Tai Ji Men’s heart Kung Fu inspires both the global promotion of peace, love, and conscience, and the fight for tax and legal reform in Taiwan.
by Rebecca Wang*
*A paper presented at the CESNUR 2024 international conference, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France, June 12, 2024.
I work as a project coordinator in a consulting institute. I am also a dizi (disciple) of Tai Ji Men and have been practicing Qi Gong and self-cultivation with the Shifu (Grand Master) of Tai Ji Men, Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, for over 28 years.
Before discussing the Tai Ji Men legal and tax case, I will say a few words about my experience as a dizi. When I was one-year-old, my father took our family to Tai Ji Men to practice Qi Gong and self-cultivation with our Shifu, Dr. Hong. I have been following my Shifu and participating in several international Tai Ji Men events to promote love, peace, and conscience, including in India, Austria, Australia, and the United States. In my college years, I also joined the Tax and Legal Reform League as a volunteer, advocating for human rights for taxpayers, and the need for officials to implement good policies and good administration in accordance with the law in order for people to live and work in peace and happiness.
A speech called “A World of One Heart, A Well-spring of Happiness,” delivered by my Shifu in San Francisco in 1999, mentioned that “I hope that my dizi will spread to every corner of the world what they have learned, the goodness and the good experiences that they have acquired. Tai Ji Men is the heart of ancient qigong and martial arts. After learning Tai Ji Men’s heart Kung Fu, each dizi acquires both martial arts and moral virtues, and a combination of civil and martial arts.”
It is as a consequence of this project that I got the chance to attend the 18th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World in India with Shifu, promoting the Tai Ji Men message of love and peace. I met a judge from Bosnia and Herzegovina called Mirsada. She had experienced wars in her country when she was a child. Therefore, she could understand the importance of peace education, and how it would affect the children of her country. She also shared her experience of being a judge in a tormented country. She said that a decision from a judge in this situation could dramatically affect a person’s life, so she always made judgments very cautiously.
In April 2023, I went to Australia and participated with my brothers and sisters in an event at The University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney. We sang a song called “We Can Change the World” and shared the words of what our Shifu had said to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005: “No love, no peace. Peace needs love, and love needs to be balanced.” We only sang one song at that moment, nonetheless, I did feel that we were in our own way messengers from heaven, and we came there to deliver this message: we can change the world if we follow our conscience. After singing, a law student from the Republic of Sierra Leone shared his thoughts with us: “I think once you guys went to the front of that stage, and when you started singing, it not only touched the persons of mind, but you are touching their souls. It is a reflection of what the world needs today, a platform where we can all accommodate each other, regardless of what our differences are.”
While Tai Ji Men dizi spread the seeds of love and peace to the world, however, the government in Taiwan continues to infringe on their freedom of belief through this long tax persecution. As you have heard in this conference, in August 2020, the National Taxation Bureau joined forces with the Administrative Enforcement Agency and seized, auctioned off, and nationalized land belonging to Dr. Hong, which was intended to be the site for a Tai Ji Men self-cultivation center. This generated widespread street protests that still continue to this day. Tai Ji Men has also been supported by leading Taiwanese and international human rights experts and scholars.
In fact, several experts believe that there are systemic problems in Taiwan in how the National Taxation Bureau operates. As a volunteer for the Tax and Legal Reform League, I learned that not only do Tai Ji Men dizi suffer from legal tax persecution, just as Stella Lin mentioned, but also many tax victims in Taiwan have lost their social positions and even their families because of a wrong tax bill, coupled with a lack of awareness of the human right to a legal taxation and the malfunctioning of the system of remedies. This is a serious structural problem.
I have always been an introvert. What caused me to take to the streets, no matter whether it was rainy or sunny? It is all because of the good that I learned in Tai Ji Men, the love for our country, and the sympathy for the tax victims. No citizens should live under tax and legal injustice from their own democratic governments.
I was one-year-old when the Tai Ji Men case started in 1996. It was not until I grew up that I realized how much pressure and discrimination were exerted against us through media slander. Some of the dizi were mocked by their teachers and classmates at school; some were roared at by pedestrians when going for dinner; some, the breadwinners in the families, even lost their jobs. Nonetheless, our Shifu still told us to love our country and to insist on doing the right things. We are willing to pay the taxes that should be paid. However, we will not pay the taxes that should not be paid.
Tai Ji Men presented a cultural performance in the 2017 Universiade in Taipei. The sword dance shown at the performance symbolized righteousness, justice protection, settling conflicts, and the hope of building a new world of love and peace. The spirit of the Sword of the Justice also exists in the heart of every Tai Ji Men dizi. Because of love, we insist on truth and justice, and would never compromise on the wrong. All along the way, Shifu teaches us about one word: truth. Tax and legal reform is not the easiest and the fastest way. However, it is the most correct way to promote the advancement of Taiwan’s legal and tax environment. It is also the way to strive for a sound rule of law and justice for all.
This April, I went to the United States with Shifu, my brothers and sisters to hold a “Concert of Gratitude & Blessings—Illuminating the Light of Peace” in the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State Los Angeles to commemorate our beloved Shimu, Madam Yu, Mei-Jung, the late wife of our Shifu, who devoted herself to promoting conscience, love, and peace. I performed the peacock dance and angel dance with my sisters. In Tai Ji Men Culture, peacock is a celestial creature. When it descends, it would flaunt its tail and bestow blessings to all living beings. All those who see it are blessed.
Because physical coordination is difficult for me, I need to practice harder to deliver the spirit of peacock and inevitably experience frustration during practice. Nonetheless, a sister shared the peacock spirit that Shifu had taught her: “The peacocks could taste all kinds of poisons and exhale fragrance, thus there is no fear.” It made me realize that no matter how many difficulties there are in life, as long as we have a fearless heart, we can overcome the obstacles and transform into a better version of ourselves.
Our way to insist on tax reform and justice is exactly the practice of the peacock’s spirit in our daily lives. Although suffering from state harassment, we still promote the taxpayers’ rights and tax reform peacefully. It is all because we would not abandon the practitioners’ truth of right and wrong, would not submit to rogue bureaucrats and tax injustice in Taiwan and would not want more people to suffer from the violations of law.
The Tai Ji Men culture guides us to insist on truth and justice. Because we love our country, we do not submit to the injustices of the tax system in Taiwan; because we love the world, we travel to all five continents to spread the seeds of love and peace. We call on the Taiwan authorities to correct their past mistakes, implement transitional justice, rectify the Tai Ji Men case, establish a sound legal and tax system, and truly guarantee the protection of human rights.
Rebecca Wang graduated from National Chung Hsing University with a double major in Environmental Science and International Agribusiness and Soil and Environmental Science. After graduation, she worked as a manager in a technology company and developed an interest in how problems with tax laws in Taiwan affect both corporations and not-for-profit organizations such as Tai Ji Men, and became active in the Tax and Legal Reform League.
