{"id":201,"date":"2007-10-23T16:00:37","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=201"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:30:14","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:30:14","slug":"place-falun-gong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/10\/23\/place-falun-gong\/","title":{"rendered":"Place Falun Gong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/christopherdewolf\/1583024193\/\"><img src='http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2157\/1583024193_ea26b3b8c9.jpg?v=0' alt='falungong.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/christopherdewolf\/1503185499\/\"><img src='http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2333\/1503185499_0e1be645af.jpg?v=0' alt='falungong2.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Place Sun Yat Sen, a small square in the heart of Montreal&#8217;s Chinatown, is almost perenially occupied by members of Falun Gong, a psuedo-religious spiritual movement that originated in 1992 in China. Banned seven years later by the Chinese government, which insisted that it was a cult and devoted itself rather heavy-handedly to crushing it, Falun Gong has earned supporters and followers worldwide. <\/p>\n<p>Here in Montreal, its members are a common sight on downtown streets, where they hand out pamplets explaining the movement&#8217;s philosophy and outlining the tactics used against it by the Chinese government, which allegedly include arrest, torture and systematic organ harvesting. In Sun Yat Sen Square, a diverse collection of Falun Gong followers can usually be found practicing meditation exercises next to posters that outline their group&#8217;s persecution in China.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s common for advocacy groups to lay claim to specific bits of public space. I&#8217;m reminded of the <a href=\"http:\/\/media.www.mcgilltribune.com\/media\/storage\/paper234\/news\/2005\/09\/20\/News\/Exclusive.Interview.The.Man.We.Love.To.Hate-991688.shtml\">bizarre protester<\/a> who picketed McGill University&#8217;s Roddick Gates every day for more than a year, hosting signs with messages that many considered to be anti-Semitic. (His goal, he said, was to protest his &#8220;wrongful dismissal&#8221; from the Jewish General Hospital and to &#8220;enlighten the global Jewish community of the virtues of Christianity.&#8221;) In Vancouver, the wall of the Chinese consulate is home to a perennial protest against China&#8217;s control of Tibet.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of permanent protests might seem a nuisance to some, but I think they are perfectly legitimate, no matter how strange or unsavoury their message. After all, the beauty of public space is that it&#8217;s public. <\/p>\n<p>The Falun Gong people in Chinatown seem especially mindful of that. They never interfere with the many special events that take place there, they pack up their stuff at sundown every evening and they even lent a hand during last month&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/?p=72\">Chinatown Clean Up<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbanphoto.net\/blog\/2007\/10\/20\/place-falun-gong\/\">Crossposted from Urbanphoto<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Place Sun Yat Sen, a small square in the heart of Montreal&#8217;s Chinatown, is almost perenially occupied by members of Falun Gong, a psuedo-religious spiritual movement that originated in 1992 in China. Banned seven years later by the Chinese government, which insisted that it was a cult and devoted itself rather heavy-handedly to crushing it,<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/10\/23\/place-falun-gong\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Place Falun Gong&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7831,7839,3537],"tags":[7,319,53,885,884,459,881,882,377,883,125,49,880,148],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-neighbourhoods","category-parks","tag-behaviour","tag-china","tag-chinatown","tag-chinese-consulate","tag-chinese-government","tag-falun-gong","tag-in-sun-yat-sen-square","tag-jewish-general-hospital","tag-mcgill-university","tag-meditation","tag-montreal","tag-squares-and-parks","tag-tibet","tag-vancouver"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Place Falun Gong - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/10\/23\/place-falun-gong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Place Falun Gong - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Place Sun Yat Sen, a small square in the heart of Montreal&#8217;s Chinatown, is almost perenially occupied by members of Falun Gong, a psuedo-religious spiritual movement that originated in 1992 in China. 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