Yesterday, when I was at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall for the second time to observe the activity there, I saw a group of people, sitting in two lines, on the stone floor around the perimeter of the Memorial. I had spotted them when I went to observe with my group the first time, but their quiet meditation did not captivate me as much as the youth freestyling to Michael Jackson not 30 meters away.Yesterday, this group was the only activity at the Hall aside from the tourists snapping photos and men dressed in Taiwanese military outfits performing the changing of the guard on the hour. They all bore a yellow top: t-shirt, long sleeve, or vest, that had the words "Falun Dafa is Good" and "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance" written on the back and front. Some of them had a lotus flower emblem on them too.
After about a half hour of observing the group, a woman associated with the group approached me. She introduced herself as such and told me about the group's mission: to show tourists from mainland China the religious freedoms in Taiwan. Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) is a sect of Qi-Gong, closely associated with Tai Chi, but much slower. It includes meditation and five simple exercises. The activity is lay-led and done in groups with a recording in place of a teacher or master.
It began being persecuted from China in 1999 when the practice accumulated such a large following that the government felt threatened by the assumed religious nature of the practice. Some of the more serious followers fled to Taiwan and other countries as to continue their practice. The woman I talked to (who spoke very good English) said she thought Falun Dafa was an excellent practice because it cultivated a healthy, good natured human being.
After we talked with the woman for a while, she saw the exodus of tourists leaving the Hall after the changing of the guard behind us and rushed over, ushering us to come with her. She started speaking loudly in Mandarin saying "Falun Dafa is good!" and other things to spread her message of love, peace, and freedom to practice. Two men near her sneered and said to us (in English) "Falun Dafa is bad." I realized why the woman was doing what she was doing. We thanked her for her time and praised the work that she and her group is doing for religious freedom.
Our "Politics of China and Taiwan" class still hasn't happened, although themes of the tension between the countries have come up at almost every site visit and class. There are still fuzzy areas, that I'm not sure even a person well versed in Chinese/Taiwanese politics could clearly outline. But it's times like this, when I see this woman's mission and the need for her mission in this country to exemplify Taiwan's victory from dictatorship and spread seeds of freedom of spirit to mainland China, that I see the politics here. It's something I couldn't read about in a book, or news article, or see in a video and have the same feeling, the same conviction that I have now after meeting this woman.
In awe, with hope,
B(ee)
I am loving your blog. That and our Skype calls are helping your me with how far away you are. I am very curious now in some of the politics you talk about in this entry.
ReplyDeleteRemember the first time we went into Boston for July 4th? (It was the summer after junior year.) You and Greg chased after a woman giving out newsletters or whatever about Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa, whatever you want to call it)
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