Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Falun Gong work group

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Falun Gong Inside China and Falun Gong outside China

This is yet another of my silly comments about my own instincts regarding this subject. I note that we have an article about Falun Gong outside China, but wonder whether we would also benefit from a possibly more specific article specifically about Falun Gong in China. From what I have read, there have been some significant changes to the texts of some of Li's works in translation, and specifically in later translation, and at least some of his works have never been made available in translation, although they are available in Chinese. On this basis, I think that, in fairness, we should make a specific article about Falun Gong in China, which could include information relevant to the works not translated, local history and culture of China (including Chinese traditional religion), and possibly other matters as well. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 21:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Benjamin Penny's new book addresses the question of textual differences. As I understand it, there are no major changes to the texts; the most significant one Penny noted were changes in the earliest foundational texts, and pertained only to the use of "mind intention" in the practice of Falun Gong exercises (this change was not recent, either, but occurred in the 1990s). I don't know about the untranslated works - I've seen that come up in older writings on Falun Gong, but a current comparison between Chinese and English lists of Li Hongzhi's works doesn't seem to show that anything is missing, unless I've overlooked something. The idea of an article on FG within China has merit, but what would you propose it should cover that is not discussed elsewhere? Or are you simply not concerned about redundancies? Homunculus (duihua) 21:51, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

At least some of the articles I have seen have at least implied that there are some rather significant variations in the texts, which prompted that point. Also, they had noticed that some of Li's works, like his first book, are (or were) no longer being printed in English. And, honestly, there is at least one interview with an (unnamed) FG hacker in Beijing itself in which the hacker says he believes the Tianenmen Square self-immolaters were practicing FG (I will produce the article at request). All of the above, and a few other sources, are the reasoning behind the question. And, also, honestly, there is the cultural component: Traditional Chinese religion, some of which seems to be reflected in Li's works, is probably directly relevant to FG in China, less so perhaps outside of China, where people would be less familiar with the history and might take it up as a separate, stand-alone NRM. John Carter (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I looked back through Penny. He writes that while there have been notable examples of texts being withdrawn or rewritten, in most cases the written materials have not been reedited or revised, as doing so would be tantamount to altering scripture. The examples of texts being withdrawn I think refers to Li's biography, which was removed entirely (not only in English). The rewriting seems to refer to the earliest book, which described the exercises. This text underwent reorganization and revisions in the 1990s. Anyways, given that most Falun Gong practitioners outside China are also ethnic Chinese, I'm not entirely clear why textual revisions would impact Falun Gong populations differently. Ditto with the cultural issue. One area where there is a significant divergence between Falun Gong inside and outside China is the demographics; something like two-thirds of North American practitioners hold a Masters degree or higher, while only 20-40% of Mainland practitioners have a college degree, and they skew older and female in the Mainland. The other obvious difference is in the organizational changes that were necessitated after 1999. Oh, and of course, the fact that they are suppressed in China. If we were to have an article on this subject, it would probably involve an attempt to situate FG within the broader context of qigong and Chinese religion, its history, organization, demographics in the 1990s, evolution of the relationship with the party-state, a discussion of how suppression has affected the group, and the response to suppression. Sound about right? If so, most of this stuff could be drawn from the other articles on the subject. Homunculus (duihua) 22:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

My suggestion would still be to create an article called 'History of Falun Gong'. Falun Gong is Chinese in origin and much of its significance lies within the Chinese context. I don't want to discourage the creation of an article "Falun Gong inside China" but it would seem rather redundant in the greater context. And of course, the trouble with writing about FLG 1993-99 is it will simply degenerate into another source war. The veracity of Chinese government sources will be in question - since they had an interest in suppressing the movement, and Falun Gong sources are also not reliable: given that it is inherently in Falun Gong's interest to paint themselves in the most favourable light. Because the Chinese government now restricts books and discussion about anything related to Falun Gong it is incredibly difficult to locate primary sources apart from those filtered through the Chinese government or Falun Gong websites. This means that much of the article dealing with FLG from 1993-1999 will in effect become a "he-said" "she-said" back and forth. I've read various scholarly accounts of this, including Ownby, Penny, and Zhao, and because none of them were there to experience FLG first hand when it first started growing in China, all of them choose their own weighting of these extractions from doctored primary sources to paint their own charactature of the movement.

I don't mean to be overly cynical, perhaps it is simply because of the wikitrauma inflicted on me throughout my involvement in these articles, but I still suggest that ironing out the details of the main Falun Gong page, particularly the section on "Teachings" and the section on "History", is the most important task at hand. Within the "history" section I anticipate that some 2/3 of the information will be weighted towards Falun Gong within China, and 1/3 towards Falun Gong outside of China. Colipon+(Talk) 01:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

We do have an article History of Falun Gong, actually. And I can understand how there might be objections to a separate FG in China article. However, I also think that, at least right now, there is probably a good deal of information about the recent history of FG in China, which might make the History of FG article overlong, and might be of comparatively insufficient significance to be included in that article. And I agree with the exception of a few articles from foreign press located in China, Xinhua and other Chinese sources tend to be among the few sources out there which discuss Chinese FG developments at all. John Carter (talk) 22:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falun Gong’s Theory on Male-Female Dual Cultivation.Steve Dufour (talk) 17:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

FAR

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RfC on reliability of The Epoch Times

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