Chicago Tribune: Falun Gong Practitioners Exercise Their Freedom

Tribune Staff Writer

January 29, 2001

Beneath the red and green pagoda-style rooftops of Chicago's Chinatown on Sunday there were the sounds of marching bands, the acrid smell of firecracker smoke and shiny, colorful dragons dancing about with the help of dozens of quick stepping feet.

But also celebrating the Chinese New Year, which officially began Wednesday, by marching in Sunday's annual parade along Wentworth Street were 50 members of the Falun Gong movement, followers of a spiritual exercise based on choreographed movements similar to t'ai chi or yoga.

In addition to helping usher in the Year of the Snake on the Chinese calendar, practitioners said their second annual parade appearance and graceful, hourlong exercise demonstration were done to educate people about a discipline creating controversy and spurring crackdowns in China.

Practitioners noted that other Eastern exercises--considered less a threat to the government--are different than Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.

"They just do the exercise," explained Falun Gong member Yu "Hubert" Zhou. "The Falun Gong, we have the philosophy, which is different than the Communist Party where they try to guide the beliefs."

Meditation and adherence to moral values--such as truthfulness and benevolence--are also part of Falun Gong, practitioners said about the discipline developed in 1992 by Li Hongzhi in China.

Practitioners are quick to point out, Falun Gong is not a religion or a sect, but an exercise for improvement of the mind and body.

Since July 1999, however, the Chinese government has banned Falun Gong, calling the group as [slanderous word].

The Chinese government's persecution of the group prompted a testy exchange on Thursday between Beijing and Washington. A few hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell told China's ambassador in Washington to respect civil liberties, China said such remarks could hurt relations between the two countries.

Several local participants who moved from China told stories of beatings, interrogations and confiscation of property after expressing public support for the discipline.

And, they dismissed Chinese government reports of recent suicides by Falun Gong followers as state propaganda.

"It's really about independent spirit. In China there is no check and balance. [Communist Party leadership] has all the power," said Falun Gong member Carolyn Lu, 36. "We are really hoping for all the kind-hearted people in the world to stop this crime against humanity."

Six New Year's revelers joined the yellow-clad Falun Gong members going through their movements Sunday for an impromptu lesson.

"I felt it was pretty calming because everything is done in even and steady motion," said David Roufs, 29, of Rogers Park. "It seems to me that they are being persecuted because they look toward themselves, not the state, for power."