the Falun Gong
July 11, 2008
It was Saturday, July 5, and there was yet another activist targeting people at the top of a DC metro escalator. I had exited at Chinatown to meet a visiting friend for lunch, and didn’t pay the small, eager Chinese woman with a clipboard much mind. My life lay elsewhere. So I phoned Becky, strolling casually through the afternoon crowd toward our meeting point. We agreed on a small Mexican place, ironically, and sat down to our meals. Becky placed a newspaper on the table, which caught our conversation. Apparently, she had paid our local escalator woman some time, signing her name somewhere among the clipboard’s papers. In exchange, she was given this newspaper concerning the issue at hand – - a persecuted group in China I knew nothing about, advocating for better treatment. The subject quickly faded to something else, and we left the restaurant trivially in search of good shopping.
Approaching the escalator once more on the return route, we discovered the same woman discussing her cause with a handful of passersby. This time I paid more attention, but not long enough to sign the petition. I decided to just ask Becky about it on the way down, feeling a tad bad near the bottom for not taking more initiative to sign something with an air of importance. “I’ll come back,” I thought.
Waiting for a bus provides for good discussion time. Having metroed to an area where we could make a bus transfer, Becky pulled out the paper on a little bench in Crystal City. She looked over it and began reading an article to me. We had time to kill, after all, and I’m always open to new things. But I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to hear. And I didn’t realize that I would spend much of my time between then and now researching, investigating, and even praying about the fate of this poor group, the Falun Gong, victims of censorship, torture, and a myriad of other persecutions that seem only real in places like Nazi Germany, or 1970s-era Cambodia.
I had to go back. Chinatown called at me all morning, like an empty seashell hitting my leg in the surf, begging to be sought after. So, after completing some lunch errands, I found myself on the yellow line heading north to i-wasn’t-sure-what. My main hope was to find the eager woman with clipboard in hand, providing me a second opportunity to sign the petition. But no such luck – her cute little hat was gone. Perhaps she was down the street, or at another metro mouth opening – no. Like a dazed soldier I wandered aimlessly, searching over crowds and heads. Maybe I should ask someone, I thought. Maybe someone can tell me something about the Falun Gong. I searched for clues, like a naive Nancy Drew. Anything would do - a sign, maybe. I half hoped to discover some kind of Falun Gong office, or national headquarters-type place, as ridiculous as that sounds. But nothing. Deciding against inquiring in a restaurant, I instead opted to enter one of the mom-and-pop shops. For sure, someone could help me out there.
“Hi – um, I’m looking for someone who might know something about the Falun Gong?” I approached the Chinese lady behind the counter. She looked puzzled. ”Gong? “ she repeated multiple times, evidently having no idea what I meant. “Falun Gong…” I replied, also multiple times. She grabbed a pocket translator, attempting to type in what she was hearing. She soon gave up and pointed me to the back of the store, where a tight woman with a hardened face sat behind a desk. Standing there for what seemed like an eternity, I inched forward so she would notice me. She looked up. “Hi – do you speak English?” I asked. I felt like an ignorant American. And she looked at me like I was a fool. “Yes.” ”Um, well, I am looking for someone who can talk to me about the Falun Gong. Can you help me?” “Falun Gong,” she tried to repeat how I said it, confused. But it only took her seconds to realize my subject as she voiced the phrase in proper Chinese. What was tight became tighter. Sterner. “Why do you want to know about the Falun Gong?” she asked. I tried to explain the woman at the metro, and how I was intrigued by what was going on in China. She shook her head, visibly perturbed, disgusted. ”No, no. That’s just… no, we can’t help you here. No one here has anything to do with them. We don’t know anyone. And none of our friends are members of that organization.” She looked at me hard and stone-faced, indicating that we were done with our conversation, and making me feel like a bug she wanted obliterated. “Oh, um, okay. Thank you.” I turned and walked back through the store, smiling at the counter person as if all had gone well.
Out on the street again, I attempted to process the incident, a bit in shock. Maybe she just didn’t like talking politics…. but no, it seemed more than that. There was something visibly tense there. Something very present. She was so quick to denounce any association with the Falun Gong, like association would bring a curse upon her life. And there was such despisement in her eyes, in her tone.
Although I can’t be sure what happened there today, I do feel like I have an additional puzzle piece. Even here in North America, there are Chinese who denounce the Falun Gong… but why?? Why is disapproval of the Falun Gong so deep-seeded? There were recent assaults on the group in New York City, and a Falun Gong practitioner was attacked at the Chinese embassy in Canada for taking pictures of an anti-Falun Gong exhibit. And atrocities ten times that level are happening across the waters behind China’s bolted door.
In the decades after the Holocaust, people worldwide adopted the slogan “Never Again.” The phrase plays over and over again in my mind now as I watch the seeds of a similar hatred brewing. Never again. Never again. Never again. But we can’t just say it. We have to believe in it, and shoot it through our hearts’ cores. China is re-emerging as a world super power, a position it once possessed but lost centuries ago. I have faith that it is filled with good people, and exploding with possibility. But my heart breaks at the prospect of its human rights violations. And I can’t see the merit in our country indirectly supporting those violations by manufacturing a large percentage of its goods in China. There is an incongruence of morals here that I feel powerless to advocate against. My mind is turning over itself –but what can I honestly do??
My thoughts drift to that little woman with her beloved clipboard. Yes… bravery. The answer lies in bravery. And small leaps.
