华尔街日报：法轮功教主在新泽西实现美国梦（中英文）

 华尔街日报：法轮功教主在新泽西实现美国梦（中英文）

　　【《华尔街日报》1999年11月1日，记者：克莱格·史密斯（Craig S. Smith）】法轮功创始人李洪志的妻子年初在新泽西郊区终于实现了她的美国梦，李洪志说那是一个弟子作为礼物所赠并且他事后退还了，这个辩解毫无意义。

　　这座住宅位于普林斯顿大学附近，面积高达壮观的4600平方英尺，是5月份以李洪志的妻子李瑞之名购买的，恰与至少一万名李洪志的信徒围攻中国政府，示威要求正式认可的事件发生日期刚过去3周。这次北京方面宣称李洪志亲自组织的对峙引发了政府对该运动的取缔。法轮功是一种结合了吐纳运动以及佛教道教和中国神怪传说的精神运动。

　　政府把李洪志列为头号公敌并签署通缉令以抓捕他并要求国际合作遣送他回中国。星期六，该国立法机构通过一项法律禁止类似法轮功这种政府正式定性为邪教的组织，这使得这位法轮功头目有被判处死刑的可能。其时，成千的法轮功成员继续在中国首都流窜，不时发起零星的抗议活动。

　　住在美国的李洪志宣称新泽西的住宅是一位名叫孙约翰（孙军）的狂热追随者，一名灯饰制造商，瞒着他通过中介而购买的。孙坚持说他之所以付58万美元购买这房子是出于感激“通过练法轮功在健康方面受益。”他说他是在李洪志外出旅行期间让李瑞在文件上签字，并且未告知她签字的目的。

　　尽管如此，这一不动产转让事件发生在李洪志向中国发起的空前的全国性运动之时，损害了他的信誉。李洪志宣布他在全球有一亿弟子，而中国政府说他的信徒有两百多万，任何一个拥有李洪志那么大组织的领导者通常都过着舒适生活。李洪志所称他的目的是拯救人性而不是养肥自己，他的信仰系统是建立在对其古怪的说法不容置疑的忠诚的基础上的。例如，他对他的信徒说，练习法轮功会让他们的身体在亚细胞水平转变为“高能量的物质”并且能让他们中的一些人带着肉体白日飞升进入天堂。亚洲人进入一个天堂，高加索人种进入另一个天堂。

　　无论是李洪志还是孙约翰都说李洪志的妻子李瑞不会讲英文，并且表示她不会出面发表意见。孙说李洪志拒绝了这一礼物并且他从来没有在那房子里住过。孙说房契已经在7月中旬转移到他的名下，但是政府记录表明那房子到了8月份仍然是在李瑞名下。孙说他准备住到那房子里去，但是在纽约Staten岛其住所采访他的妻子（陈莉）时，她却说自己从来不知道自己的丈夫在新泽西有什么房产。

　　从5月份开始，新泽西这所房子就已经大规模装修了。屋顶上安装了两个卫星天线接收器，而且车道石子路已经整修装饰得看上去像是红色地砖。作为装修工程的收尾，承包商本月在后院里安装了一个价值两万四千美元的水泥游泳池。新车在能容纳三辆车的车库里出出进进，还见到一个十来岁的女孩在外面玩耍。 8月，一个李洪志最亲密的合作者也在此住宅露面。邻居们说他们对住在里面的人一无所知。一个住在附近的主妇说：“他们在周围是个神秘的家庭。”

　　孙以前就帮助过李洪志。1998年2月，法轮功练习者说孙军为李洪志在纽约Jacob Javitz 中心所召开的第一届美国法会支付了三万五千美元账单，那届法会上销售了李洪志的书籍和录像带。并且，孙军在Staten岛的住址被用来注册为美东法轮大法研究会，一个非营利性组织。

　　中国指控李洪志靠着讲座和卖书卖音像资料赚取了上百万美元。曾经为李洪志做过会计工作的刘桂荣向中国政府证实李洪志起码有一千万人民币的收入，约合120万美元。

　　但是今年早些时候李洪志在一次采访中声称这一指控是虚假的。他说：“我靠版税过舒服日子。”但他仍然坚持说他赚了不过几万美元。他还否认接受信徒的经济支持。

　　本周末在北京，几十名法轮功信徒因为组织扰乱社会安定的集会而被拘捕。尽管被劝告脱离非法组织留在家里，但是仍有成千上万的法轮功练习者潜入首都。中国警察已经因为无法控制该组织而感到力不从心，在拘捕过程中增加了暴力。

　　周五，一群法轮功成员在天安门广场展开呼吁中国领导人宽容的请愿书，随后，几名警察包围了他们，扭住其中一个年青人的手臂并抓住另一人的头发。周日，中国宣布该组织的4名主要成员被抓获并根据中国刑法的一些条款提出一系列严重罪行起诉。其中一项就是李昌、王治文、纪烈武和姚洁等四人被控组织“4·25”围攻。纪的妻子王晓叶（音）说自从他7月20日从床上被抓走之后就再也没见过他。

　　李洪志作为一个自称比共产党更有权威和声望的精神领袖，在北京方面持续增长的压力下，于1998年初带着他妻子和十几岁的女儿离开中国到美国。李洪志的教义吹嘘说能给人带来启迪、超能力并能从在他看来是腐败的世界中获得救度。李洪志的经文和讲法充斥着一些诸如地球上存在外星人或存在太空城市之类的奇谈怪论。

　　李洪志最初住在纽约法拉盛皇后区的一所当地修炼者租给他的公寓里。1998年6月李洪志的妻子在皇后区的一个安静街区购买了一所根据皇后区记录价值29.35万美元的房子。一个象征吉祥幸运的红色中国符贴在这所金色砖结构连栋小洋楼的门上。李洪志承认这房子是他自己的。

　　李洪志和他妻子以前可是一穷二白——他俩在中国东北吉林省的国营粮食部门工作，每年的收入都不超过500美元，直到李洪志1992年辞了工作开始四处讲课。九十年代末，他在北部吸引了很多人听他的讲座。北京政府指控他就是在那里发家的。在政府展示过的一张1994年讲法手写账单显示，李洪志在那次讲法中至少赚取了1万美元，政府借此质疑李洪志这个精神领袖的信誉。

　　李洪志及其亲密伙伴说这些文件都是伪造的并称经过举办讲座的政府机构提成和支付花费之后他很难从讲法班里获得收益。而且，尽管北京方面指控李洪志从出售那些被信徒奉为圣经的书中赚得更饱，他仍然坚持说在中国所卖的书都是盗版因而他没有得到任何钱。

　　实际上，李洪志所有的经文都可以从网络上获取。但是练习者说，仍有一些信徒无法下载和打印的资料。个别信徒从出版商那里批发书籍，大多数人再从他们手里购买。中国政府在九十年代中期禁了李的书，因此绝大多数出版商停止了发行。

　　在中国之外，练习者仍然继续从一个李洪志在香港成立的法轮佛法公司买书。李洪志在美国的第一批弟子之一也是为李洪志租下皇后区公寓的James Pang描述了他和其他弟子如何定期用Pang的信用卡从法轮大法出版社购买东西。当我们询问他买一本书要多少钱时，他翻开李洪志的一本书指了一下封底上面的零售标价，11.25美元。他按成本价向别的弟子卖书。

　　中国政府的论战只能从经济上帮助李洪志。充当李洪志主要翻译之一的张尔平说李洪志的书从来都不缺出版商。他补充说，李洪志的书还销售到日本以及世界其他市场。

　　李洪志已经在美国注册了一个名为安吉拉的出版有限公司，其地址是Pang和张尔平以前的住址。这俩人都说目前这个公司还没有开始运作，因此李洪志的法轮佛法出版社生意相当可观。李洪志拒绝透露该公司所发行书籍的数量。

American dream finds Chinese spiritual leader

By: Craig S. Smith

Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, NY Nov 1, 1999. pg. A.41

Falun Dafa founder Li Hongzhi's wife got her piece of the American Dream in a New Jersey suburb earlier this year, though Mr. Li says it was paid for by a follower as a gift that was later returned.

The imposing 4,600-square-foot manse near Princeton University was purchased in the name of Mr. Li's wife, Li Rui, in May, just three weeks after more than 10,000 of Mr. Li's followers surrounded China's leadership compound to petition for official recognition. That confrontation, which Beijing alleges was organized by Mr. Li, triggered a government campaign to eradicate the movement, also known as Falun Gong. The spiritual regimen combines breathing exercises with elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese mysticism.

The government declared Mr. Li Public Enemy No. 1, issued a warrant for his arrest and asked Interpol for help in returning him to China. On Saturday, the country's legislature passed a law banning groups such as Falun Dafa, which Beijing has officially designated a cult, potentially making its leaders subject to the death penalty. Meanwhile, thousands of Falun Dafa members continue to circulate in the capital, mounting scattered protests.

Mr. Li, who lives in the US, said through an intermediary that the New Jersey home was purchased for him without his knowledge by one of his most ardent followers, a lampshade manufacturer named John Sun. And Mr. Sun confirmed that he paid $580,000 for the house out of gratitude for the great health benefit that I have obtained through practicing Falun Gong. He said the purchase was made while Mr. Li was traveling and that he had Mrs. Li sign the paperwork without telling her what it was for.

Nonetheless, the real-estate transaction occurred when Mr. Li was battling an unprecedented national campaign by China to discredit him. While the leader of any group as large as Mr. Li's -- he claims 100 million followers world-wide while China says his following there numbers little more than two million -- would be expected to live well, Mr. Li's claim that he aims to save humanity rather than enrich himself cuts to the core of his belief system, which depends on unquestioning faith in his strange pronouncements. He teaches followers, for example, that practicing Falun Dafa will transform their bodies into high-energy matter at the submolecular level and allow some of them to fly, bodily, to heaven. Asians will fly to one heaven, Caucasians to another.

Both Mr. Li and Mr. Sun said Mr. Li's wife doesn't read or speak English, and she couldn't be reached for comment. The men said Mr. Li refused the gift and has never lived in the house. Mr. Sun said the title was transferred to his name in mid-July, though county records listed Mrs. Li as the owner of the house in August. Mr. Sun said he plans to live in the house, though his wife, reached at the Suns' home in New York City's Staten Island, said she doesn't know of any New Jersey house owned by her husband.

There have been extensive renovations made to the New Jersey house since May. Two satellite television dishes have been installed on the roof and the driveway's macadam has been stamped and painted to look like red paving bricks. Contractors this month put the finishing touches on a $24,000 gunite swimming pool in the backyard. New cars glide in and out of the three-car garage and a teenage girl has been seen playing outside. In August, one of Mr. Li's closest associates was also seen at the home. Neighbors say they know nothing of the people living there. They're the mystery family in this neighborhood, says a housewife who lives nearby.

Mr. Sun has helped Mr. Li before. In February 1998, fellow practitioners say Mr. Sun picked up the $35,000 tab at New York's Jacob Javitz center where Mr. Li's followers held the first US Falun Dafa Convention -- a conference of believers at which Mr. Li's books and video tapes were sold. And Mr. Sun's Staten Island address is the registered address for the Eastern US Buddha's Study (Falun Dafa) Association, a nonprofit organization that followers say isn't active.

China has charged that Mr. Li earned millions of dollars from lecture fees and the sale of his books and videotapes in China. Liu Guirong, who claims to have worked as an accountant for Mr. Li earlier this decade, told China's state media that in 1997 Mr. Li had an income of more than 10 million yuan, or about $1.2 million

But in interviews earlier this year, Mr. Li said those charges were false. I make a comfortable living off the royalties of my books, he said, but insisted estimates that he has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars are far too high. He also denied receiving any financial support from his followers.

Back in Beijing this weekend, dozens more followers were arrested as the group continued a week-long exercise in civil disobedience. Thousands of practitioners of Falun Dafa have infiltrated the capital despite being told to quit the outlawed group and stay home. The country's police, meanwhile, have grown increasingly violent in their arrests, frustrated by their inability to quash the group.

On Friday, teams of police rounded up scattered groups of Falun Dafa members at Tiananmen Square, twisting the arm of one young man and dragging another by the hair after the men unveiled a petition appealing to Chinese leaders for tolerance. And Sunday, China announced that four key members of the group have been officially arrested and charged with a series of serious crimes under various articles of China's Criminal Law. Among other things, the four, Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, Ji Liewu and Yao Jie, are charged with organizing the April 25 demonstration. Mr. Ji's wife, Wang Xiaoye, said she hasn't seen her husband since he was taken from his bed by police on July 20.

Mr. Li left China for the US with his wife and teenage daughter in early 1998 after coming under increasing pressure from Beijing because of his growing popularity as a spiritual leader who claimed higher authority than the Communist Party. Mr. Li's teachings promise enlightenment, supernatural powers and salvation from what he sees as a corrupt world. His writings and lectures are laced with such claims as the presence of aliens on Earth or the existence of cities in outer space.

He moved initially to an apartment in New York City's Flushing, Queens, rented for him by a group of followers there. And in June 1998 his wife bought a residence in a quiet Queens neighborhood for $293,500, according to Queens County records. A red Chinese poster signifying good luck is pasted on the door of the blond-brick townhouse. Mr. Li acknowledges that the home is his.

Both Mr. Li and his wife come from poor beginnings -- until Mr. Li left to begin his spiritual teaching in 1992, he and his wife each earned less than $500 a year at a state-owned grain company in northeastern China's Jilin province. By the late 1990s, though, he was drawing huge crowds to his lectures in northern China. Beijing charges that his income rocketed from there; among the documents the government has presented in its efforts to discredit the spiritual leader are handwritten accounts of one 1994 lecture series that list profits of more than $10,000.

Mr. Li and his closest associates say those documents are fabrications and that there was hardly any profit from his China lectures after splitting revenue with the government agency that sponsored them and then paying expenses. And though Beijing alleges that Mr. Li profited even more handsomely off the sale of his books, which followers regard as their bible, he claims most of the books sold in China are pirated editions for which he received no money.

In fact, all of Mr. Li's writings are available for free on the Internet. But few followers go through the trouble of downloading and printing the tomes, followers say. Most purchase Mr. Li's books through his followers, who buy them in bulk from publishers. China banned Mr. Li's writings in the mid-1990s and most of the publishers there have since been shut down.

Outside China, though, followers continue to buy books from Falun Fo Fa Publishing Co., a Hong Kong company set up by Mr. Li. James Pang, who was among Mr. Li's first followers in the US and helped rent the Queens apartment for Mr. Li, describes how he and other followers consolidate orders and make periodic purchases from Falun Fo Fa Publishing, paying with Mr. Pang's personal credit card. When asked how much he pays for each book, Mr. Pang opens a copy of one of Mr. Li's texts and points to the $11.25 listed retail price on the back page. He sells the books to other followers at cost.

The controversy in China will only help Mr. Li financially. Zhang Erping, who acts as one of Mr. Li's chief translators, says there is no shortage of publishers eager to issue Mr. Li's texts. Mr. Li's books are sold out in Japan and other markets around the world, he adds.

Mr. Li has also registered a publishing company in the US, Angela Publishing Co., whose address is Mr. Pang and Mr. Zhang's former home. The two men say the publisher isn't operating and so, for the time being, Mr. Li's Falun Fo Fa Publishing has the bulk of the business. Mr. Li declined to comment on the number of books published by the company.

(Wall Street Journal, November 1, 1999)