Jan 31, 2003
He's a soft-spoken Chinese linguist, she's a robust Israeli mother. Happily married, they're now trying to persuade Chinese workers here that the hugely popular Falun Gong spiritual movement which brought them together is being unjustly demonized by Communist China.
Yaira Urian, a 45-year-old Tel Aviv writer and divorcee, responded to an ad promising enlightenment, found a Chinese husband -- and now has [worked to clarify the truth of Falun Gong] among tens of thousands of Chinese workers in Israel against the Beijing government.
"I saw a newspaper advertisement for a Falun Gong meditation session put in by Cheng," says Ya'ira of her husband of three years, Beijing-born Cheng Zuo, 30, who is sitting alongside her on a low couch in their warmly lit, tapestry-filled apartment. "The session was free, and it was in a park near here. I went, and I liked it. So I walked over to Cheng, who seemed to be leading the group, and said, 'Why are we only doing this once a week?' He began to commute to the sessions by bicycle several times a week from Givatayim, where he was teaching Chinese at Tel Aviv University."
Joint meditation led next to joint translation: Urian and Zuo produced a Hebrew version of the first of the 10 books in the Falun Gong canon. These set out the principles of the movement, which is dedicated to physical and moral self-improvement via meditation and is followed by some 90 million Chinese and 10 million others worldwide.
"Then we fell for each other," Urian says happily. "After we got married, we continued the translation" -- they're now completing the Hebrew version of the second book.
And now Urian finds herself at the forefront of efforts here, mirroring those in other countries, to counter what Falun Gong advocates insist is a murderous campaign by Beijing against their movement.
Her efforts are aimed not at Israelis, few of whom have heard of Falun Gong, but at overseas Chinese. Every Saturday, she and Zuo set up a stand on Neveh Sha'anan Street, near the old Tel Aviv bus station, where some of the estimated 40,000 Chinese workers in Israel congregate, and screen slowed-down versions of the videos broadcast back home by the Chinese government -- misleading videos, according to Falun Gong practitioners, that falsely depict their pursuit [and defames Falun Gong with fabricated lies]. Those depictions have been used to justify thousands of arrests and, confirms Brenda Basher, an expert on Eastern Religion who is currently Fulbright professor at the international Solomon University in Kiev, hundreds of deaths in police custody.
Asserts Zuo: "The Beijing government has fabricated the idea that practitioners engage in self-immolation," in an effort to discredit Falun Gong which, because of its mushrooming support [was considered as a threat by jealousy communist leader Jiang]. That effort began in Tiananmen Square in January 2001, when a woman set herself and her daughter on fire. The [Jiang's regime] immediately released a report claiming that the woman was a Falun Gong practitioner -- incorrectly, claims Zuo -- and began producing staged videos purportedly showing Falun Gong adherents setting themselves alight, and asserting that this is standard Falun Gong practice.
"One of the videos, which is screened often on Chinese state TV, shows a policeman holding a fire-extinguishing blanket over a blackened man," says Zuo -- purportedly saving him from suicide. "When you zoom in, you see a microphone on the ground" -- underlining, says Zuo, that the shot is a set-up. "And the man is sitting cross legged -- not even in lotus position, as a proper practitioner would be. Most of all, a true practitioner would never set himself on fire. Suicide is sinful." Neither Brasher nor other experts will be drawn on the authenticity of the Chinese government videos.
"Every Chinese person who learns the truth about what is happening in China -- I gave out 600 brochures last week in Neveh Sha'anan Street -- makes my day," enthuses Urian. The hope is, of course, that when they return home, these Chinese will help counter the government campaign.
Joining them at their street video player is Zion Xiong, a Chinese-born Falun Gong practitioner who last year was barred from ever returning home because [he is Falun Gong practitioner]. Xiong, who acquired Israeli citizenship after his 1996 marriage to a Rumanian-born Jewish immigrant, had participated in pro-Falun Gong demonstrations outside the Chinese Embassy in Tel Aviv. The collapse of his import-export business with China is marginal, Xiong says, compared to the impact on his sister in Beijing: She was arrested three months ago, he says, denied all contact with the rest of the family, and recently sentenced to 18 months in a forced labor camp -- all because of his activities.
The hearty, deep-voiced, middle-aged Urian cuts an unlikely figure next to her pencil-thin, soft-spoken younger husband. The Israeli mother of two speaks English with rapid, earthy assurance; Cheng, a linguist and American citizen, apologizes for his English, then proceeds to speak flawlessly if hesitantly, evidently thinking through each sentence before giving it voice. Urian's conversation is accompanied by wide, sweeping movements of her arms; Zuo's hands are immobile in his lap even during his most emphatic statements.
Urian embraced Falun Gong, after those first sessions in the park, with a simple, robust confidence that it would be good for her. "I didn't stop to think why I was doing it. It just felt right."
Zuo, whose family moved from China to New York when he was in his teens, had been introduced to it by his mother only shortly before he met Urian. Already here studying applied linguistics (he chose Israel because of a desire to learn Hebrew, Arabic and Russian), he visited his mother in New York in early 1999, and she took him to an "experience-sharing conference" of Falun Gong meditation and lectures.
"I'd had a 10-year plan to travel the world and learn all the major languages," he recalls softly. "I had a world map, with arrows. Then I asked myself, 'So I'll learn all these languages. So what?' When I began to read 'Zhuan Falun,' I got a lot of answers. I used to think of things with myself at the center -- my dreams, make money so I can do all kinds of things. Then the focus shifted" -- to Falun Gong's less self-dominated approach.
Falun Gong was started in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi, a 50-year-old native of Northeast China. In the late 90s, Li moved to New York, ahead of what has proved to be a heavy, ongoing crackdown on its adherents by the Beijing government since 1999.
According to Prof. Brasher, Falun Gong is a form of qigong -- pronounced chee-gong -- the ancient Chinese practice of refining the body and mind through special exercises and meditation. But it takes that discipline one step further, she says, focusing on moral cultivation as well. The exercises, therefore, are based not only on physical movements, but equally on the theory in the books that [founder Li Hongzhi] wrote, which are rooted in three principles; truth, compassion and forbearance.
By 1999, the number of practitioners in China had grown to tens of millions, attracted, according to Brasher, by the potential Falun Gong offers "for modern Chinese to relate to the ancient past." The Communist Party grew nervous, and began a campaign to stamp out the group, after 10,000 practitioners gathered in Tiananmen Square for a peaceful demonstration, demanding freedom of practice and urging the release of those in jail. It was the largest gathering since the student, anti-government protests of 1989, and as such, says Brasher, it constituted a bold and deliberate political step. [Editor's note: those practitioners merely went to the National Appeal Department to appeal, which is the citizens' rights entitled by Chinese constitution. It was not a protest gathering.] Over 400 practitioners have since died in police custody. The police [falsely] claim they committed suicide; Falun Gong practitioners counter that they are being tortured to death behind closed doors. Brasher speaks carefully about "abuse of authority by the Chinese government." "Practitioners are put in mental institutions," says Urian. "They are jailed without trial, killed. There is an order right now to shoot practitioners on sight. All they have to do is hang banners, even put a sticker on their car."
[...]
He and Urian also now organize two free weekly meditation sessions in Tel Aviv, which tend to draw about two dozen people. And they've been invited to demonstrate the exercises at places as diverse as the annual Segol (Meditation) Festival at Atlit in northern Israel and senior citizen centers.
The regular sessions attract some unlikely characters, says Urian. "A rabbi came from Bnei Brak, saying he'd found our flyer in the mud, slightly torn. He bought two books, and told me his wife might not approve so he'd read them in [some place where his wife can't see him]."
Urian herself is from an Orthodox background and identifies herself as "traditional." "I light candles Friday night, fast on Yom Kippur, celebrate festivals. Cheng celebrates with me and the children."
[...]
Urian acknowledges that, as a result of her activism, the likelihood of her ever visiting China is small. "I don't think they'd ever grant me a visa." She has, however, heard Li lecture, and says she draws comfort from Falun Gong as she prepares for her son, Ori, to join the army soon. "It's not much safer on the street these days," she notes, sounding like any Israeli mother, but then adds, reverting to Falun Gong, that sickness and death are understood differently in the movement's philosophy.
Zuo elaborates: "Aging, sickness and death result from karma -- bad energy from what you did in this and previous lives. Usually when you see a person very sick, you feel bad, but if you understand that according to Falun Gong, this is a karmic event, then you can see it as a good thing. In my understanding," a modest phrase he inserts with frequency, "the goal of Falun Gong is to efficiently eliminate karma, and replace it with positive, higher energy, until eventually one reaches enlightenment."
Family attachments are also displaced. "In each incarnation, the person has different family and friends," says Zuo. "So having sentiments towards family members is considered an illusion. That doesn't mean that the family member is a stranger. The practitioner is compassionate to anyone, including family members."
Urian breaks in: "I still love him. Maybe there is some compassion there..."
Zuo grins, acknowledging that neither of them has yet attained enlightenment. "It's OK," he says. "It doesn't bother me."
(June 3, 2002)
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
