Gong Wrongs

No respect: From my experience and my limited English, I think the entire article ["The Gong Show," by Wendy Grossman, July 11] has a somewhat disrespectful tone. Jason is a good gentleman and he is a physical scientist, too. He got his Ph.D. last year. He is a smart guy, not a crazy person.

Some parts of it will unfairly mislead people about our teacher, too. Li Hongzhi is an honorable, highly compassionate person who always thinks of others first and foremost. Perhaps you did not hear that he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice.

That nomination came because his principles present higher standards for human peace, because practitioners exhibit outstandingly peaceful attitudes and actions, and because he and practitioners guard freedoms of speech, assembly and belief in China. Supporting them would be a tremendous boost for guarding basic human rights in China and the rest of the world.

Xuewei Chen
Houston

Distortions: Your article distorted facts and misled the readers, since the author quoted many words from the Chinese government and added some from her own imagination.

The Chinese Communist Party is the biggest dictatorship in the world, and it is characterized by falsehoods, evilness, brutality, and uses propaganda to control people and spread rumors around the world. The author quoted fabricated words from the Chinese government, which is equivalent to repeating those lies in this Western democratic country. This seriously distorted the truth about Falun Gong and damaged its reputation.

Practicing Falun Gong helped me recover from a stomach ailment and breast cancer. More important, I changed from a selfish person to one who really considers others before myself. I became younger and prettier.

Falun Gong practitioners have been using nonviolent ways to clarify the truth of the persecution by the Chinese government. As one of those doing the exercises in front of the Chinese consulate, I am ensuring that Chinese President Jiang's antihumanity activity will be punished.

Feng Wang Goins
Houston

On the mark: Good job as usual. This is exactly the reason why I read the Press: well-researched, well-composed and well-presented articles.

The obvious reason the Chinese government so heinously treats Falun Gong followers is that free thinking in a totalitarian regime is the antithesis of its existence. It has never supported human rights, nor has it been held accountable for its actions, as evidenced by granting the Republic of China the 2008 Olympic Summer Games.

American corporations lust after the market of more than one billion people, the U.S. government generally turns a blind eye, and Chinese citizens suffer.

However, I was heartened to see, by coincidence, that a resolution has been initiated in the U.S. House of Representatives to oppose the human rights abuses against Falun Gong.

It would be nice to see a follow-up article on this in the future -- hopefully with a positive resolution.

Alexander Clayton
Houston

Sane practice: As a Falun Gong practitioner, I'm deeply hurt and upset by your feature. It seriously distorts facts about Falun Gong and is misleading to readers. The tone sounds like mockery. When Jason Wang and other Falun Gong practitioners are being brutally persecuted and are in miserable situations, we do not see compassion in this article. Should a good person who is trying his best to help those who are mistreated and in dangerous situations be described in such a way?

This article frequently quoted the words of the Chinese government and the Chinese consulate, which are channels for spreading vicious slanders of Falun Gong.

The author made some statements without giving any reference, which would mislead readers to falsely think they are undoubtedly true. Our teacher never demands, forces or forbids anyone to do anything. He teaches us the exercises of Falun Gong and tells us how to be a better person.

Falun Gong is neither religion nor something mysterious or strange, and practitioners lead a normal life. The only difference between us and others is that we spend some of our spare time doing the exercise and applying the principle of Truth, Compassion and Forbearance to our daily lives to become better and better people.

Xiaoling Zhang
Houston

http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2002-08-01/letters.html/1/index.html

previous response available at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/7/26/24504.html