Daily Titan (Newspaper of California State University at Fullerton): Falun Gong shares ancient knowledge

Story by Veronica Hagey
Daily Titan Staff Writer

A student receives information from Falun Gong members in the walkway near Titan Shops. (photo by Laila Derakhshanian | Daily Titan)

Bright yellow pinwheels spun in the wind atop the pictorial review brought to Cal State Fullerton by the Falun Gong club this week.

Li, the club's president, said Falun Gong, also referred to as Falun Dafa, is a body, mind and spiritual movement that came from ancient China.

"For me, it purifies my mind and improves my health," Li said. "I want to use the club to expose the campus to compassion, truthfulness and tolerance."

Li said those three characteristics are what the club is all about.

The Falun Gong emblem is a combination of a T'ai Chi symbol and a swastika.

The swastika has no association with World War II. According to the Falun Gong pictorial, the symbol dates back more than 2,500 years and symbolizes good fortune.

Yan, an electrical engineering graduate student at CSUF, also is a club member.

"I practiced on my own, but then I met some club members when they were practicing at a park and I've been in the club since last year," Yan said.

The group has only been at the campus for one year. Li founded the club and said followers of Falun Gong hear about it through word-of-mouth.

"Usually friends tell friends or family teaches family," Li said. "My dad introduced me to it."

More than 40 countries use the spiritual movement, Li said. However, people who practice Falun Gong in China are persecuted for it.

Yan said her parents live in China and have to practice in the privacy of their home.

"When I talk to my parents in China on the phone, we can't talk about Falun Gong," Yan said.

Linda is a practitioner of Falun Gong in Los Angeles, but she also helps the club with its pictorial. She has literature on the practice of Falun Gong and the persecution of Falun Gong members.

Linda said she has trained in the practice for more than four years. She said the pictorial review is meant to bring the persecution to the public's attention.

"The people being persecuted maintain their tranquility even when being persecuted to death," she said.

Linda said she came to know about Falun Gong through the Internet. She said she found it had everything for her, that it's something that helps her be a better person.

Although Linda found Falun Gong through the Internet, she said she has found that e-mail sent to China containing information about the exercise never arrives. Linda said there are blocks on any media containing Falun Gong information.

The pictorial review shows the foundation of Falun Gong with text and also has diagrams of some of the movements used by practitioners. Protesters around the world also are pictured, from Sweden to Washington D.C.

"Look at the protests, all are peaceful protests," Li said. "But the number of persecutions have increased since 1999."

Li said that the Chinese government has passed legislation against Falun Gong [...].

She added that Chunyan Teng, a clinic supervisor of Oriental medicine in New York, is currently being detained at the Beijing Police Bureau. She says Teng is in jail for exposing the Chinese government's persecutions of Falun Gong practitioners to a western reporter.

The Falun Gong club has many examples of the types of persecution going on in China and detailed information about the Falun Gong practice included in their pictorial review located at Titan Walk. The review continues through Friday.

"I want to expose the evils from China," Li said.

http://dailytitan.fullerton.edu/issues/spring_02/05_01/news/falungong.html

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