Two U.S. flags were flown over the U.S. Capitol on May 13, in honor of World Falun Dafa Day and Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of the spiritual practice.
On that day 31 years ago, Mr. Li introduced Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, to the public in northeast China. The spiritual discipline, which involves meditative exercises and moral teachings rooted in the Chinese traditions of body and mind improvement, is now practiced in more than 100 countries.
The office of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), congressional representative of practitioner Jennie Sheeks of Philadelphia, sponsored the celebration, which recognizes Falun Dafa for its spiritual values and its adherents’ contributions to communities.
The flags, which were flown on special poles on the building that aren’t visible to the public because of construction, were presented by Fitzpatrick to the Greater Philadelphia Falun Dafa Association.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also authorized a U.S. flag to be flown over the state Capitol in Harrisburg to recognize Mr. Li for teaching Falun Dafa and its core values of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance to the state and the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts state Senate issued a citation for World Falun Dafa Day, noting that it was the 31st anniversary of the spiritual practice’s introduction to the public. State Sen. Michael Moore, one of the sponsors of the citation, presented the document to Falun Dafa practitioners in Worcester. The city, which is about 50 miles west of Boston, also raised the World Falun Dafa Day flag outside City Hall in a ceremony on May 13.
From Changchun to the World
On May 13, 1992, Mr. Li held his first public lecture in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province in northeast China. The city’s name in Chinese means “eternal spring.”
The theater classroom of Changchun’s No. 5 Middle School hosted the first group of students, which numbered fewer than 200. Most were enthusiasts of qigong—physical exercises developed in ancient China as part of traditional Chinese medicine—at the city’s Triumph Park, according to Falun Dafa informational website Minghui.org.
As Mr. Li taught more, adherents began to understand Falun Dafa beyond the physical exercises and emphasized following the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
Between May 13, 1992, and Dec. 30, 1994, Mr. Li held 56 series of lectures in more than 15 provinces and municipalities in China for more than 60,000 students, according to Minghui.org.
Zhang Ze, an architectural designer, attended Mr. Li’s seminars in Changchun in May 1993 and May 1994, after one of his relatives told him that Falun Dafa might help with his chronic heart disease. He was 35 and worked in the propaganda department of a big state-owned enterprise, where he was in charge of taking photos and filming videos.
Zhang said that he liked the healing benefits of the practice. It took him a few years to understand that it was much more profound than just its physical exercises, and as a result of following the core principles, he learned to be a better person, he said.
He still remembers those morning group exercises with tens of thousands of fellow adherents in a single park in Changchun.
“You could see Falun Dafa practitioners in every park and on every corner,” he told The Epoch Times about the practice’s popularity.
Through word-of-mouth, the practice grew to have as many as 100 million adherents in China by 1999. That year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which perceived the practice’s popularity to be a threat to its absolute grip on power, initiated a nationwide campaign of persecution that included torture, psychiatric abuses, and the killing of practitioners for their organs.
Zhang said he knew even more that Falun Dafa was good after the persecution began. From his propaganda work experience, he knew the CCP’s programs were fabricated. He gave the example of the regime staging a self-immolation incident in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in an attempt to vilify the spiritual group.
After five people set themselves on fire on Chinese New Year’s Eve on Jan. 23, 2001, the CCP said that they were Falun Dafa practitioners. However, Zhang knew it was fake news because he could tell that the news clip was a directed product, including the different roles each of the five people played and the camera positions.
Zhang wasn’t alone in questioning the veracity of the self-immolation news production. The 2003 film “False Fire,” which examines the suspicious points of the Tiananmen “self-immolation” incident, won an honorary award at the 51st Columbia International Film Festival for its analytical exposure of the tragic event.
According to Zhang, like the fake Falun Dafa self-immolators, most of the CCP’s heroes aren’t real. He offered the example of a famous campaign in the 1960s about a model citizen named Lei Feng, who was said to be an orphan and an average soldier. Meanwhile, Lei’s photos showed professional lighting and master-level skills, according to Zhang, who wondered how an average soldier could enjoy such rare resource of professional photographing in those days.
“So I know Falun Dafa is exactly the opposite of the CCP. What Falun Dafa requires is real goodness,” he said. “Once I made the comparison, who’s good and bad was obvious.”
Designing Parade Floats in Celebration
Zhang came to the United States with his wife and daughter in October 2015 on tourist visas and was approved for asylum. Before he left China, he had become a successful architectural designer, with projects including prominent hotels and colleges in Changchun.
By the time he arrived in the United States, many people outside China had come to know about the persecution and the benefits of Falun Dafa because of adherents’ efforts to dispel falsehoods about the practice disseminated by the CCP’s propaganda machine.
One such effort is the annual World Falun Dafa Day celebration in New York, for which Zhang helps to create a parade float each year.
Zhang said he has wanted to showcase the beauty of the practice more in recent years. So he changed his design concept from boats—symbolizing the traditional Buddhist idea of a boat rescuing kind people from the sea of suffering—to heavenly scenes in 2022 and this year.
“I don’t know how to describe my feelings in words,” Zhang said. “I am thrilled to see the parade spectators applauding, taking photos of us, and welcoming us. I want to show them the beauty of Falun Dafa and bring goodness to people.”
As World Falun Dafa Day approached, U.S. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) sent a letter of support to practitioners in Washington and around the world on May 1, saying: “For over two decades, Falun Gong practitioners have suffered from forced detention, torture, and organ harvesting committed at the hands of the Chinese government.
“The only crime of those who practice Falun Gong is to be born into a society of intolerance. I stand in solidarity with the many Falun Gong practitioners who fight for the freedom to speak and to practice the religion of their choice.”
The article was updated on May 25, 2023, with photos of the Certificates of Authenticity of the two flags flown over the U.S. Capitol in recognition of World Falun Dafa Day and founder Mr. Li Hongzhi.
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