Forbidden Pictures -- Spurred by Falun Gong, a Chinese family shares its art with Philadelphia

by Frank Rubino

Not long ago the likelihood of your getting a peek at the Dai family's exquisite collection of Chinese paintings and calligraphy would've roughly equaled your chances of encountering Confucius on Race Street.

That's because until recently, the Shanghai-born Dais-namely 60-year-old Mei-Ling Dai and her 32-year-old son Tony-maintained the family tradition of keeping their four-generations-old, $10 million treasure trove to themselves, showing it only to other relatives and close friends.

But from next Tuesday through July 31, Phila-delphians will get the opportunity to view 40 to 50 pieces from the collection, including meticulous and graceful ink paintings such as Qi Baishi's Leaf and Insects and Xu Beihong's Horse, at the Hilton Garden Inn at 11th and Arch streets.

Other renowned 19th- and 20th-century artists whose work will be featured include Wu Changshuo, Zhang Daqian, Gao Jianfu and Li Keran.

So why have the once-private Dais opted to tour North America and share their masterpieces with the masses?

Tony Dai, interviewed last week in Chinatown, attributes the reversal of form to a life-threatening illness, a dramatic recovery, and most important, a desire to fix a spotlight on an appalling violation of human rights.

Mei-Ling Dai and her son left China for Australia 16 years ago. She was diagnosed with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease, in 1997.

She experienced hardening of the skin, severe joint pain, respiratory problems, loss of appetite and even of the ability to open her mouth. Within months she was bedridden. Expensive medication didn't help.

"During her third stay in the hospital," Tony Dai recalls, "her doctor told me, 'There's nothing we can do about it. She's going to die.'"

But in May 1997 someone asked Mei-Ling Dai (who was in Canada last week; she'll be in Philadelphia for the show) whether she'd ever tried Falun Gong, a tai chi-like regimen of slow-motion exercises coupled with meditation on the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance. Though Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is ancient, it became wildly popular in China after a "master" published a 1993 book extolling its virtues.

Figuring she had nothing to lose, Mei-Ling Dai decided to leave the hospital and give Falun Gong a try. And within months, Tony Dai says, his mother's scleroderma had virtually disappeared.

"It was quite amazing," he says. "She quickly became a very happy and very healthy lady."

Aside from regaining her health, Mei-Ling Dai experienced an ethical epiphany that led her to see withholding her collection from the world as selfish. So two years ago she and Tony began hosting shows in Taiwan.

Before an exhibition in Taipei, Mei-Ling Dai said, "I want to share my collection with everyone. These works of art are valuable, but I can never take them with me to my grave."

Tony Dai now practices Falun Gong as well, and like legions of devotees worldwide, credits it with improving his sense of well-being.

But not everyone is enamored of Falun Gong.

In 1999 China's Communist leaders, historically disdainful of anything that involves spirituality, outlawed Falun Gong, branding it a cult movement that threatened national stability. Since then China has detained and tortured hundreds of thousands of practitioners, according to the Falun Gong Information Center in New York. The center charges Beijing with murdering at least 2,300 practitioners.

"There are over 2,300 confirmed deaths, but we believe the actual number exceeds 10,000," says center spokesperson Gail Rachlin. "This persecution is horrific, just shocking. People are arbitrarily arrested and sent to labor camps and mental hospitals, where they're tortured, just for handing out pamphlets. Police officers have snatched women off the street, beaten and raped them, and left them in the bushes, bleeding. What's happening there is beyond the imaginations of most Americans."

The center's website (www.faluninfo.net) features gruesome photos of a 37-year-old woman whose once-pretty face is covered with disfiguring burns, the result, the website contends, of torture inflicted with an electric baton at a forced labor camp. The site claims the woman, whose name was Gao Rongrong, died from multiple injuries on June 16.

Tony Dai says he and his mother hope their shows help spread awareness of such atrocities. He adds that the elderly granddaughter of painter Qi Baishi (who died in 1957) is presently under arrest in China, detained several years ago for participating in Falun Gong-related activities.

Terri Morse, a spokesperson for the Greater Philadelphia Asian Culture Center, which is cosponsoring the shows with Tony Dai's Australia Chinese Cultural and Art Association, says she's still amazed that anyone regards Falun Gong as a cult.

"There's no money involved whatsoever," says Morse, a Media resident and six-year practitioner who credits Falun Gong with helping her recover from late-stage Lyme disease. "No one ever calls you or asks you to come back [if you visit a place where practitioners gather, such as outside the Liberty Bell pavilion at Fifth and Market streets every Saturday and Sunday]. It's anything but a cult."

Regardless of your sentiments regarding Falun Gong, the show might be worth checking out for purely artistic reasons, adds Julie Nelson Davis, assistant professor of modern East Asian art history at the University of Pennsylvania.

"I'm not familiar with the collection or the collectors," says Davis. "But the artists being featured are very important figures. It's pretty rare that we get to see 19th- and 20th-century Chinese oil painting. I'm going, absolutely."

Source: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=9976

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