Forbidden
Pictures
-- Spurred by Falun Gong, a Chinese family shares
its art with Philadelphia
by Frank Rubino
That's because until recently, the Shanghai-born Dais-namely 60-year-old
Mei-Ling Dai and her 32-year-old son Tony-maintained the family tradition of
keeping their four-generations-old, $10 million treasure trove to themselves,
showing it only to other relatives and close friends.
But from next Tuesday through July 31, Phila-delphians will get the
opportunity to view 40 to 50 pieces from the collection, including meticulous
and graceful ink paintings such as Qi Baishi's Leaf and Insects and Xu
Beihong's Horse, at the Hilton Garden Inn at 11th and Arch streets.
Other renowned 19th- and 20th-century artists whose work will be featured
include Wu Changshuo, Zhang Daqian, Gao Jianfu and Li Keran.
So why have the once-private Dais opted to tour North America and share
their masterpieces with the masses?
Tony Dai, interviewed last week in Chinatown, attributes the reversal of
form to a life-threatening illness, a dramatic recovery, and most important, a
desire to fix a spotlight on an appalling violation of human rights.
Mei-Ling Dai and her son left China for Australia 16 years ago. She was
diagnosed with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease, in 1997.
She experienced hardening of the skin, severe joint pain, respiratory
problems, loss of appetite and even of the ability to open her mouth. Within
months she was bedridden. Expensive medication didn't help.
"During her third stay in the hospital," Tony Dai recalls,
"her doctor told me, 'There's nothing we can do about it. She's going to
die.'"
But in May 1997 someone asked Mei-Ling Dai (who was in Canada last week;
she'll be in Philadelphia for the show) whether she'd ever tried Falun Gong, a
tai chi-like regimen of slow-motion exercises coupled with meditation on the
principles of truth, compassion and tolerance. Though Falun Gong (also known
as Falun Dafa) is ancient, it became wildly popular in China after a
"master" published a 1993 book extolling its virtues.
Figuring she had nothing to lose, Mei-Ling Dai decided to leave the
hospital and give Falun Gong a try. And within months, Tony Dai says, his
mother's scleroderma had virtually disappeared.
"It was quite amazing," he says. "She quickly became a very
happy and very healthy lady."
Aside from regaining her health, Mei-Ling Dai experienced an ethical
epiphany that led her to see withholding her collection from the world as
selfish. So two years ago she and Tony began hosting shows in Taiwan.
Before an exhibition in Taipei, Mei-Ling Dai said, "I want to share my
collection with everyone. These works of art are valuable, but I can never
take them with me to my grave."
Tony Dai now practices Falun Gong as well, and like legions of devotees
worldwide, credits it with improving his sense of well-being.
But not everyone is enamored of Falun Gong. In 1999 China's Communist leaders, historically disdainful of anything that
involves spirituality, outlawed Falun Gong, branding it a cult movement that
threatened national stability. Since then China has detained and tortured
hundreds of thousands of practitioners, according to the Falun Gong
Information Center in New York. The center charges Beijing with murdering at
least 2,300 practitioners. "There are over 2,300 confirmed deaths, but we believe the actual
number exceeds 10,000," says center spokesperson Gail Rachlin. "This
persecution is horrific, just shocking. People are arbitrarily arrested and
sent to labor camps and mental hospitals, where they're tortured, just for
handing out pamphlets. Police officers have snatched women off the street,
beaten and raped them, and left them in the bushes, bleeding. What's happening
there is beyond the imaginations of most Americans."
The center's website (www.faluninfo.net)
features gruesome photos of a 37-year-old woman whose once-pretty face is
covered with disfiguring burns, the result, the website contends, of torture
inflicted with an electric baton at a forced labor camp. The site claims the
woman, whose name was Gao Rongrong, died from multiple injuries on June 16.
Tony Dai says he and his mother hope their shows help spread awareness of
such atrocities. He adds that the elderly granddaughter of painter Qi Baishi
(who died in 1957) is presently under arrest in China, detained several years
ago for participating in Falun Gong-related activities.
Terri Morse, a spokesperson for the Greater Philadelphia Asian Culture
Center, which is cosponsoring the shows with Tony Dai's Australia Chinese
Cultural and Art Association, says she's still amazed that anyone regards
Falun Gong as a cult.
"There's no money involved whatsoever," says Morse, a Media
resident and six-year practitioner who credits Falun Gong with helping her
recover from late-stage Lyme disease. "No one ever calls you or asks you
to come back [if you visit a place where practitioners gather, such as outside
the Liberty Bell pavilion at Fifth and Market streets every Saturday and
Sunday]. It's anything but a cult."
Regardless of your sentiments regarding Falun Gong, the show might be worth
checking out for purely artistic reasons, adds Julie Nelson Davis, assistant
professor of modern East Asian art history at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I'm not familiar with the collection or the collectors," says
Davis. "But the artists being featured are very important figures. It's
pretty rare that we get to see 19th- and 20th-century Chinese oil painting.
I'm going, absolutely."
Not
long ago the likelihood of your getting a peek at the Dai family's exquisite
collection of Chinese paintings and calligraphy would've roughly equaled your
chances of encountering Confucius on Race Street.