User:Ohconfucius/FG/Early history

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Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi on May 13, 1992, in Changchun, Jilin.^[1] Falun Dafa's development was set in the backdrop of a loosening of state control under way since the economic reforms and the ensuing social upheaval in the late 1970s. A partial rebirth of religion was permitted, albeit under elaborate rules and regulations which the government could not effectively control. Weakened by years of power struggles, a blind eye was turned on a wide swath of grey-area activities such as folk religions, and the wider Qigong movement at large.^[2]

Invited by qigong organizations from each area, Li traveled to almost all major cities in China from 1992 to 1994 to teach the practice. For the first few years of spreading Falun Gong, Li was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations^[3] to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered to be a wholesome practice. University of Montreal scholar David Ownby noted that neither Li nor Falun Gong were particularly controversial in the beginning.^[4] Li became an "instant star of the qigong movement," with his practice method celebrated at the Beijing Oriental Health Expos of both 1992 and 1993. Falun Gong was welcomed into the Scientific Qigong Research Association, which sponsored and helped organise many of Li's activities between 1992 and 1994, including the 54 large-scale lectures given throughout China in most major cities to a total audience of 20,000. The scale of the activities was unprecedented at that time.

After teaching publicly in Changchun, Li began to make his ideas more widely accessible and affordable, charging less than other qigong systems for lectures, tapes, and books.^[5] On 4 January 1995 Zhuan Falun, the main book on Falun Gong, was published and became a best-seller in China. Before 1999, people learned Falun Gong by word of mouth, and it was usually practiced in the morning in parks^[5] like many other forms of exercise in China. It attracted many retired persons, factory workers, farmers, state enterprise managers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and students.^[6]

In 1994 Falun Gong was taught at the Chinese consulate in New York, as part of the Party's "cultural propaganda to the West" alongside Chinese silk craft and cooking.^[7] The consulate at that time also set up Falun Gong clubs at MIT and Columbia University which are active to this day. Starting in 1995, Li himself taught the practice outside of China, chairing a series of conferences at the Chinese embassy in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

The Economist asserts that much of Falun Gong's success in the 1990s was due to claims that it could heal without costly medicine, as many citizens had lost medical benefits and services due to changing economic conditions.^[8] Some in China maintained that Falun Gong was the most popular qigong practice in the country, and that many professors from Peking University practised the exercises every day on the campus grounds until the crackdown in 1999.^[9]

The exact number of Falun Gong practitioners is not known. Falun Gong consistently states that there are no practitioner registers or membership. According to a New York Times article published in 1999, the PRC government estimated there were 70 million practitioners.^[10][11] Prior to the crackdown, Falun Dafa had a more elaborate organizational structure. It had "general assistance centers," usually in each province, and "assistance centers" in cities. "Assistants" teach exercises, sell cassettes and books and reserved space in public parks where adherents met to exercise.^[12] This organisational structure was infiltrated by the Public Security Bureau informants who passed on lists of assistants, who were quickly rounded up and imprisoned.^[12] It is now made up of very loose cells linked by interchangeable volunteers^[12]