Abstract
Based on an interactionist framework, this article examines how followers of a contemporary Chinese religious movement, Falun Gong, deal with a crisis situation and sustain their conviction in the absence of their charismatic leader. Data were collected during a yearlong ethnography of the Falun Gong in Chicago and Hong Kong. The findings reveal that followers experienced cognitive dissonance as a result of the Chinese authorities’ suppression and their leader’s disappearance. To cope with the external and internal threats, they engaged in frequent collective actions and discourses. These collective exercises allowed them to act out their shared ideology, reaffirm their ideological mentality, and activate their ideological passion. Through interaction and collective interpretation, followers not only reconstructed meanings out of the confusion, they also romanticized the charisma of their missing leader. This article asserts the critical role of doing ideology in sustaining a movement and integrates an interactionist, social psychological approach into the literature of social movements.
The role of ideology in collective actions has long been acknowledged by social movement scholars. Ideological inducements are not only necessary for sustaining collective action, but they compel those who believe them to take part in the action (Snow 1987). Ideology entails not only a diagnosis that identifies the cause of a problem, but also a prognosis that specifies what is to be done, along with rationales that justify certain actions over others (Wilson 1973). As a cultural resource, ideology largely shapes a movement’s mobilization efforts and organizational viability (Zurcher and Snow 1981). In addition to ideology, leadership is also critical for sustaining a movement, especially in the face of an external threat. A crisis often requires the leader of a movement or collective group to take immediate action to effectively cope with the disturbance (Balch, Farnsworth, and Wilkins 1983; Dawson 1999; McAdam 1982; Morris 1993; Palmer and Finn 1992). A crisis can be an opportunity for an existing leader to strengthen his or her charisma, but can also result in a loss of charisma if the leader fails to take decisive action to protect the group (House 1991; Pillai 1996; Weber 1978).
Based on a yearlong ethnographic study of a new Chinese religious movement, this article examines how followers do ideology to deal with a critical crisis in the absence of their charismatic leader. Unlike most analyses of the role of ideology in movements that focus on macro-historical factors (Kitschelt 1991; Moaddel 1992; Sewell 1985; Valocchi 1996), this study focuses on the microsociological interaction order (Goffman 1983). It examines the power of ideology in driving its adherents to engage in various resistant actions and investigates how adherents’ ideological commitment to a group or a movement can be sustained when they face confusion and even contradictory evidence. To understand these processes, I introduce an interactionist approach to the study of social movements. As a result, this study contributes to a social psychological understanding of the sustenance of a movement and its members’ convictions.
Born out of the qigong (breathing exercise) movement in China, the Falun Gong (FLG, literally translated as Dharma-Wheel Practice) caught the world’s attention in 1999 through two incidents. On April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 FLG followers encircled the residential compound of the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), demanding that the authorities give the FLG legal status and release a few dozen followers who had been arrested earlier. Being the largest protest in China since the 1989 pro-democracy student movement, the mass sit-in came as a surprise to the Chinese authorities. Three months later, however, the Chinese state shocked the world by launching a heavy-handed crackdown on the FLG. On July 22, 1999, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs officially outlawed FLG and embarked on a nationwide anti–Falun Gong campaign. Within a week, the authorities rounded up more than 5,000 followers, ransacked their homes, and destroyed more than two million FLG publications. Hundreds of core followers were put in jail with terms ranging from 2 to 18 years, and many others were sent to correctional camps. 1
FLG’s charismatic leader, Li Hongzhi, and his family were living in New York at the time of the crackdown in mainland China. When interviewed by CNN on July 25, 1999, “Master Li” stated that he had no prior knowledge of the mass protest. A few days later, a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Chinese authorities (though American authorities and Interpol refused extradition). Rumors were circulated among followers in Hong Kong that Master Li would disregard the arrest warrant and appear on the mainland to rescue his disciples (author’s observations 1999). Nevertheless, the expected rescue did not come, and even worse, the savior went into hiding. He ceased communication with his followers for 9 months and did not appear in public or at FLG events for 15 months. Under these circumstances, how were his followers able to resist the devastating accusations against the FLG? More importantly, how did they sustain their faith when their founder, at least from the nonbelievers’ perspective, appeared to have abandoned them? To address these questions, I draw insights from symbolic interactionism and the social psychology of leadership, along with the literature on new social movements.
My argument is that the FLG followers sustained their conviction by acting out their shared ideology through collective actions and discourses. The followers did experience cognitive dissonance from time to time due to their leader’s disappearance. However, they romanticized the charisma of their leader through social interaction and collective interpretation, resulting in a reconstruction of the meanings of the suppression and Li’s absence. The followers’ ideological commitment to the FLG compelled them to participate in various collective actions against the suppression. As like-minded members, the followers stayed together to make sense of the confusion and frequently engaged in various collective discourses. Through these processes they reaffirmed their ideological mentality, activated their ideological passion, and reconstructed Li’s charisma. This argument brings forth a follower-centric, interactionist approach to the study of social movements.
In the following section, I provide a theoretical framework to examine the role of ideology, leadership, and emotion in social movements. Then, I present the method of data collection. After an overview of the FLG and its ideology, I give an ethnographic account of how the followers in Hong Kong and Chicago dealt with the external and internal threats through various collective actions and discourses. I analyze how they sustained their faith through face-to-face interaction and collective interpretation that drew on their shared ideology as a cultural resource.
An Interactionist Approach to Ideology and Leadership
The concept of ideology is as elusive as the concept of culture (Mannheim 1936). This article adopts an interactionist approach by asserting the social and the practical nature of ideology. Under this view, ideology is seen as a cultural resource for movement participants to draw on for various collective actions. However, ideology is only actualized as a cultural resource through adherents’ collective construction and reconstruction of meanings under the circumstances they commonly face. Therefore, this approach underscores the imperative of interaction among adherents of an ideology in sustaining a movement in adversity.
Defining Ideology
To derive a working definition of ideology, I draw on the conceptualization of Sartori (1969), Geertz (1973), and Fine and Sandstrom (1993). Rejecting a sweeping concept, Sartori (1969) delineates ideology as a subset of a belief system. A crucial factor that distinguishes ideological from nonideological beliefs is their “cognitive authority,” or their ability to create a so-called closed mind. A closed mind relies on an absolute authority that produces efficacy. Thus, an “ideological mentality” is one with a “closed cognitive structure” (Sartori 1969:403). Nonetheless, as Sartori (1969) observes, an ideological mentality does not necessarily lead to an active involvement in advocacy. An ideology’s capacity to unleash energy resides in “ideological passion.”
It is important to note that ideology is social in nature. Geertz (1973) argues that the interplay of ideology’s expressive power and rhetorical force is a social process that occurs not in the head, but in the public world. In other words, the capacity of ideology to render meanings to a particular politics and its associated activities resides in the socially shared domains. Furthermore, ideology is practical. Focusing on how actors do ideology, Fine and Sandstrom (1993) seek to derive a dramaturgical and interactional perspective on the concept. They studied the metaphorical usage of ideology and argued that dramatic images are central to ideological commitment, as public presentation of ideological beliefs provides members with a means to assert their identities and to label others.
This article adopts Fine and Sandstrom’s (1993) interactionist concept of ideology, incorporating their operational definition with others’ insights. I define ideology as consisting of a set of interconnected authoritative beliefs, which are manifested in both cognitive and affective modes, that command the evaluative statements of a group or population and that compel and make sense of participants’ behavioral bearings within particular social contexts. This definition has several advantages: First, it characterizes ideological beliefs as authoritative, distinguishing them from nonideological beliefs; second, it highlights both cognitive and affective components of a belief; third, it embraces the meaning-making function of ideology; fourth, it notes the capacity of an ideology to define and enact moral imperatives; finally, it recognizes the “multi-accentual character” of ideology (Hall 1985:293) by acknowledging the “socially and situationally contingent component of ideological action” (Fine and Sandstrom 1993:31).
The Romance of Leadership
As an extension of attributional analysis, Meindl and his colleagues’ follower-centric approach to leadership provides a valuable analytical tool for understanding the behaviors of FLG followers (Meindl 1990, 1993; Meindl and Ehrlich 1987; Meindl, Ehrlich, and Dukerich 1985). This approach hypothesizes that the behavior of followers is influenced more by their own romanticized constructions of the leader’s personality than by the “true” personality of the leader (Meindl 1995). In other words, followers’ thoughts about the leader affect their action more than what the leader really does. In situations where direct, unambiguous information for inferring the locus of causality is missing, followers’ thought systems and ideologies regarding leadership permit them to ascribe to their leader control and responsibility for important but causally indeterminate events and outcomes. To the extent that followers are psychologically invested in a romanticized leader, then, selective perceptions and confirmatory biases are expected to cause followers to avoid or resist information and evidence that diminishes the significance of leadership to organizational functioning (Meindl et al. 1985). The biased preference to amplify the importance of the leadership role results in a romanticized leader being credited for effective performance of an organization but, by the same token, blamed for very poor performance (Meindl and Ehrlich 1987).
Weber (1978) has long recognized that crises can serve as a “social precondition” for charismatic leadership. Crises provide opportunities for leaders to take bold purposeful action, which is then interpreted by followers in charismatic terms (House 1991; Madsen and Snow 1991; Pillai 1996). From a follower-centric perspective, a crisis may facilitate the emergence of charismatic leadership by inducing acute states of propensity toward charisma among group members (Pillai 1996). Such a propensity involves psychological processes like dependence, insecurity, stress, and anxiety (Pillai 1996). When crisis and stress are taken as negative indications of performance, however, attributions of charisma are less likely (Pillai and Meindl 1998). With followers’ biased preference for ascribing control and responsibility for indeterminate events to their leader, a climate of crisis and anxiety can be taken as evidence of ineffectual leadership (Pillai and Meindl 1998). Therefore, a crisis is likely to heighten awareness of the need for charismatic leadership, and this heightened expectation of leadership may lead to a higher sense of dissatisfaction if the expectation is not somewhat met (Pillai and Meindl 1998).
FLG’s charismatic leader, while obviously failing to fulfill his followers’ expectations amid a critical crisis, nevertheless retained his charisma in his followers’ hearts and minds. What made this possible? The literature on the romance of leadership is indeed a bit ambivalent about the impact of crisis on leadership construction. Meindl and Ehrlich (1987) once stated that if a “positive halo” exists, people may even view obviously poor performance in a somewhat positive light. Yet, it is unclear where the positive halo may come from and what conditions may bring it about. Here, I propose that we seek answers from Festinger, Riecken, and Schacter’s (1956) classic work on cognitive dissonance and Blumer’s (1969) and Collins’s (2004) interactionist premises about meaning and emotion.
Cognitive Dissonance, Emotion, and Interaction
Festinger et al. (1956) found that when committed believers of a movement are confronted with evidence inconsistent with their beliefs, they seek to reduce the discomfort produced by cognitive dissonance through proselytizing their beliefs rather than abandoning their commitment. To successfully maintain their commitment, however, Festinger et al. (1956) argued that social support among fellow believers must be available after the disconfirmation of conviction. The presence of fellow believers is of paramount importance to the maintenance of a conviction because, according to Blumer’s (1969) classic propositions, meanings that are central to human actions are themselves social products arising through interactions. It is imperative for like-minded individuals to stick together because meaning construction involves an interpretive process in which actors select, check, suspend, regroup, and transform meanings in the light of the situation (Blumer 1969). Ideology as a meaning system, as Fine and Sandstrom (1993) put it, can only be constituted, sustained, and strengthened through collective interactions. Meanwhile, discourse as a part of interaction constructs subjectivity at the emotional level (Fine 1995).
The importance of interactions in generating emotions has been well theorized by social psychology scholars (Francis 1997; Katz 1999; Smith 2008; Smith-Lovin 2007). Meindl (1990) advances the idea that a shared sense of arousal constituting “the social contagion of the charismatic syndrome” is produced only through interpersonal processes and group dynamics. Despite the increasing popularity of communication by means of digital technology, studies have found that online communication is capable of motivating movement participants mainly by cognitive calculations, rather than affective factors (Brunsting and Postmes 2002). Instead, collective rites reinforce a sense of “we-ness” and easily “stir up strong emotions” (Jasper 1997:184). As Collins (2004) theorizes, emotional contagion happens among the persons present in a context because they become caught up in each other’s emotions when they are focusing attention on the same thing at the same time and are aware of each other’s focus. A particular group feeling, be it anger, fear, sorrow, or excitement, is generated when the emotional mood becomes stronger and more dominant and drives out competing feelings. The emotional energy generated through interaction among group members produces feelings of solidarity and attachment to the group. Without bodily presence, Collins (2004) maintains, the micro-details of the experience would be missing, and as a consequence, it becomes harder to generate emotional energy. Thus, social interaction based on physical copresence cannot be displaced (Gould 1995) and is essential for generating shared emotions for a cause.
The aforementioned framework is useful for understanding FLG followers’ handling of external and internal threats. The heavy-handed suppression and their charismatic leader’s responses are both “social objects” that consist of meanings for the followers. Nevertheless, the meanings are not given, but rather arise “out of a process of mutual indications” (Blumer 1969:11) among followers who share common beliefs. As we will see in the case of the FLG, doing ideology is a formative process through which ambivalences appearing as meanings are expressed and internal conflicts are disguised (Greer 1997). It is also through this process that contradictions are redefined and contextualized (Berger [1981] 2004).
Method and Data
The CCP’s heavy-handed suppression and the FLG’s daring struggle inspired a burgeoning literature on this Chinese new religious movement (Chen 2000; Lowe 2003; Ownby 2005, 2008; Thornton 2002). While most studies have been concerned with the political economy of China and the FLG’s relation to the state (e.g., Leung 2002; Madsen 2000; Rahn 2002; Tong 2009; Wong 1999), others have focused on its religious aspects (e.g., Chan 2004; Irons 2003; Lu 2005; Palmer 2003; Palmer 2007). These studies have provided valuable insight into the emergence of the FLG and the causes of the crackdown. But none of these studies focuses on the interactions among the followers themselves, and none of them examines the social psychology of the movement’s survival. Empirically, the majority of these studies rely on newspapers and FLG publications as major sources of data. Relatively few are based on firsthand ethnographic data, and those that are were conducted after the crackdown, from mid-2000 to 2002 (e.g., Burgdoff 2003; Fisher 2003; Ownby 2008; Palmer 2003; Porter 2003). This study is the first to collect data during the crackdown and its immediate aftermath.
The data presented in this article mainly come from my yearlong ethnographic research from June 1999 to July 2000. I began the study of the FLG in Chicago in June 1999 by becoming a practitioner. My identity as a researcher was made clear to the key informants. I participated in FLG weekly practices (which include a set of qigong exercises, standing and sitting mediations, and reading the Zhuan Falun), public gatherings, and social activities in Chicago on a regular basis for six months from August 1999 to January 2000. From February to July 2000, my participation was more focused and selective, concentrating on their monthly events and special activities. 2
My research in Hong Kong was divided into two periods. The first period lasted for three weeks from mid-July to early August 1999. During this time I conducted intensive participant observations and joined FLG activities practically every day, attending all their meetings and gatherings and participating in their demonstrations. I kept in regular contact with some followers in Hong Kong through e-mail after I returned to Chicago. In December 1999, I visited Hong Kong again and conducted another three-week intensive study. 3
In addition to the informal interviews conducted throughout the field observation, I also carried out 29 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with FLG followers that lasted from one-and-a-half to three hours; ten were conducted in Hong Kong and 19 in Chicago. I selected interviewees by using maximum variation sampling to generate a variety of interviewee profiles. The interviewees aged from 23 to 69, and slightly over half of them were females. They included graduate students, engineers, technicians, clerks, business owners, and housewives. Their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics represented the larger population of followers in the two cities. However, because many peripheral practitioners had left the group after the crackdown, my interviewees were primarily core followers and secondarily ordinary followers (please refer to The Followers section for different categories of followership). 4
To characterize the FLG’s activities over the past decade, I rely on three sources of data: (1) my occasional observations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong over the years; (2) information from the FLG official Web site; (3) observations and interviews in Hong Kong in April 2011 and telephone interviews with two followers in Chicago in May 2011. 5
My data collection has generated more than 400 pages of field notes. These field notes were coded according to a number of themes. In selecting what to present in this article, I quoted the dialogues among the followers that represented what I heard often in the field. I avoided citing any that seemed idiosyncratic.
The Falun Gong and its Ideology
Given that ideology entails a “closed mind” anchored in the absolute authority of a particular belief system (Sartori 1969), the content of this belief system is paramount in molding its believers’ mentality and passion. I now turn to the ideology of the FLG, its chief creator, and its adherents.
Starting in the mid-1980s qigong soared in popularity in China (Chen 2003; Palmer 2007), with nearly 2,000 qigong groups in the country by the early 1990s (Zhang and Qiao 1999). The FLG was born out of this “qigong fever.”
The Charismatic Leader
The founder of the FLG, Li Hongzhi, was originally named Li Lai. He was born in a small agricultural town in Jilin province, northeast China, in the early 1950s. He soon moved with his parents to the provincial capital, Changchun, where he was educated through high school. At the age of 30, Li was working as a clerk in the municipal grain ratio distribution center. Around this time he took qigong workshops given by various masters and read books on Buddhism, Taoism, and other ancient religions. His involvement in qigong intensified over the years, and after his visit to Thailand in 1991, he took unpaid leave from work to devote himself entirely to qigong. By 1992, Li had developed his own qigong method, later named FLG, and had begun to hold workshops teaching it to the public. His subsequent workshops grew in size to thousands of participants (Palmer 2007). Apart from teaching a series of breathing and meditation exercises, Li’s lectures also covered moral, esoteric, demonological, messianic, and sectarian themes. The quasi-religious content of his lectures was not atypical, as other qigong masters also touched on those topics, with varying degrees of emphasis (Chen 2003; Palmer 2007).
In the fall of 1994, nonetheless, Li began to transform the FLG from a qigong practice to a messianic movement until, as Palmer (2007:224) puts it, “ideology replaced body training as its chief object.” To distinguish the FLG from other qigong groups, Li began to de-emphasize its healing function. Instead, he highlighted his theology of the universe Dharma (the Buddha Law of the universe), its moral principles, and the spiritual nature of the FLG. He changed his birthday to May 13, 1951, which was the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, traditionally celebrated as the birthday of Sakyamuni Buddha. He published his first holy writ, the Zhuan Falun (Turning Dharma-Wheel), in early 1995, in which he proclaimed having uncountable “Dharma-bodies” to protect and heal his followers (Li 1998:114–15). Li’s charisma stemmed from his self-proclaimed supernatural power; many followers believed him to be Maitreya Buddha returned to earth.
Before Li migrated to the United States in 1998, his followers in China could see him in person at his lectures. After he moved to New York, he conveyed his messages and instructions to followers via the official FLG Web site. He also traveled to China, Europe, Asia, and Australia to attend the Falun Dafa International Experience Sharing Conference (Sharing Conference) and other events promoting the FLG. He gave public lectures when he traveled, which were all videotaped and treated as part of the FLG’s sacred scriptures.
The Followers
The number of FLG practitioners in China and worldwide multiplied rapidly between 1995 and 1999. People were drawn to the FLG partly for improved health and partly for the attraction of Li’s moral teachings (interviews 1999–2000; see also Lowe 2003; Ownby 2008; Palmer 2007). The exact number of FLG practitioners is disputed. Li claimed that there were 100 million practitioners worldwide, and the Chinese government reported that there were about two million followers in China. Based on the number of participants at some FLG practice sites in Chengdu in 1998–1999, Palmer (2007) estimated that there were approximately 10 million practitioners in China before the crackdown. At its peak, the FLG included housewives, businessmen, government officials, party cadres, university professors, graduate students, and many others.
Most new religious movements have layers of membership (Barker 1989), and the FLG was no exception. I observed that there were at least three layers of membership based on the degree of commitment to Li’s teachings: (1) Core followers completely believed in the charismatic leader, his supernatural power, and his worldview. They practiced FLG for spiritual reasons. Their ultimate concern was to transcend the secular world to arrive at “higher levels.” (2) Ordinary followers practiced FLG for both physical and moral improvement. They read Zhuan Falun on a regular basis but occasionally raised doubts about Li’s worldview and the possibility of salvation. (3) Peripheral practitioners practiced FLG for improving their physical health and did not care much about Li’s theology. While the proportion of each layer’s membership can only be estimated, I believe that the two million followers that the Chinese government estimated generally included core and ordinary followers. In Hong Kong, key informants reported that at the time of the crackdown there were about 1,000 practitioners, of which about 200 were “active.” In Chicago, I was told that there were about 300 practitioners, and about half of them were “active.” In my observation, the active members included both core and ordinary followers. The followers in North America were generally more highly educated than those in Hong Kong. They included engineers, scientists, computer programmers, accountants, and professors (Ownby 2008). In Hong Kong, a few core followers had university degrees, and the majority had a high school education. They included accountants, engineers, clerks, salespersons, housewives, and retirees.
Many peripheral practitioners left the group during and right after the crackdown, but almost all of the core followers and the majority of the ordinary followers in both Hong Kong and Chicago remained intact (author’s observations 1999–2000). Now, a decade later, most of the core followers in Hong Kong and Chicago are still strongly committed members. While some ordinary followers have drifted away, others have become core members (author’s observations and interviews 2011). 6 In 2011, the number of followers in Hong Kong was estimated to be almost 200, and in Chicago slightly over 100. 7 Accordingly, the majority of the followers in Hong Kong were “old” followers, as those who joined before the crackdown were known. The new followers who joined after the crackdown accounted for about 10 percent of the existing membership. The situation in Chicago is similar, except that there have been more peripheral practitioners (mostly Caucasians) joining in after the crackdown (interviews 2011). Although the followers in both cities persistently participated in various collective actions over the years, those in Hong Kong have been more active in street propaganda against the CCP (author’s observations 1999–2011 and interviews 2011). 8 The activism in Hong Kong can be attributed to the city’s geographical and political proximity to mainland China, an interesting topic that goes beyond the scope of this article (see Chan [2011] for the change of the FLG collective actions over the decade).
The Organization
A governmental campaign against the use of qigong to treat diseases, coupled with the FLG’s failure to obtain legal status in 1996, prompted Li to abolish some of the organizational infrastructure of the FLG in 1997 (Tong 2002, 2009). Since then, the FLG has not had any staff or a distinct administrative body. Practitioners and followers pay no fees for joining. Anyone can show up at any practice site in a public park to learn the breathing exercises. No personal information need be disclosed, and followers can come and go voluntarily (author’s observations 1999–2000; see also Burgdoff 2003; Fisher 2003; Ownby 2008). Nonetheless, this does not mean that the FLG has no organization. Before the crackdown, each city or town in China had a number of “practice sites.” Several practice sites made up a “guidance station,” and a number of guidance stations constituted a “branch station.” A few branch stations comprised a “main station” at the city or provincial level. At each of the practice sites and guidance stations, there were one or two volunteer informal leaders called “counselors.” Each of the branch stations and main stations had an informal leader called “station head.” Both of the station heads in Hong Kong and Chicago were appointed by Li (interviews 1999).
The Ideology
What did the FLG followers believe in? They believed in Li’s teachings, which are an eclectic mix of Buddhist and other mystical beliefs. A central idea is that the authentic root of human beings can be found in benevolence in nature. Li taught that human bodies were contaminated by modern society, including modern science. Thus, every human body contains some “virtue or merit” (De) and “bad karma” (Ye). The ultimate goal of FLG followers is to “eliminate bad karma” (Xiao Ye) and to “accumulate virtue” (Ji De). When put into practice, Xiao Ye and Ji De are associated with morality and suffering:
The substance of De is attained when we have suffered pains, endured setbacks, and have done good deeds while Ye is collected when one commits sins and wrong deeds or bullies someone. (Li 1998:31)
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In other words, enduring suffering and acting morally can accumulate virtue and eliminate bad karma at the same time. The process is supposed to elevate one’s Xinxing (mind nature or moral quality) so that the person can move closer to salvation (Li 1998). Li professed that he had already exorcised the demons and impurities from the bodies of his genuine followers and had implanted a Falun (Dharma-Wheel) into their lower abdomen to help them expel the bad karma faster. However, due to their desires and attachments to worldly matters, bad karma still accumulated in their bodies. To remove them, the followers should enact the moral precepts—Truthfulness–Benevolence–Forbearance (Zhen–Shan–Ren)—in all circumstances, practice breathing and meditation exercises, and read the Zhuan Falun every day.
The virtue of forbearance, or suffering, in FLG’s theology deserves special attention. It has become a central ideological motto, repeatedly emphasized by Li as a necessary condition for achieving salvation. Furthermore, Li’s theory stipulates that the greater the extent of suffering, the larger the amount of virtue is gathered and the larger the amount of bad karma is expelled. In Li’s words,
The worse situation he (the enemy) puts you in or the greater impact it has, the more you will endure. And the more he will lose his De. Such De will be all given to you. . . . Because you have sacrificed, however much you have endured will be all transformed into the same amount of De. . . . It is just because he has created such a conflict and an opportunity to improve Xinxing that you can make use of it to upgrade your Xinxing. (Li 1998:154–55)
The idea that “worse is better” has generated an ideological attitude of selfless sacrifice. This attitude could be a source of strength in the face of repression (Palmer 2007), or in certain circumstances, it could be a source of self-destructive violence (Rahn 2002).
The supernatural power of Li was vividly described in another of his writings, Falun Fofa (Dharma-Wheel’s Buddha Law), which described his clairvoyance, out-of-body travel, and ability to reverse the effects of old age, expel demons, cleanse the followers’ bodies, and so on (Li 1996). As typical of the charismatic leaders of other cultic movements, Li commanded absolute obedience from his followers and closed off any alternative beliefs. His absolute authority was based on the definition of “genuine” followers and his ability to read their minds. To be a genuine follower, one must strictly adhere to Li’s teachings and not contemplate any other methods of achieving salvation (Li 1998).
As a key architect in the social construction of FLG ideology, Li later became a prime beneficiary of this belief system. Even when he obviously failed to protect his followers, this ideology became a cultural resource for them to make sense of the crisis and to interpret his absence in a biased manner through a positive halo.
Enacting Ideology through Collective Actions
Surprisingly, the followers inside and outside China did not lose faith in the FLG when Li disappeared. Instead, they became more active than ever. In China, followers consistently risked their well-being to protest in groups in Tiananmen Square, and those arrested often held hunger strikes in their detention centers. In Hong Kong and North America, followers frequently held press conferences, forums, mass sit-ins, and petitions to Chinese Embassies and Consulates. 10 The Sharing Conference, previously held twice a year, was held at least 10 times in North America, Europe, and Hong Kong in less than a year. Why were these collective actions so frequent during this period? What motivated the followers to organize and participate in these actions? The ethnographic data that follow may well provide an answer.
On July 22, 1999, the day when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) outlawed the FLG in China, over a dozen journalists rushed into an FLG’s indoor practice site in Hong Kong, a room measuring about 700 square feet in a high-rise in the city center. The followers, however, were too busy to entertain the journalists. They were fully engaged in an emergency meeting, chaired by the station head in Hong Kong, Mr. Kong (all pseudonyms throughout the text except the charismatic leader’s name):
A young female follower, Su San, looked sad but firm. She suggested that as FLG followers, they should petition the Chinese authorities to show that they would not give up their faith. But a male follower, aged about 50, disagreed and exclaimed assertively, “No, it is useless! It’s useless to petition. They (the Chinese authorities) won’t change their attitude.” Yet a 40-something woman, her face turned red, shouted with anger, “We have to show the public that we are still FLG learners! Show them our strong belief and faith!” Discussions went on and on, and different opinions about the kinds of action to be taken were suggested to Mr. Kong. . . . [T]hey finally agreed that they should stage a demonstration at the New China News Agency (NCNA).
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(Field notes [Hong Kong], July 22, 1999)
In their discussions, most followers fully understood that once the CCP decided to suppress the FLG, there was practically nothing they could do to change it. Although a few followers were concerned about the practical value of staging a demonstration, the majority insisted that they should do something to express their attitude. In my observation, expressing moral obligation and commitment was always the primary, if not the only, driving force for FLG followers participating in various collective actions. Their actions were more of an enactment of their identity, motivated by an inner obligation to behave as a “good” group member (Sturmer et al. 2003), than an instrumental-rational calculation of its practical outcome.
A week later on July 29, 1999, when an arrest warrant for Master Li was issued, another group meeting was held:
The followers looked upset and angry, but they remained silent. Mr. Kong did not have much expression on his fatigued face. Not knowing what to do, he suggested reading the Zhuan Falun. They read aloud the first chapter for about half an hour. After, Mr. Kong said in anguish, “We have to protect Master. Master loves us so much. He bears too much for us.” Su San was weeping. She said in a steady but low voice, “Master loves us so much, I am afraid that he will go back to China.” Mr. Kong couldn’t help but burst into tears. He whimpered, “Master loves us so much. We have to sacrifice to protect him. We have to use our lives to protect Master, to let him not get into any trouble.” Wan Sin and Lan Sin wept. . . . They were quite lost and didn’t know what to do next. They discussed the possibilities of various actions. . . . As FLG followers, they had to reveal the “true picture” to the public so that they would be enacting Zhen (Truthfulness). (Field notes [Hong Kong], July 29, 1999)
This episode precisely demonstrates “the social contagion of the charismatic syndrome” (Meindl 1990). It displays how weeping was contagious and emotions were generated through interaction among like-minded members. These emotions activated their ideological passion and drove them to actions that were deemed merely expressive. These actions were justified not by their practical value but by the ideological idea of “speaking the truth all the time.”
The symbolic, expressive motives for the collective actions staged by the followers in Hong Kong were further revealed when their demonstration was held on a Sunday, when their target office, the NCNA, was closed:
When I arrived at 9:00
The demonstration was best described as an “expressive assembly” (Lofland 1987) where the movement culture was physically and publicly dramatized. Note that the energy associated with large gatherings of fellows who display overt signs of similar orientations and motivations produces arousal that allows for charismatic contagion (Meindl 1990). The FLG followers’ public dramatization on a Sunday morning, though not practical from an outsider’s perspective, was functional for the ideological commitment of the participants.
Because doing ideology is contextual, I must explore the way in which the social conditions in Hong Kong and Chicago might have affected the followers’ actions. Under the “one country, two systems” model, the legal system of Hong Kong is far more independent than China, and the FLG remained legal in Hong Kong. The local residents in Hong Kong in 1999 were still quite skeptical of the CCP, and the public was in general sympathetic to the FLG. Nonetheless, due to its geographical and political proximity to mainland China, the sympathetic attitude did not transform into as supportive an environment as North America. For instance, after the crackdown, the company that printed the Zhuan Falun immediately ceased printing the text and almost all bookstores immediately took it off the shelves. As Hardyck and Braden (1962) hypothesized, public ridicule, more often than not, boosts proselytizing, because members feel the need to justify their position. This may partly explain the fact that more public FLG collective activities took place in Hong Kong relatively compared to Chicago. The followers in Hong Kong practiced their breathing exercises in various regional public parks every weekday morning and gathered as larger groups in the major parks on weekends. They also staged demonstrations more frequently. When they encountered public stigmatization, they drew on their ideological belief that FLG followers were “extraordinary” and on the theory of Xiao Ye (eliminating bad karma) to sustain their actions.
In Chicago, followers practiced their qigong exercises in public parks only on Sundays, and they demonstrated less frequently. Nonetheless, their motives and rationales for their collective actions were practically the same as their fellows’ in Hong Kong. Indeed, I was surprised that at times I would forget if I were in Hong Kong or Chicago, as the followers in both cities said the same things when they expressed their responses to the crackdown. I took this as a sign of the strength of their ideological mentality, or a closed mind, so to speak. Consider the following conversation between two followers in Chicago about their participation in various demonstrations during the crackdown in China:
There were about 600 followers at its peak. We were sitting there, exchanging our experiences. . . . Some congressmen and senators walked by and showed some concern. But they didn’t offer any concrete help. Not much had been achieved. Well, we already knew that. We didn’t expect too much. As FLG followers, we had to prove our faith and tell them the truth. Did you feel any different after the demonstration? I learned a lot from sharing with other followers. After every demonstration I found my Xinxing (mind nature or moral quality) elevated. I think we should go to D.C. again in November when the Chinese government sentences the arrested followers in China. I also gained much from the demonstrations. . . . [T]he hardships we suffered here are incomparable to those borne by the followers in China. . . . What we are doing here all contributes to the process of Xiao Ye. But we are at a slower pace compared to the followers in China, as our sufferings here are mild. (Field notes [Chicago], October 3, 1999)
On this account, the very “political” act that the FLG followers performed was based on the ideological idea of elevating one’s Xinxing. Holding the collective belief that they were eliminating bad karma while demonstrating, participants felt themselves engaged in a process of spiritual self-transformation. Just as a human being can be an object of his or her own action and the self-object emerges from the process of social interaction (Mead [1934] 1967), their pleasurable and meaningful feelings entailed an internalized self-respect, an inner sense of dignity and moral worth (Denzin 1985). These feelings further reinforced their ideological beliefs.
Reproducing Ideological Commitment through Collective Discourses
Social gatherings and collective assemblies among FLG followers increased in frequency during and after the crackdown in July 1999. As Klandermans (1992) puts it, collective beliefs are created in the course of communication because discussions and interpretations transform the unfamiliar and uncertain into the familiar. The collective gatherings of the FLG followers were essential to sustaining individual followers’ faith, as they provided a platform for engaging in discursive practices to enact and reproduce their ideological commitment.
The most noticeable discursive practice of the FLG followers was storytelling. Storytelling is a way of doing ideology (Fine 1995). It helps members to process their experiences, build shared identification, and form common emotional reactions. In FLG’s storytelling, a few common genres can be identified: sacralizing and mystifying the charismatic leader, demonizing the enemy, and celebrating self-transformation. These genres all contribute to the softening of dissonance. These tropes appeared again and again on different occasions at FLG collective gatherings. Furthermore, I observed that different forms of collective gatherings reproduced ideological commitment in different ways. Informal social gatherings were more effective in affirming and reframing the followers’ beliefs and, hence, in sustaining their ideological mentality. Large-scale assemblies, on the other hand, were especially powerful in evoking shared emotions and, thus, sustaining their ideological passion.
Reconstructing the Leader’s Charisma
When the FLG was faced with its crushing defeat in China and their leader, who was supposed to have supernatural power, went into hiding, its followers had to make sense of the confusion if they were to stay with the group. The charismatic leader in this sense is a “social object.” Li’s charisma was created and recreated through a process of definition and interpretation that took place in the interactions of his followers. Through frequent experience sharing and storytelling, the followers amplified the mystery of their charismatic leader and the stereotypes of the enemy, which contributed to rationalizing the prevailing chaos. Consider the following exchanges of stories among followers:
On July 29, 1999, when the arrest warrant for Li was placed, the followers in Hong Kong were, at one point, speculating whether Li would go to China: So many followers were arrested there. I’m afraid that Master will go back for these followers. If he does, he will be arrested. I’m afraid that he will. Does anyone know? I know some followers traveled to Beijing on the 19th [of July], awaiting Master’s arrival. If Master does go back, he will do it uprightly and openly. . . . Master will not be sent back to China. The arrest warrant is only a tactic. It aims to incite Master’s followers to protest [so that the Chinese authorities could arrest them]. Well, then we should avoid watching the news. We should avoid watching the accusations against Master, against the FLG. They are all fabrications! (Field notes [Hong Kong], July 29, 1999)
This conversation among the followers demonstrates their uncertainty about what the leader would do and their ambivalence about what the leader should do. Although Siu Fong worried that Li would go back to China and be arrested, she was at first expecting Li would do so, using his return as a bargaining chip to demand the release of his followers. Furthermore, what Wu Li said implies that at least some followers might have been disappointed that Master Li did not appear in Beijing. Nonetheless, when Kwok Ming framed the arrest warrant as a trick—something they should not take seriously—then, Li’s failure to return to China was justified. If the Chinese state was playing trick and made up fake stories, then they should blind themselves to the accusations. Just as Mehan’s (1990) concept of oracular reasoning proposes, people maintain the efficacy of a belief by denying or repelling evidence that is contrary to or opposes the belief. The most common “belief-validating practice” is to attribute failure to other circumstances, so that oracles can be reaffirmed—which is exactly what the FLG followers did.
However, when Li did not surface to defend the FLG despite the increasing number of followers arrested and prosecuted, the followers experienced dissonance. On August 26, 1999, almost a month after the arrest warrant was issued, a few followers in a gathering in Chicago constructed stories to rationalize Li’s silence:
Did Yung Sin (the station head in Chicago) ever see Master recently? I don’t know. He might have. . . . But he couldn’t tell us. Master might have gone to China if the followers here didn’t stop him from doing so. I believe so. So many followers were arrested in China. I believe that Master intended to go there to rescue them. . . . But I don’t think he went. If he did, he would have gone openly. Master has the power to transcend the secular world and there is nothing he cannot do. He isn’t afraid of dying. Oh yes, I remember Master said he had given up using his supernatural power for the sake of ordinary people. . . . Even though he wanted to go to China, he wouldn’t. Otherwise, he would have to use his supernatural power. . . . He didn’t want to give up millions of people. Master cannot intervene in the crackdown; otherwise, he would have changed the natural course and destroyed the practice environment. We could never reach Consummation (the ultimate end of Buddhist philosophy) if he did. (Field notes [Chicago], August 26, 1999)
The followers seemed to feel uneasy that the charismatic leader had not yet appeared. Why didn’t Li exercise his supernatural power to put an end to the prosecutions in China? The followers needed an answer. Through the collectively constructed stories about Li’s motives for remaining silent, the followers reaffirmed to each other that Li was morally upright, that he possessed supernatural powers, and that he had not abandoned his followers.
A few months passed, and Li kept hiding. On December 29, 1999, a follower who migrated from Beijing to Hong Kong brought up the discomfort topic again:
Did Master ever contact the followers in Hong Kong? (In a weak voice) No. Many followers in Beijing have been waiting for Master Li to give them direction. They need Master to lead them and guide them what to do. Not just those on the mainland, I think followers all over the world have been waiting. We have been waiting for Master to speak to us. (Paused for a while) Now I remember, in the last Sharing Conference in Chicago, Master told us to “deal with ever-changing events by sticking to unchanged principles (yi bubian ying wanbian).” Now Master has realized this motto. . . . I saw Master’s tears when he said this. He must have already known the coming of this setback. Yes, Master must have already known that this crackdown was coming. . . . Sure. Master manifests himself in a human body, but he is also supra-human. He knew that there was adversity coming. . . . (Field note [Hong Kong], December 29, 1999)
At first, the conversation between Mr. Poon and Mr. Kong seems to suggest that they were disappointed and annoyed by Li’s prolonged disappearance. Nevertheless, they were creative enough to rationalize it through their dialogues, and dialogues generate meanings. It happens that I was at the Sharing Conference in Chicago on June 26, 1999, where I saw Li Hongzhi sitting in the first row, listening to the followers’ narratives. Toward the end of the conference, he held a Q&A section answering followers’ questions. However, I did not see tears in his eyes. It is possible that I missed it, or that Mr. Poon, who witnessed so many followers in Beijing awaiting Master Li to come as a divine revelation, in retrospect, perceived Master Li shedding tears. These tears, nevertheless, were important for protecting the “idol” image of the charismatic leader, as they signified Li’s prophetic character and his sorrow about the crackdown. By perceiving the charismatic leader weeping in his last appearance in front of his followers, Mr. Poon was able to mitigate the cognitive dissonance caused by Li’s nonresponsiveness to the sufferings of his followers in mainland China.
As the romance and the mystery surrounding leadership concepts are critical for sustaining followership (Meindl et al. 1985), the compassionate nature of the charismatic leader was often created and recreated by followers in their informal conversations with one another. They admired him, praised him, and reaffirmed to each other that Li had supernatural powers but rarely used them because he did not want to interfere with the ordinary people’s world. Stories about Li’s supra-human qualities, such as his senseless tongue, “third eye,” earlobes, and eyebrows, were narrated by the followers. These stories amplified Li’s holy power and moral superiority, which eventually maintained their faith in the leader and sustained their belief in his teachings.
Amplifying the Enemy’s Evilness
For resistant acts to take place, there must be a common enemy. A common enemy is another “social object” whose meanings are constructed through interaction among participants making indications to one another (Blumer 1969). The CCP and its then leader, Jiang Zemin, were the target of the FLG. At the lunch gathering after the August 1 petition in Hong Kong, followers were talking about the crackdown:
Master has done so much for us, I feel really sorry for what has happened to him now. It’s expected. You are too young. You don’t know the way the CCP deals with good people. All the good people have to be either destroyed or removed. That’s how they have gained power. . . . Yes, you are right. The CCP likes to “reverse black and white, right and wrong.” Now you see that this tablecloth is white, right? But if they say it is black, then it is black. You know? (Field note [Hong Kong], August 1, 1999)
With the stereotypical labeling that “anything the CCP says is a lie, and anything it does is evil,” the followers amplified the evilness of the enemy. This amplification enabled the followers to block alternative ways of thinking and shield their beliefs from contradictory evidence.
Likewise at a farewell party in Chicago, followers sat in a circle and talked for hours. The guilt of the CCP was a central topic:
Sigh! Do you know why Jiang Zemin has to crack down on the FLG? Because he’s too weak! You know? He’s too weak to attack Taiwan. . . . So he launched this severe crackdown on the FLG to shift people’s attention. I can’t believe that people in China believed the CCP’s accusation of the FLG. They (the CCP) brainwashed them. They are especially good at that. . . . This crackdown is just another Cultural Revolution. The CCP used to do this. They used to kill people! . . . They have a wicked soul! This crackdown is worse than the Cultural Revolution. This clampdown is like Japan’s invasion of China. The way the CCP beat up FLG followers is like the way the Japanese beat up the Chinese! (Field note [Chicago], September 19, 1999)
The previous conversation illustrates that frame amplification (Snow et al. 1986) is accomplished through dialogues among members with shared beliefs. Analogizing the crackdown to the historical trauma of the Japanese invasion, the followers not only amplified the evilness of the CCP but also justified their defiance. This frame amplification, as part of their “oracular reasoning practices” (Mehan 1990), not only softens dissonance, but also bolsters followers’ ideological commitment.
Dramatizing Self-Transformations and Emotions
The formal, large-scale collective assemblies of the FLG increased in frequency after the crackdown. They served as pilgrimages, or rituals in a broad sense, for FLG followers. Consider the following scenes on a Saturday before the crackdown when a Sharing Conference was held at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Chicago:
Hundreds of FLG followers were sitting in the hall when I arrived at 8:45
As the self is also a “social object” that calls for meaning construction (Blumer 1969; Mead [1934] 1967), celebrating self-transformation was the major genre presented by the followers at the conference right before the crackdown. The common narratives were “war stories” with happy or hopeful endings. Presenters narrated their own struggles, either with diseases, immoral souls, or unsupportive spouses and family members.
On June 17, 2000, a year after the crackdown in China, a Sharing Conference was held at the Congress Plaza Hotel in downtown Chicago. Again, the Conference was suffused with emotional performance:
There were about 600 participants, again, from different cities of North America. . . . The agenda was similar to last year’s. . . . A follower enthusiastically told me that Master Li might come. . . . Li did not show up. . . . [A] presenter spoke of her self-transformation. Her voice began to quiver when she talked about her karma. “I don’t know how to pay my debt to Master. Master has bestowed upon me so much.” She began sobbing. Some female followers wept. . . . “I had too much Ye. I know that even with my whole life I cannot repay all my debts.” She was sobbing again and could not even continue her speech. All of a sudden, she regained her strength. Her voice was loud and strong. She stated assertively that she would follow Master Li’s teachings and be a genuine follower forever. . . . The last presenter . . . related in detail stories about how followers on the mainland were arrested, how they refused to sign letters of contrition, how they were beaten, and how they argued with the armed forces to insist that the FLG was good. . . . These stories touched the audience. Some followers wept, and some closed their eyes meditating. . . . (Field notes [Chicago], July 17, 2000)
Expectedly, the common genres the followers presented after the crackdown focused more on Li’s sacredness and the “horror stories” of the CCP. Horror stories about how the Chinese authorities tortured the arrested followers were presented to trigger anger, sadness, and a sense of injustice. Hegtvedt and Johnson (2000) propose that justice is a collective process, and an individual’s perception of injustice is to a large extent influenced by his or her peers. Just as charismatic effects in followers are socially contagious (Meindl 1990), their sense of injustice is also socially contagious through collective narratives. FLG followers’ collective narratives created a sense of urgency, calling for participation in fighting against the suppression. They promoted identification (Fine 1995) and fanned ideological passion.
The contents of the narratives, however, seem less important than the process by which the contents are conveyed. Most of the sentimental stories the FLG followers presented at the Sharing Conferences were available on the FLG Web site. Still, followers traveled hundreds of miles to listen to what they could have read on the Web because physical copresence is essential for generating shared emotions. Scripting, staging, performing, and interpreting can construct a sense of injustice and evoke corresponding emotions (Benford and Hunt 1992). Moreover, size does matter. The feeling of being with a large “we” itself can be simultaneously joyful and moving (Gould 2002). Crying, weeping, grieving, moaning, and sobbing occurred more commonly in the large-scale expressive assemblies than in small group gatherings. At the same time, I observed that the quality of a presenter’s “deep acting” (Hochschild 1979) on the stage does influence the extent of emotional discharge by the audience. The more sentimental and self-blaming the presenters were, the more emotional reaction the audience had. Audience responses also had contagious effects on others. These activated group emotions, then further intensified participants’ ideological passion and, simultaneously, blocked them from alternative frames.
Conclusion
Despite the Chinese authorities’ merciless arrests and unyielding propaganda, there is no end in sight to the defiant struggle of the FLG. On April 24, 2011, one could still see hundreds of FLG followers marching along Hong Kong Island for four hours to mark the twelfth anniversary of the mass sit-in in Beijing, demanding a cessation of suppression of the FLG in mainland China and dissolution of the CCP (author’s observation 2011). Likewise, on October 16, 2011, a booth of the FLG displayed a dozen posters against the CCP in Chinatown, Boston (author’s observation 2011). This article not only documents how the FLG in Hong Kong and North America survived their most critical moment of external threat; it also examines how it was able to do so in the absence of its charismatic leader. This research brings in symbolic interactionism to the study of social movements and contributes to a social psychological understanding of the sustenance of a movement and members’ convictions.
In contrast to most studies of social movements that concentrate on how organizers or leaders deploy cultural resources to manipulate participants (e.g., see Snow et al. 1986; Tarrow 1992; Wasielewski 1985), this study focuses on the mass participants and their agency in operating ideology as collective action and discourse (Moaddel 1992; Thompson 1986) in order to empower themselves during a crisis. As Li’s charisma came from a self-proclaimed “divine gift,” his disappearance could have resulted in a “loss of charisma” in the classic Weberian sense (Weber 1978). 12 The ethnographic stories presented previously nonetheless demonstrate that his followers were active in taking up the remedial work to sustain the leader’s charisma. Li’s “divine gift” was preserved not by what he did, but by his followers’ collective narrative and romanticization of what he did not do. This finding supports Meindl and his colleagues’ follower-centric perspective on leadership and highlights the imperative of interaction for the social construction of charisma and members’ ideological commitment.
This article goes a step further from Meindl’s theory to explore the source of the “positive halo” that allows followers to interpret a leader’s failure through a positive, biased lens. It has shown that in this case, the followers drew on their shared ideology to engage in frequent collective actions and discourses to cope with the crisis of an absent leader in the face of external threats. This study highlights how necessary it is for like-minded individuals to stay together when they experience dissonance. Their collective exercises allowed them to act out their shared ideology, reaffirm their ideological mentality, and activate their ideological passion. Through collective discourses they were able to reconstruct meanings out of confusion, which was of critical importance to sustaining their unwavering commitment to the FLG. Hence, although ideology is constituted of a closed mind, its maintenance is actualized through dynamic interaction among believers according to situational contingencies.
This study also supports the postulation that redefinition of a situation can invoke new emotions (Francis 1997). The collective discourses that the FLG followers engaged in have powerfully redefined the Chinese government’s decision to suppress the movement and reinvented the sacredness of their leader. Such redefinition and reinvention, as shown, elicited emotions that further strengthened followers’ ideological commitment to the group. Just as symbolic interactionism underscores the critical role of face-to-face gatherings and ceremonies in affirming participants’ affiliation and reviving their ultimate beliefs, this article illustrates how physical interactions among members who share beliefs are imperative for the maintenance of those beliefs. FLG followers gathered frequently when faced with the crisis, despite the accessibility of electronic communication, because face-to-face interactions are most effective in stirring up emotions and reproducing group ideological passion. With the increasing importance of cyberspace in forging certain values and mobilizing collective actions, future research may focus on whether interactions in cyberspace would produce a different outcome in managing crisis and cognitive dissonance and in what way these processes differ from those produced through physical interactions.
The collective actions of the FLG in Hong Kong and North America throughout the years have remained peaceful, though their objectives and some of their actions have appeared more radical since the reappearance of Master Li in October 2000. The transformation of the FLG in the past decade warrants a separate article (Chan 2011). However, the insights generated from this article about how the core followers sustained their ideology by doing it are not only suggestive of the sustenance of some radical religious movements, they can also be generalized to a number of new social movements, such as the prolife and prochoice movements, prodemocratic movements, environmental movements, student movements, the tea party movement, and the like.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Falun Gong followers in Chicago and Hong Kong for making this research possible and to Michael Adorjan, Gary Alan Fine, Jeff Martin, David Palmer, Lucia Siu, Colin Smith, Ling-Yun Tang, the anonymous reviewers, and the editors of SPQ for their comments on the earlier versions of this article.
1
The exact number of followers arrested is unknown. The Hong Kong–based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China estimated that close to 36,000 Falun Gong (FLG) followers were detained (Rosenthal 1999). But the Chinese government denied this estimate (
).
2
My selective participation was due to two reasons. First, the FLG followers had increasingly identified me as one of them and had asked me to help to set up a practice site at the university in which I was then a graduate student. I deliberately reduced my participation in the regular practices to weaken my membership role. Second, the regular practices of the FLG were rather standardized. Prolonged observation of these practices seemed unnecessary. Instead, the dynamic interactions and discourses among the followers took place during the relatively large-scale monthly events or special gatherings.
3
Some followers in Hong Kong welcomed my research whereas others were skeptical. I dealt with the skepticism by assuring confidentiality and anonymity. I was able to convince them to let me stay in the group for research purposes.
4
I tried to locate a few peripheral practitioners who had left the group after the crackdown, but these people were reluctant to be interviewed.
5
In April 2011, two of my undergraduate students conducted a study of the FLG in Hong Kong as a course requirement. I accompanied them to observe the group’s activities and to interview a total of four followers.
6
Some ordinary followers withdrew due to pressure from family members; others became core followers due to improved health and moral standards with the practice of FLG.
7
The estimated number in Hong Kong was based on my observation of their parade held in April 2011 and of various FLG practice sites. The estimated number in Chicago was based on my telephone interviews with the followers there in May 2011.
8
More than a dozen booths with banners against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and pictures of FLG followers being tortured by the CCP can be seen in the popular tourist spots in Hong Kong every day from 7 a.m. to the early evening. The followers also distributed the Epoch Times, FLG’s newspaper, every morning in subway train stations, bus terminals, and piers.
9
To preserve the originality, I do not correct any grammatical errors when citing directly from the English version of FLG’s publications.
10
These activities were frequently reported by local press, such as Mingpao and South China Morning Post, throughout 1999 and 2000.
11
The New China News Agency (Xinhua She) is a news agency in the People’s Republic of China, with its headquarters in Beijing. It has offices around the world to function as press outlets of the CCP. The office in Hong Kong was renamed as the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong S.A.R. in December 1999.
12
Thanks to a reviewer of an earlier draft of this article for this insight.