ATLANTA—Parrotheads were out in force. Jimmy Buffet was playing, and a throng of people in sandals, khaki shorts and Hawaiian print shirts hurried along the sidewalks towards Phillips Arena. A competing free concert throbbed at adjacent Centennial Park. Anyone entering the park on the west side saw a quiet tableau. People were meditating in neat rows, small paper lotus flowers placed on the grass beside them. They were commemorating an event few among the concert goers had heard of.
On April 25, 1999, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners visited the Appeals Office in Beijing. They were exercising an ancient right guaranteed to them as citizens; the right to appeal for redress. Premiere Zhou Rongji met with representatives of the group, and agreed to their requests—that they be allowed to practice, that the Falun Gong books should be published, and that the innocent practitioners illegally arrested be released. He could not have known his decision would be overturned and the practice banned within three months.
Atlanta Falun Gong practitioners gathered in Centennial Park to remember their fellows in China. On a square of lawn, in front of large fountains, they settled into rows. They carefully laid a line of posters that told the story of the calm event they were marking and the terrible persecution that followed it. A few of the group did not join the meditation, but stood near the posters ready to talk to passers by.
One of the Atlantans, Joy Zhou, drove many miles to the downtown park from her job in a suburban hospital. Still in her work clothes, she smiled as she explained the group's purpose to passers by. Several of the observers joined the group to learn the meditation and exercises. A lady asked if the group came here every week, and others asked where they could learn. A young man took pictures of the posters. A toddler plunked himself down on the grass and sat with the meditators.
Sherry Li, another suburban resident who traveled a distance to the park, taught the exercises As the sun begin to go down, the Atlanta Falun Gong practitioners picked up the posters, the mats, the paper flowers they had brought. They left the lawn entirely clean. Many eyewitnesses to the April 25 Appeal in Beijing have said that the people left no scrap of trash on the ground. According to one witness, a police officer in Beijing said, "This is virtue."
Falun Gong is a type of mind-body discipline in the ancient tradition of qigong exercises from China. Adherents of the practice say they discipline themselves according to the principle of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." At its peak of popularity in China during the mid to late 1990's, Falun Gong claimed over 100 million practitioners, according to some estimates.
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