting in a de facto suicidal manner.” Well put. The author also rightly derides the provincial prejudices of The New York Times, which snootily observed, “Has it come to this, that the Chinese Communist Party is terrified of retirees in tennis shoes who follow a spiritual master in Queens?”

The author, who calls himself a “media dissector,” is too smart to make a claim to the last word on such an opaque topic. He gives adequate space to conflicting, even contrary viewpoints. The second half of the book consists of annotated readings including practitioner accounts, letters from China, state media accounts, official and unofficial biographical data, U.S. State Department press releases, the text of China’s anticult legislation, an introduction to the teachings of Li Hongzhi and an Internet resource guide. Schechter is among a handful of media commentators who have actually met Li Hongzhi, though his account of the meeting and transcript tend to reinforce the image of Li as both banal in his ordinariness and yet somehow inscrutable.

I have a few factual quibbles with Schechter’s history of protest in China, especially when he says students in 1989 were originally campaigning to reform the government and renew the Party, “not overthrow it, as was erroneously thought by many abroad.” Chai Ling, the commander in chief of the students, told me in a recorded interview at the height of the movement that the students were “trying to overthrow the government.” And it’s admittedly a minor point when talking about an icon, but the man in front of the tank didn’t stop the tanks from going in, the tanks were retreating at the time he made world photo history.

Overall the volume is cleanly edited, no mean feat for a text littered with difficult-to-spell Chinese terms. The author comes from a radio and TV background, which helps explain his ear for good quotes, even from Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.”

When queried on the whereabouts of Master Li, Falun Gong follower and official translator Erping Zhang is quoted as saying, “I have no idea. I don’t even have the desire to know.” And Schechter includes the delightful anti-Falun Gong ditty recorded by Peter Carlson of The Washington Post during a visit to the Chinese Embassy in Washington: “I think my Falun Gong is fine,/ It can help collect money to dine,/ And drink a lot good wine . . ./ I have lots of followers here and there,/ And now I’m a billionaire,/ What about anything else [do] I need to care?”

Falun Gong is a work in progress. If it turns out to be a ruthless political movement in religious garb, exploiting human gullibility to topple the Beijing government, then a clear-cut explanation for the fervor of believers and the ferocity of the crackdown may be forthcoming. It could, however, be one of those weird things, a jumble of random, irrational ideas being reacted to irrationally, and whatever precious truth there is will not be found in any book, but deep in the hearts and minds of actors who may be acting for reasons they themselves don’t truly understand.

Philip Cunningham teaches media studies in the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/Reports/World/201002/t106080.htm

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Leaflets in hand: Divine Performing Arts at Durham Performing Arts Center

December 28, 2008, Durham, NC: You could make an argument that all art has something of propaganda to it — that it tries to win you over to its reality. But the obverse does not hold true: all propaganda is not artful. This was clearly demonstrated by a group called Divine Performing Arts, presented by the North Carolina Falun Dafa Association, at the Durham Performing Arts Center. While the multi-act program included some enjoyable dances, it was less a presentation of artistry than a lengthy exercise in proselytizing, thinly disguised as a celebration of traditional Chinese arts.

Even a passing with pre-1948 Chinese cultures would have led one to expect wonderful things from this show. But the “divine” in the group’s name has to do with its promotion of what it calls its (traditional Chinese) spiritual values —as used by DPA, “divine” is not an adjective describing the quality of the work. If DPA had been straightforward about its intent, the jingoistic mediocrity of its program might have been less offensive. If it had been clear that the purpose of this event was to promote the practice of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa as it is also called, one would not have been expecting an exquisite aesthetic experience, and one would have chosen to attend or not based on interest in that practice —or an interest in seeing the current Chinese government castigated. Despite DPA’s disingenuous disavowals, there is clearly a political motive behind the organization’s programming (see the Philadelphia Inquirer preview [inactive 10/09] for a fuller discussion). Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as all the worst tendencies of the Chinese government seem to have been brought to bear on Falun Gong practitioners living in China.

What was bad was the absence of the beauty, subtlety and wisdom that characterize the ancient arts of China, and, for that matter, much of its contemporary art. The program included three vocalists, accompanied by a pianist. The songs were dreadful, both in their lyrics and musically, gooey with treacly sentiment and bristling with repellent aphorisms (“the theory of atheism puts humanity at risk”); and they fully exposed the weaknesses of the sound system. Apparently DPA sometimes tours its three companies with a small orchestra; here the music other than the vocal solos was all recorded.

The troupe appearing in Durham included more than forty performers, mostly dancers who sometimes doubled as drummers. The two or three lead dancers in each piece were quite talented; all were pleasant to watch. Generally, the choreography for many of the dances was coarse and unsophisticated, although the ethnic and village dances were much better. Being actually traditional, they used large numbers of dancers to create pleasing rhythmic patterns. Perhaps the worst aspect of the show was the changing projected landscapes filling the back wall. Their low visual quality — over-enlarged and garishly colored into jarring dissonance with the dancers’ costumes — was painful throughout, and an incredible disservice to their sources in nature and art. You probably don’t want to know about the tiny animated figures whisking around in them, or about the clumsy transition between virtual and real figures at the horizon line. With the two emcees cutting in between each act, the show was like being caught in a mash-up of an old Western Electric educational filmstrip and a Disney Special: neither beautiful nor particularly edifying.

For other reviews of DPA, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/feb/25/dance

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/295651

And for comments from the other side, see http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/gyzg/t397390.htm

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/Reports/World/201002/t105988.htm

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Medium entertainment, high propaganda

I saw the DC production last night, and was underwhelmed. On the good side, the costuming was gorgeous (with one or two odd exceptions), the story based dances told their stories well, the women’s and whole group ensemble dances were fairly good (particularly the women’s first ensemble number), and the string soloist was fantastic. On the bad side, the M.C.’s had very cheesy patter with bland delivery, the male dancers had some good individuals but bad group timing and cohesion, the CGI background screen was frequently comical, the “ethnic” performances very westernized (rather than traditional), the show never delivered strong energy (even with the drum number), boring songs, and worst of all: extreme religious propaganda throughout.

text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/puop/201002/t105986.htm

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Just what is Falun Gong?

Since Falun Gong was banned by the Chinese government eight years ago its followers have mounted a worldwide campaign against Beijing.

But what is Falun Gong? And why does China fear the tens of millions of its followers?

When the Chinese government asked Auckland’s airport company to remove a poster promoting the movement, the company obliged. That prompted a silent protest as Falun Gong members gathered outside the High Court in Auckland and filed proceedings against Chinese government for persecution, torture and genocide.

Two years ago, a small anti-persecution rally in Wellington’s Cuba Mall took place.

And last year, Falun Gong members faced Chinese government supporters outside parliament during a visit by China’s premier, Wen Jiabao.

Beijing keeps a close watch, but why the clash with a seemingly peace-loving movement?

“The ideologies are so different. They’re just so different,” says Falun Gong practitioner Eric Robinson.

“In Chinese history there were many cases in which religious organisations became political organisations and staged anti-government rebellions or movements,” says political studies lecturer, Dr Jian Yang.

Yang believes that persecution has put a large hole in the movement’s membership within China as practitioners resign rather than carry on the fight. He says Beijing is cracking down on Falun Gong because it sees it as a political movement.

“Beijing felt they had to react and make sure they were not setting an example for other movements,” says Yang.

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement based on ancient Buddhist principles with a strong emphasis on meditation and physical exercises, which the movement claims lead to good health.

But the Chinese government says it is just a cult, and the theories of its leader Master Li also have detractors in New Zealand.

“Master Li’s claims of being able to levitate, having supernatural powers, moving objects with his mind and healing people are difficult to take seriously. He says his followers go to a heavenly paradise called Falunland. Plus, he claims not to be political, but his sentiments are revolutionary,” says Professor of religious studies, Paul Morris.

The movement claims millions are resigning from the Communist Party after revelations on the internet of its persecution of Falun Gong.

Yang says that is simply rubbish.

 text from: http://www.facts.org.cn/Reports/World/201002/t105840.htm

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