My father was one of the two dizi (disciples) detained in 1996 with the leader of Tai Ji Men and his wife. Courts eventually acknowledged he was innocent.
by Peggy Chen*
*A paper presented at the CESNUR 2024 international conference, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France, June 12, 2024.
I have been practicing Tai Ji Men Qigong for thirty-seven years. I am from Taiwan and have lived in France for twenty-two years. I am also the daughter of one of the two dizi who was detained in 1996 together with our Shifu, Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, and his late wife, and want to share with you the story of the persecution my father suffered between 1996 and 1997.
Having followed this conference and this session, you all already have some understanding of Tai Ji Men.
Tai Ji Men has had a profound impact on our family. When my father was in his early thirties, he almost died from hepatitis, with his liver function index soaring to 2000 (the normal figure is 41–44). He tried various treatments, but none worked. Until 1983, when my father became a dizi (disciple) of Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, and after half a year of practicing Qigong, not only did his liver function return to normal, but his irritable temper also became gentle. My father’s health and personality were completely transformed after he started practicing Qigong.
Due to the improvement in my father’s physical and mental health at Tai Ji Men, our whole family gradually became dizi. Before practicing Qigong, my mother was always weak and often had raccoon eyes (also called panda eyes). She had to go to bed at 8 PM every night. After practicing Qigong, these conditions improved significantly. Our whole family practiced happily and often volunteered at the academies.
Then, on December 24, 1996, the Investigation Bureau searched our house. Apart from taking my sister’s Hayao Miyazaki videotapes and pulling out all her film, causing exposure, they did not find any evidence. However, my father was still taken away. They did not even have a search warrant at the time and only sent one to us later. My father was detained for four months without any evidence of unlawful behavior. During this dark period, my father was forced to endure continuous interrogations, threats, and intimidation to make a false confession. He was pressured by Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen because he insisted on the truth and refused to compromise.
On January 16, 1997, Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen used family affection to put pressure on my father. He deliberately summoned my mother and let my father see her in another detention room. Since they could not talk, my father suffered internally. Prosecutor Hou used this method to question my father about whether the Grandmaster’s skills were real. My father still said they were real. Prosecutor Hou, unable to get the answer he wanted, angrily slammed the table and said, “You claim to be a practitioner, yet you won’t save your wife who is about to be detained!” As a result, my father was detained for another two months and was not released until April 1997.
The Tai Ji Men incident had a profound impact on our entire family. My mother was forced to anticipate her retirement. I was harassed at school. My uncle in the United States called to blame my father for bringing shame to the family. In this atmosphere, my sister and I chose to leave the country.
My father had served as the CFO of well-known companies like Acer and had guaranteed loans for a Hong Kong company opening branches in Taiwan, helping them obtain bank loans. However, ironically, after the Tai Ji Men incident, the bank abruptly withdrew the loans, and my parents had to sell our house to refund them.
In March 2002, the Control Yuan brought up an investigation report, pointing out that Prosecutor Hou had exceeded his legal authority in handling the Tai Ji Men case in 1996. He violated the principle of confidentiality in investigation and engaged in illegal searches. When investigated by the Control Yuan, Prosecutor Hou himself admitted that he had made a mistake by sending official letters to the Ministry of Interior and all the local cities and county governments to ask them to dismantle Tai Ji Men academies. He also admitted that he filed the charges without sufficient investigation. It was an obvious violation of law and abuse of power. The inaction of the Ministry of Justice was chastised by the Control Yuan on December 15, 2010.
To this day, although the criminal case against Tai Ji Men ended up with all defendants declared innocent of all charges, the tax case has not been cleared, as you have heard from other speakers in this session.
And it is this long-delayed justice that is the reason I am willing to bring up this painful matter again. Since the media will not speak about it, I will tell it myself. The deepest impact of the Tai Ji Men incident on me is that I can no longer trust the government and the media. Especially as I have realized that they have not changed at all over the years. Ninety percent of the mainstream media are propaganda for the government; if something does not align with the government’s interests, mainstream media simply ignore it.
Based on my 20-plus years of observation in France, the French government also has its share of corruption and discrimination against religious minorities. But the difference between the two countries is that compared to the Taiwanese, the French are more ready to stand up and protest for cases not directly affecting them. Although some French mainstream media may also act like mouthpieces for the government, particularly when it comes to cases against religious movements stigmatized as “cults,” there are still many brave people in France willing to stand up and do the right thing.
At Tai Ji Men, Dr. Hong Tao-Tze teaches us the practice of the heart, because everything is a matter of the heart. Systems are indeed important, but systems must be implemented by people. If good people enforce a bad law, they will use their discretion. If bad people enforce a good law, they will distort the truth. The Tai Ji Men case is a good example of this principle.
By participating in this session, we hope to call on all of you to pay attention to the Tai Ji Men case and to the continuous use of tax means by the Taiwanese government to limit freedom of religion or belief, in an otherwise democratic country that presents itself as a beacon of democracy in the region.
