A presentation of the Tai Ji Men case and a personal testimony.
by Tiffany Fang*
*A paper presented at the 2024 conference of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Reitaku University, Chiba, Japan, July 6, 2024.
As the title of my presentation says, this is an “emic view” of Tai Ji Men. I will shortly present Tai Ji Men and the Tai Ji Men legal and tax case from the point of view of an insider. I am a Tai Ji Men dizi, or disciple, and have been practicing Tai Ji Men Qigong for over 33 years. Tai Ji Men is an ancient Qigong and martial arts menpai, passed down through generations of Shifu (masters) and dizi (disciples). Each dizi must be approved by the Shifu and present a gift of respect (in a red envelope) when joining. Once accepted, the master-disciple relationship lasts a lifetime. There’s a saying, “Once a Shifu, always a father.” This bond is even stronger than family ties, making the relationship between Shifu and dizi closer than those among blood relatives.
Tai Ji Men Qigong, which is present with academies in both Taiwan and the United States, combines movements, breathing, and the intention to strengthen the body, cultivate the mind, help others, and promote Tai Ji Men culture. In martial arts, Qigong integrates with the mind and energy to display a balance of strength and gentleness. In 1999, for example, I participated in the Seafair Torchlight Parade in Seattle, USA, wielding a pair of swords. In Chinese culture, the sword is considered a gentleman’s weapon.
Since I mentioned swords, I would like to share a traditional story from thousands of years ago about Confucius and his disciple Zilu. One day, Zilu, fully armed, visited Confucius and began performing sword moves, asking, “Master, didn’t gentlemen in ancient times use swords for self-defense?” Confucius replied, “Gentlemen of ancient times pursued loyalty and righteousness and used benevolence as their protection. Even without leaving their small houses, they could understand significant events far away. When encountering malicious people, they used loyalty and faith to influence them; when facing violent intruders, they used benevolence and righteousness to calm them. In this way, why would they need to wield swords?”
In modern times, Tai Ji Men’s Shifu, Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, teaches that martial artists should embody benevolence and righteousness, helping others and using martial arts to protect themselves and the weak, not to provoke fights. The Chinese character for “martial” (武) is composed in turn of two characters meaning “stop” and “fight,” symbolizing the pursuit of peace and harmony by ending conflicts. Tai Ji Men’s Shifu also teaches to resolve internal conflicts, including greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt, which harm us and others. Tai Ji Men teaches that we must cultivate our minds to live in peace with ourselves and others.
Even when confronted with an unresolved tax case that has haunted Tai Ji Men for twenty-eight years, Shifu has consistently guided Tai Ji Men dizi to use patience and harmony, overcoming rigidity with flexibility, resolving misunderstandings with forgiveness, and illuminating others with genuine love. Following Shifu’s teachings, Tai Ji Men dizi have steadfastly pursued truth and justice with calm and without anger. In the Tai Ji Men case, it were in fact two views of morality that came into conflict with each other.
What is known as the Tai Ji Men case started in 1996 and was part of a politically motivated crackdown against spiritual movements that had not supported the ruling party Kuomintang in that year’s presidential elections. These movements, including Tai Ji Men, were accused of fraud and tax evasion. The prosecutor who launched the Tai Ji Men case, Hou Kuan-Jen, also created a media campaign depicting Tai Ji Men as a “cult” that fraudulently collected money. As a result, many dizi lost their jobs, marriages, and dignity.
Later, courts of law, up to the Supreme Court in 2007, vindicated Tai Ji Men. The criminal charges were dismissed, and the Control Yuan found Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen guilty of eight major violations of law, listing the Tai Ji Men case as a significant human rights violations case. All wrongly imprisoned defendants received state compensation for their past detention. The Control Yuan also found seven major violations by the National Taxation Bureau, which based on the criminal prosecution, and even after the Supreme Court decision favorable to Tai Ji Men, continued to issue ill-founded tax bills.
The main issue was the nature of the money offered by dizi to their Shifu in the “red envelopes.” Their content in dozens of martial arts and Qigong groups in Taiwan had always been regarded as non-taxable gifts. However, the National Taxation Bureau treated it as taxable tuition fee for an alleged, but in fact non-existent, cram school.
Eventually, after protracted litigation, the National Taxation Bureau corrected all tax bills to zero, except one for the year 1992. For that year, it maintained that a final and no longer appealable decision had been rendered against Tai Ji Men. Obviously, the content of the “red envelopes” in 1992 was the same as in the other years. However, the National Taxation Bureau used a technical argument to maintain the 1992 bill. Based on that bill, in 2020 land in Miaoli that Tai Ji Men regards as sacred was confiscated, unsuccessfully auctioned off, and finally nationalized, generating widespread protests by Tai Ji Men dizi both in Taiwan and in the United States.
Let me return to the part of my presentation that intends to be a personal testimony. Perhaps you may find it unusual in a scholarly conference, yet I believe it may usefully complement other papers. When the Tai Ji Men case started in 1996, I was a high school student. My classmates knew I practiced at Tai Ji Men and started pointing fingers at me. As a teenager, I couldn’t understand why we, who only practiced Qigong, faced such persecution. My father improved his neurological health through practice, and my mother, who had severe stomach pain and dozens of cysts in her breast recovered through Qigong. Their improved health led to better work and family life, and they even started a textile business, which was beyond our previous expectations.
After my mother joined Tai Ji Men, she began to change her temperament and her perfectionist nature. In the past, I had to attend extra classes every day after school, learning English, piano, writing, and more. Every exam required a perfect score of 100, and if I didn’t achieve that, she would harshly scold me. Since I was young, I felt suffocated by her high standards, no matter how hard I tried. It was also because of practicing Tai Ji Men that my mother began to change. She became gentler and more open-minded, allowing me to make my own choices and take responsibility for myself, instead of living the life my parents had arranged for me. Even regarding my career and marriage choices as an adult, my parents told me they believe in me and that I can do well in whatever I choose. Even if I fail, they just smile and say it’s okay. I owe all this to Tai Ji Men’s teachings, what we call the wisdom of Yin and Yang. With wisdom, we can achieve balance, and with balance, we can attain true peace—peace with ourselves and peace with others, especially with our families.
During the pandemic, like many, my family was quarantined at home (with my four- and six-year-old children). To alleviate fears of COVID-19, I used Tai Ji Men teachings to strengthen and help others, creating stories and animations like “Anti-Pandemic Battle” and “Immunity Battle,” with our family providing the voices and collaborating with a senior brother skilled in animation. Tai Ji Men’s Shifu encouraged us, saying these efforts could help many people, urging us to complete them quickly.
These animations were shown in various online forums, even to nearly 50,000 students at a Montessori school during an online conference organized in India in connection with an international meeting of Chief Justices of the world. These are examples of how we regard Tai Ji Men practice as a way not only to cultivate ourselves but to help others as well.
It has been over 28 years since the Tai Ji Men human rights persecution case began. How many periods of 28 years does a person have in a lifetime? I have grown from a young girl to a mother of two children. No matter how much time has passed, practitioners of martial arts are not afraid of persecution. We hold the sword in our hearts, believing that justice will eventually prevail.
We also hope that the government will truly respect the people’s rights to freedom of belief and cultural choices, rather than misusing public power to harass peaceful spiritual groups. We believe that the Tai Ji Men case should be finally rectified, restoring the innocence of Tai Ji Men Shifu and Dizi, and returning the cultivation site that was unlawfully confiscated.
Tiffany Fang graduated from Aletheia University in Taipei with a degree in Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science. She has worked as a procurement manager in the tech industry, and in brand marketing, and is now a freelancer producing media contents. She is a Tai Ji Men dizi (disciple).
