Body, Discourse, and the Cultural Politics of Contemporary Chinese Qigong Author(s): Jian Xu Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1999), pp. 961-991 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2658492 . Accessed: 17/06/2014 21:32

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This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Body,Discourse, and the CulturalPolitics of ContemporaryChinese Qigong JIAN XU

M4ANY ASIANCULTURES HAVE RICH traditions of self-cultivationthat exercise mind and bodythrough physical and meditationaltraining. Research and scholarshipwith respectto thosetraditions have focusedfruitfully on how the body is cultivatedto serveas an agentof resistanceagainst various forms of social control.Of thesemany writingson thissubject, I will herename only a suggestivefew: Joseph Alter's study of Indian wrestling (1993), for example, tracks the wrestlers'self-conscious reappropriationof theirbodies fromthe power of the state througha regimented disciplineaimed at resistingdocility. John Donohue's studyof theJapanese martial art karate(1993) exploreshow, in the West, karate'ssymbolic and ritualfunctions createa psychologicaldynamic that countersthe prevalentfragmentation of urban life.Douglas Wile's researchon Chinesetaiji quan (1996) similarlyreconstructs the cultural/historicalcontext in whichthis martial art was created.He showsthat what motivatednineteenth-century literati to create taiji quan was its representational functionrather than its practicalutility. That is, Taiji quan "may be seen as a psychologicaldefense against Western culturalimperialism" (p. 26) insofaras it produced a secure sense of the national self that helped China adapt to a new internationalenvironment (p. 29). All of thesestudies place the body-in-cultivation in a specifichistorical context; they maintain that the individual,physical body both registersand revealsthe nationalsociopolitical landscape. Chineseqigong is yetanother form of Asian bodilycultivation that invites critical analysisand culturalsituating. Although there are as yet fewsuch studies,at least twoarticles deserve citation. One is ThomasOts's study(1994) ofspontaneous-qigong. 1 Ots too posits the body as culturallyinscribed and constructed,but in additionhe exploreshow, being set freefrom cultural constraints by qigongpractice, the bodycan expressthe emotional self repressedby the state. Likewise,Nancy Chen (1995)

JianXu is a Ph.D candidatein ComparativeLiterature at The Universityof Iowa. I would like to thankMaureen Robertson, Deborah Linderman,and the two anonymous reviewersofJAS fortheir valuable help at differentstages of my writing. 'Ots firsttranslates zifa donggong8 a4)i to "qigongof spontaneousmovements." Later, he calls it "spontaneous-qigong."Ots describesbriefly how it occursand what it is like (1994, 122). Generally,"spontaneous-qigong" refers to bodily movementsthat occur when qigong practitionersenter a trance-likestate in whichthey still retaina clearconsciousness but accede to theirinvoluntary bodily impulses.

TheJournalof Asian Studies58, no. 4 (November1999):961-991. (? 1999 by the Associationfor Asian Studies,Inc.

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This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 962 JIAN XU examinesqigong practice both as a new space of privateexperience and a new formof urban interactionthat transcendthe constraintsof the state. Both of these studies point to a ratherintense political struggletaking place aroundqigong practice. On one side ofthis struggle, the commonpractitioners of qigong embrace the spontaneous natureof its practiceand use it as a strategyto dissociatetheir bodies fromstate controland power;on the otherside of the struggle,the statebureaucracy attempts to lead qigongpractitioners into "some realmof state-approvedcultural values" (Ots 1994, 132) and to "harnessthe immense and unexplainablepower of qigong by creating boundariesof legitimatescientific enterprise while appropriatingits use for an officiallymediated public sphere"(Chen 1995, 360). Those "state-approvedcultural values" referto suchmental qualities as "control,quietness, relaxation, and harmony" (Ots 1994, 132-33), whichare seen to oppose the involuntaryarousal of spontaneous movementsthat might in their unpredictabilitythreaten the state's cultural hegemony.As the state sets up limits to normalize"scientific" and "authentic" practicesand to stigmatize"false" and "superstitious"ones, qigong loses its emotional contentas "a culturalmetaphor" through which many can expresstheir feelings (Ots 1994, 133). The recentgovernmental suppression of Falun Gong fullybears out thepolitical natureof the strugglediscussed by Ots and Chen. The Falun Gong practitioners' peacefulprotest at theZhongnanhai government complex, as well as thegovernment's reactionto it, tell much about how the "public sphere"is differentlyconceived by the practitionerson the one hand and the stateon the other.What the practitioners wantis theright to practicea formof qigong they believe in withoutstate intervention. Qigonghas claimedthe bodyas a space of privateexperience and its practicea public space independentof the state'scontrol. On the otherside, however,the government still views the embodiedspace of qigongto be subjectto its regulationprecisely due to itspublic nature.The practiceof assigning different cultural values to variouskinds of qigongpractice is the government'sstrategy to gain controlover the new public space. The Falun Gong practitioners'sit-in protest itself was an attemptto use the public space as a legitimate sphere in which to voice their discontentwith governmentalinterference, whereas the governmentconstrued the public space as a spherein which only statepower is to be exercised.The subsequentgovernmental campaignto stigmatizeFalun Gong,as counteredby the sympathizers' protest, almost uncannilygives proof to thepattern of the struggle described in thesetwo early studies by Ots and Chen. However,even at thetime Ots and Chen werewriting, the qigong re (qigong craze), whichwas originallydefined by the attractionsof spontaneousqigong, was in factall but obsolete, since many schools of qigongpractice had become institutionally regulated.2Yet, interestingly,even though the state bureaucracyseems to have penetratedthe fieldof practice,the struggleover qigong nevertheless continued on a discursivelevel into the 1990s.3 Situatedboth in scientificresearches on qigongand in the prevailingnationalistic revival of traditionalbeliefs and values,this discursive

2Chen writes: "By late 1990 the state regulatorybureau furtherenforced regulations concerningthe strictlicensing of mastersand registrationof practitioners"(1995, 356-57). 3Theqigong craze ended when spontaneous-qigongwas stigmatizedand suppressedby the regulationof the state organizations.Ots writes:"Without spontaneous-qigong,the 'qigong craze' would not have come into existence"(1994, 131). Take Falun Gong forexample: al- thoughafter the protestthe state declaredFalun Gong illegal, controversycontinues with respectto its moral/culturalvalues. Articlesdefending and denouncingstate suppression con- tinueto appear,only the battlefieldhas now becomeglobal, thanksto the World Wide Web.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 963 strugglehas articulateditself as an intellectualdebate and enlistedon both sides a host of well-knownwriters and scientists-so much so that a veritablecorpus of literatureon qigongresulted. In it, two conflictingdiscourses became identifiable. Taking "discourse"in its contemporarysense as referringto formsof representation thatgenerate specific cultural and historicalfields of meaning,we can describeone such discourse as rational and scientificand the other as psychosomaticand metaphysical.Each strivesto establishits own orderof power and knowledge,its own "truth"about the "reality"of qigong.However, both these discoursesconfirm the extraordinaryhealing power of qigong,although they differdrastically in their explanationsof manyof its phenomena.The controversycenters on the questionof whetherand how qigongcan induce"supranormal abilities" (Qf, I) teyigongneng). The psychosomaticdiscourse emphasizes the inexplicablepower of qigong and relishes its occult workings,whereas the rationaldiscourse strives to demystifymany of its phenomenaand to situateit strictlyin the knowledgesof modernscience. The materialexistence of each of thesediscourses can be ascertainedat two sites of the social field.The firstsite is that of the institution,which connectsqigong to economicand publicprocesses.4 The secondsite is theindividual body, which connects qigongto the realm of experienceand desire.5Let us deal firstthen with the institutionalizationofqigong. The name"qigong, " referring to a discretegroup of health exercisesthat cultivate qi, has a rathershort history. According to Lin Housheng,a doctorwho wroteQigong xue (Qigong studies, 1988), who inventedqigong anesthesia, and who himselfwas a qigongmaster, it was not until 1953, when Lui Guizhen's Qigongliaofa shijian (Practice of qigong therapy) was published,that the word "qigong" was firstused to designatea groupof discrete qi exerciseswhich had had no standard meaningbefore (1988, 2-3). The use of the word "qigong"was officiallysanctioned and the newcategory of qigong formally inaugurated on July15, 1979, whenthe State Council held a conferenceon the resultsof variousqi exercisesapplied in medicine (Lin 1988, 3). Because the institutionalizationof modernqigong goes hand in hand with the massivereorganization of traditionalmedicine in the 1950s, it cannotbe studiedseparately from this social use. That qigongcan claim a much longerhistory, however,is due to the factthat its meaningwas fixedretrospectively. Its namingin the 1950s and its invocationin the 1980s reveal social relationsof power and ideological subject formationsin the People's Republic. The social historyof the variousqi exercisesbeing unifiedinto qigongalso tells a social historyof the body,a historyof embodimentprecisely of differentbeliefs and ideologiesas body becomes entangledwith discourse.For qigongis empoweredby discoursejust as it empowers the body.Its bodilyempowerment reflects the post-Maoistsubject's desire for a new body, one that is not subject to state power with its post-Maoistinauguration of economism.Yet this desirebelongs to the orderof a "politicalunconscious" that is not a formationof discourse or representation,but ratherthe very existential experienceof the body. As PierreBourdieu tells us: "The body believesin what it

4Foucaultposits that any statement, which he definesas the"elementary unit of discourse," "must have a materialexistence" and thatthis materialexistence constructs the identityof a statementwhich "varieswith a complexset of materialinstitutions" (1972, 80, 100, 103). Foucaultalso recognizes"non-discursive" material institutions and "economicand social pro- cesses" which are "real or primary"(1972, 45). The study of qigongdiscourse is therefore necessarilyconnected with studiesof economicand social processes. 5BothOts and Chen, forexample, reveal a phenomenologicalunderstanding of the body that sees the body not merelyas an inscribedsurface of historyand society,but as a living body withperceptions, experience, emotions, and a psychicalinterior.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 964 JIAN XU playsat: it weepsif it mimesgrief. It does not representwhat it performs,it does not memorizethe past, it enactsthe past, bringingit back to life. What is 'learnedby body' is not somethingthat one has, like knowledgethat can be brandished,but somethingthat one is" (1990, 73). In this sense,qigong, with its attendantbeliefs, does actuallyproduce material changes for people who believein and practiceit. In this essay,I will attemptto reconstructthe cultural-ideologicalcontext in which qigongpractice and discourse are historicallyformed. Focusing on the intersectionof qigongdiscourse and the politicizedbody, I will examineboth the discursiverepresentations of qigong and theirembodiment in practice.My conclusion will complicatethe image of qigongemergent in the respectivestudies of Ots and Chen. Instead of construingthe conflictssurrounding qigong only in termsof state controland personalresistance, I will delineatethe ideological nature of those conflicts. That is, since both the scientificand the psychosomaticdiscourses represent a form of practical knowledge "lived" by the body, both articulate "the imaginary relationshipof individuals to theirreal conditions of existence" (Althusser 1971, 162). Afterall, the currentgovernmental suppression of Falun Gong is not widely disapproved.That the government'sisolation of Falun Gong as a superstitiouscult and its mobilizationof mass criticismagainst it are effectiveat least indicatesthat thereis some forceof mediationbetween state control and popularresistance. That forcethat mediatesbetween state and societyis what we shall examinehere: the culturalpolitics mobilized through the embodied discourses. This essaywill conclude that the discoursesof both sides-that of the psychosomaticand that of the scientific-respondto the particularcrises of Chinese modernity.My point of departureis a newspaperreport having to do withqigong's discursive construction.

Qigong'sDifficult Romance with Science

Two yearsbefore his death in 1986, MasterHaideng, a Shaolin Temple monk famousin China forhis martialarts skills, said to Chongqingribao's (Chongqing daily) news reporterAo Dalun: "You shouldgive coverageto Yan Xin. Averagepeople do not understandhis methods,but you can emphasizehis curativeeffects. The resthad betterbe leftto the future"(Ao Dalun 1986, 1).6 Yan Xin, thenthirty-five years old, was MasterHaideng's studentand a doctor ofChinese traditional medicine. He was also a famousfigure; stories of his miraculous curativepowers were spread in SichuanProvince by word of mouthuntil the media started to give him wider publicity. Ao Dalun's article, "Xianshi he women shenbiandeshenhua" (Reality and themyth beside us), publishedin 1986, is an early account,based on detailedinterviews with Doctor Yan's patients,which records what Yan Xin can do withhis qigong.One ofhis best-knowncases was thatof a caraccident victimwhose resultant compound multiple fractures of the shoulderblades had been pronouncedirreversibly disabling. When firstseen by Yan Xin, the patient had alreadybeen in a cast fora month,unable to move a finger.Upon examiningthe x- rays,Yan Xin immediatelyuntied the patient'sbandages. He massagedthe patient's back forseveral minutes, then left him lyingon the bed forhalf an hour.When Yan Xin returned,he told thepatient to get up and do push-upsand chin-ups.The young

6All citationsfrom Chinese sources in this essay are my translationsunless indicated otherwise.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 965 man, despitehis astonishment,did as he was told, neverthelessfeeling that he was throwinghis life away. However,he foundhimself cured and able to returnto his factoryand to do heavywork as before.The x-rayslater taken in an armyhospital showedthat the fracturelines had almost completelydisappeared (Ao Dalun 1986, 2-3). Despite theirdegree of detail, reportslike this still soundedfalse to manywho had not seen Yan Xin workwith theirown eyes.Medical doctorsissued the firmest refutations.Wen Cong, a reporterfrom the magazineQigong and Science,reported this reactionin "Afterthe Publicationof 'Realityand the MythBeside Us'" (1987, 6-8), but, as if to counteractthe refutations,his articlealso carriestwo letters:one is from a retiredparty cadre who, on the basis of his own investigationof Yan Xin's patient, arguesthat everything Ao Dalun sayswas true;the other is froman elementaryschool teacherin Beijing who tells how she was curedby Yan of herobstinate back trouble in one visit. Her storyis uncannyinasmuch as she reportsthat the doctorcured her by firsttalking to herand thenreleasing qi to herfrom the nextroom after she had been inducedto sleep. The articleconcludes with Master Haideng's words:"The rest had betterbe leftto the future." Yan Xin himself,however, seems not entirelywilling to leave the rest to the future,for a yearafter Ao Dalun's report,he offeredto join in the lab experimentsof scientistsin Qinghua Universityin Beijing. These experimentswere intended to find out whetherqi can be releasedby the humanbody and what effectit could have on materialobjects outside the body. The resultsof theseexperiments appeared in six papers,which were highlypraised by severalwell-known Chinese scientists.In the book Yan Xin qigongxianxiang (Yan Xin qigongphenomena, Li Lun 1989), Qian Xuesen,one such esteemedscientist, writes:

In termsof content these experiments are the first of their kind in theworld. They haveirrefutably proved that the human body can exertinfluence on matterwithout touchingit, and can changethe structure and propertiesof molecules.There has neverbeen work like this before. They should be publishedimmediately so as to let theworld know our achievement. They are newscientific discoveries; they are the forerunnerofa scientificrevolution. (quotedin Li Lun 1989,209-10)

Nor is Yan Xin's case unique, but ratherit typifiesthe practiceof all those qigong masterswho in the 1980s came out to displaytheir incredible feats. Being thoseof a medicaldoctor, Yan's curesare more spectacular and convincing.However, there were manyothers who, performing equally unimaginablefeats, attracted masses of people to studyqigong under them, even thoughthey had much less publicitythan Yan. About qigong'sgrowing popularity, however, not everybodyis happy. Certain reportsof qigongfeats reveal that therehas been some deceptionof the public. Two well-knownqigong masters were arrested in 1995 forswindling.7 Since the springof 1995, therehave been frequentnewspaper articles that criticizeqigong research as

7SimaNan, "Weiqigong zhonghengtan" (The long and shortof pseudo qigong), published in fourparts in fourissues of Beijingqingnian bao (Beijing Youth) fromMay 12 to June 2, 1995, mentionsthe arrestof Zhang Xiangyu,a woman who claimed to be possessedof a so- called "universelanguage" sharedby all living creaturesand who attractedthousands of fol- lowers.There was also anotherreport in Beijingqingnian zhoumo (Beijing youthweekend), June 9, 1995, of the arrestof one Zhang Xiaoping, a man who claimed to be the "son of Buddha" (fozi).

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"pseudo science." (The presentmedia attack on Falun Gong afterit was officially declared illegal convenientlyuses the same vocabulary.)Many of these criticsare themselvesscientists. For example,the well-knownphysicist He Zuoma is cited by Gongrenribao (Workers' daily) July 26, 1995, forcriticizing Qian Xuesen thus: "To praise such experiments,which go against normal scientificprinciples, as new scientificdiscovery, high-level experiment and theprecursor of a scientificrevolution, is not sciencebut a farce!"8Some partyofficials were unequivocal in theirattitude as well. Gong Yuezhi, vice president of the Party School of the CCP's Central Committee,spoke at a forumheld by Gongrenribao on August 8, 1995:

Eye-witnessingmay not be enoughto provesomething true. We can get to know thefacts only by analyzing with our brains, with scientific knowledge and scientific methods.How manypeople had for how long witnessed the sun rise in theeast and set in thewest before science revealed to us thefact that it is theearth that goes roundthe sun! . .. To attemptto explain,or determinewhether we can explain, phenomenathat have not beenascertained by scienceas factsis seriouslyto fool ourselves,because it createsthe false impression that these phenomena are already facts. (CND 24 November1995, 9)

Controversyover the claims of qigong'spower continues to develop,even though qigongpractice in generalhas come understate regulation(Ots and Chen). Debates overwhether unusual qigong phenomena are deceptiveor factualhave dividedmany concernedwriters, scientists, medical doctors,and cadresinto two opposingcamps, neitherside readyto yield or likelyto "win." This feudmarks a crucialjuncture in the historyof qigong,even thoughit is an old practicein China with a sedimented accumulationof discourses,knowledges, and practices.

The Traditionsof Self-Cultivationand the ChineseBody

Anyhistoriography can onlytreat qigong's origin in a speculativemanner. Among variousspeculative constructions of the originsof qigong,the most widelyaccepted one emphasizesancient Chinese techniques of promotinggood health(yangshengshu). The healthexercises that were later named qigongthus go farback in history.The earliestrecord of qigongis said to be fromthe Zhou dynasty(1100 B.C.-770 B.C.).9 Frequently,we cannotbe surewhether some of theexercises recorded in ancienttexts wereindeed early forms of modernqigong, and not eithergymnastics that used some breathingcontrol techniques,or taiji-like practicesinformed by qi theoriesand adaptiveto donggong(qigong forms practiced with bodilymovements).

8Quoted in "Fenzhengshangwu jielun (Dispute not yet solved)" China News Digest- ChineseMagazine (hereafterCND), 24 November1995, 7. 9Forexample, according to Lin Housheng,the earliestrecord of what we now call qigong was discoveredin the inscriptionson the bronzesof the Zhou dynasty(1100 B.C.-770 B.C.). A culturalrelic fromthe WarringStates, a twelve-sidedjade columncalled xingqiyupei ming fTrCTWJ (jade pendant with an inscriptionof qi practicingtheory and methodson it), recordsa knowledgeof qigongand the waysof its exercise.Huangdineijing (Inner canon of the Yellow Emperor)also describesqigong, and fromthen on thereis a detailed recordof it in everydynasty (Lin 1988, 16).

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The componentqi in the termqigong denotes what earlyChinese philosophers conceptualizedas a primary"matter energy," the basic constituentof the cosmos. Many scholarsrendering Chinese texts into Englishtranslated it as "vital energy"or "cosmic energy."Qi plays an exceedinglyimportant role in the historyof Chinese thought.It is a formless"reality," which, though not graspableby the senses,is immanentin all things.According to thecosmogony given in Huainanzi,a Han period (206 B.C.-A.D. 8) Taoist-orientedsumma of Chinesephilosophy, before the birthof Heaven and Earth,there was only a formless,fluid state called taizhao,like a clear transparentvoid. This void,which is thebeginning of Tao, gave birthto theuniverse. The universein turnproduced qi. That partof qi whichwas lightand limpid floated up to formHeaven, whereasthe partof qi whichwas heavyand turbidcoagulated to becomeEarth. Therefore, qi can be understoodas protomaterial,a vital creativeforce that gives "form"to everythingin the universe.10Gong means skill, the abilityto strengthenand make use of the vital energythat circulates in the body and informs the naturalworld of which the body is a part. Gongcan also mean "work,"in the sense used in physicsof the transferof energyfrom one physicalsystem to another. When a qigongmaster is releasingqi to help a patient he is said to be fagong (transferringenergy). Modern qigong in its commonsense refersto the exerciseand meditationthat build up qi in the body and enable it to be used. Those traditionalforms of exercise and meditationdesigned to nourishqi or vital energyhad alwaysbeen indispensableto Chinesereligions and philosophies,which were in fact inseparable.Taoism, Confucianism,and Chanzong(Chan school of Buddhism),which traditionallydo denote both religionand philosophy,all needed sophisticatedtechniques to cultivateand tempermind and bodyalong theirpaths to enlightenment.To achieve this high spiritual plane of consciousness,all three developed skills to exerciseqi, mostlyin the formof sittingmeditation. Chinese martial arts, which have long transcendedthe mere utilitarianand developed distinctivestyles and aestheticvalues, also relyheavily on the use ofqi as theirinner gong(neigong, a command of innersources of energybeyond those of the musclesand the skillsof weaponry), without which they would be superficialand unsophisticated. Just as Chinese traditionalcosmogony holds that everythingin this universeis producedby the movementand transformationof qi, so Chinesemedicine explains life as a concentrationof this vital/primalenergy (A -j zhenyuanzhiqi). The complicationsof the Chinesemedical theory of qi, as articulatedthrough the scheme of yin and yang, and the five phases (wuxing),were basically derived fromthis fundamentalunderstanding. As Judith Farquhar points out, Chinese medicine's method of analyzingthe factorsof illness "focusesalmost exclusivelyon the war between heteropathicand orthopathicqi, the relationsbetween climate or other environmentalexcesses (e.g., of heat,damp, wind) and physiologicalheat, damp, or sluggishness"(1994, 84). It is thus no surprisethat traditionalmedicine has long actualizedthese correspondences by using qi-relatedexercises to improvethe health of the sick and the weak. In a certainsense, the various forms of qi exercisesdesignated by themodern term qigongalways resided at the centerof Chineseculture, even thoughthey were never regardedas self-sufficientcultural practices, but insteadas ancillaryto othercultural

'0LiviaKohn writesthat "The Tao in its tangibleform on earthis cosmicenergy or qi, a termhard to defineand forwhich energyis no more than a crude approximation.Qi is the vitalpower of theTao at workin theworld-in nature,in society,in thehuman body" (1993, 133).

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 968 JIAN XU practices.Most formswere usually transmitted by the masterto one worthystudent whom he chose himself.Through this restrictedlegacy, those unique featuresof a formthat would workto producehigh powerwere usually esoteric. And manyof the schools in historytended to be eremitic.Masters and studentswho transmitted knowledgeof qi techniquesusually did so in the name of a religion,or of a schoolof medicineor martialarts. It was unthinkableto studyqi just forthe sake of its form and techniquesand not in the serviceof othergoals. Not until afterthe Cultural Revolutionwas a masterof qi techniquesaccorded professional status. Yet, despite the long-standingancillary position of qi in Chineseculture, a studyof its techniques is indispensibleto any understandingof that culture'shistory of the body,because bodilyself-cultivation was alwayscentral to manyfacets of traditionalChinese-not to say Asian-life. Qi, as an all-pervadingvital creative force, also gives "form"to theChinese body. One can findtwo contrastingparadigms of the body's articulationin contemporary Westerntheory-one paradigmunderstands the bodyas a projectionof the subject's psychicalinterior, a boundarythat contains and delimitsthe subject's lived experience, while the otherparadigm sees the body as an imprintof history,a surfacefor social inscription,which produces its interior.'1In traditionalChinese thought, one could also identifytwo paradigmsat work. Confucianismand Taoism have jointlydone muchto constructthe "Chinesebody," which is representedin Chineseliterature and art in formsunfamiliar to the West. Mark Elvin, for example, has noticed that "Chinesepictures of the humanbody, clothed or semi-clothed... are-to Western eyes-meager, schematicand inadequate"(Elvin 1989, 267). JohnHay's researchin "The Body Invisiblein ChineseArt?" shows that the lack of nude bodies in Chinese literatureand art is not due to anythinglike Victorianprudery; there has been "no lack of explicitlysexual descriptionsand overwhelmingpornographic drive" in Chineseliterature and art.Yet, the "image ofa bodyas a wholeobject, . . . as a solid and well-shapedentity whose shapelinessis supportedby the structureof a skeleton and definedin the exteriorityof swellingmuscle and enclosingflesh" is absent(Hay 1994, 51). The reasonfor this, Hay suggests,is thatthe bodyconstructed in Chinese traditionalliterature and art is a social body,that is, one which "must have varied accordingto social normsand structure"(p. 63). Referringto both literatureand paintings,Hay demonstratesthat throughornament and clothing,Chinese culture situatesand definesthe body inside a social context.Hence nuditywould stripthe body of its meaningas social or, let us say,socially inscribed. This is the Confucian body,cultivated as well throughexternal ritual and etiquette.But interestingly,Hay also explainsthe lack ofnudity from a perspectivedifferent from that which recognizes social inscriptionsof meaningin the clothesand ornamentsthat adorn the body's surface.From this otherperspective, the body is

to be understoodas concentrationsand conformationsofqi ratherthan as geometric objectsdemarcated by solid planes and edges.. . Surfaceswere not impenetrable facesof geometric solids, but palpable interfaces through which the structural values ofinteriority interacted with the environment. Thus not only body organs, but bodies

III am indebtedto ElizabethGrosz (1994) foridentifying these two contrasting approaches to the body.Grosz groups Freud, Lacan, Schilder,and Merleau-Pontyin one paradigm,which she entitles"the inside out," and Nietzsche,Foucault, Deleuze, and Lingis in the other,en- titlingtheir methods "the outsidein."

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themselveswere such phenomena. The bodywas the environment ofthe viscera and was itselfwithin an environmentat a higherlevel. (Hay 1994,66)

This environmentalperspective, as comparedwith the Confuciansocial perspective we havejust noted,is reallyTaoist in spirit,even though its worldviewwas eventually accepted by Confucianism.This Taoist componentof literatureand art is as fundamentallyimportant as the Confucianone. Confucianrituals worked at establishingand stabilizingsuch social normsas would havetheir effects on thebody. Thus throughthe clothes and ornamentsit wears and its performancein rituals,the Confucianbody bearscertain semiotic insignia. A body's ritualactions and its movementthrough social ceremoniesare significations thatexpress subject positions. These signsare accordinglycapable of either stabilizing hierarchicalorder or bringing about changed configurationsof social relations. Constantlyengaged in social activities,the Confucianbody is verymuch a public body. The Taoist body,on the otherhand, is one with nature,a microcosmof the universein whichone can findall the resourcesof thatuniverse. Therefore that body is understoodby Taoists to enfoldthe meansof humanliberation and perfection.To discoverthose means is to use techniquesof bodilycultivation that tap intocorporeal vital energyand to combinethe latterwith cosmic energy, since both originate from qi. Through qi cultivation,one can hope to achieve longevityor immortalityby mergingone's qi with thatof the naturalworld. Together with otherTaoist bodily cultivationssuch as herbology,dietetics, acupuncture, and what Douglas Wile calls sexual yoga (Wile 1992),12 the cultivationof the Taoist body is a privatematter; it is performedby individualsin seclusionand solitude.Rested in tranquillity,away fromall turmoil,the Taoist body is verymuch an interiorbody projected outward. Qi practicesas methodsof Taoist bodilycultivation were often informed by occult knowledgesabout spiritualtranscendence and immortality.The Taoist beliefthat individualperfection and immortalitycould be obtained throughunion with the mysteriousand all-pervadingTao presupposeda liberationfrom the ego-centered self. Among variousforms of donggong(qigong involving bodily movements) and jinggong (qigongfocusing on quiet meditation),quiet-sitting meditation ( jingzuo)was themost popular and durable techniqueof liberation.With it the Taoist mysticsemptied themselvesof emotionsand rationalknowledge to achievea state of oblivionwhere theyfelt "the body like a witheredtree, the mind like dead ashes" (Zhuangzi 1968, 36). In EarlyChinese Mysticism, Livia Kohn informsus thatearly Chinese mysticism had its philosophicalfoundation in thewritings of Laozi and Zhuangzi;she aversthat it is througha mergerof the Lao-Zhuang traditionwith shamanismthat Taoism acquires its various techniques of "quiestic, concentrative"meditation and the corollarybelief that "only when the body is readycan one reachfor more spiritual attainments"(Kohn 1992, 164). KristoferSchipper in his The TaoistBody (1993) shows the indispensablerole of qi exercisesin readyingthe body forobtaining Tao, as recordedin the Canonof the Yellow Court (Huangtingjing).13

12Some formsof this "sexual yoga" are qi practicesthat have been leftout of the category constructionof modern qigong. What is called huanjing bunao, for instance, involves techniques of gatheringjingqi (notjingye, as Wile forciblypoints out). See Wile 1992, 59. "3Huangtingjingis a long poem in heptasyllabicverse dating from second century A.D.; it describesthe innerlandscape of the body that the practiceof Taoist qigongmust envision,as well as otherpsychophysiological practices involving the use of qi.

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During the Han dynasty,however, this philosophic-yogicTaoism further changed,becoming inseparable from Taoism as communalreligion. Although this turninstitutionalized Taoism and popularizedboth its beliefsand techniques,bodily self-cultivationnevertheless remained a privatematter.14 Later, starting in the sixth centurywhen Chan Buddhismbecame popular in China,quiet sittingalso becamean eponymouspractice of Chan for achieving the dharma body, which no doubt strengthenedthe asocial,other-worldly trend of thoughtin Chineseculture and was incrementalto qi practices'mystic involvement.15 Consideringqigong's history of occult practices,it is understandablethat qigong phenomenawould become the objects of scientificinquiry; but isn't the claim that qigongitself has a scientificbase a bit excessive?Since China's traumaticencounter with modernity,the emphasis on rational thinking and antitraditionalism,as evidencedparticularly in theMay Fourthmovement and thesocialist revolution, have meant disfavorfor mysticism and occult practices.In mainlandChina after1949, metaphysicalknowledges around qi practice were suspiciouslyregarded, Taoist religiousrituals and immortalitycults treated as feudalgarbage. The post-Maoclaim thatthe fundamentals of qigong rest firmly on scientificprinciples that can be gradually revealedsignals significant changes in people's attitudestoward traditional forms of self-cultivation. When the Qing monarchyfell in 1911, traditionalbodily self-cultivations through1i (rituals)also disintegrated.New subjectpositions, no longerbased on the Confucianhierarchical order, replaced the old, ritual-constitutedsubjectivities. Many formsof 1i came to be onlythe negativesigns of the nation'sweak past.16In seeking a way to revitalizethe enfeebledcountry, Chinese intellectualslooked to Western scienceand technology,to democraticpolitics and individualism,seriously believing thatthere was somethingterribly wrong with a traditionthat regarded the inculcation of ritualsand music (li yue)as the perfectionof social engineering. Furtherback in time, traditionalbodily cultivationthrough qi also underwent disintegrationafter the Opium Wars.17The Taoist beliefin the boundlessresources of the individualbody and its psychosomaticpotential for transcendence yielded to morepressing concerns over national sovereignty. For overhalf the ensuingcentury, the bodywas allowedto emaciatethrough opium use and the faminescaused by wars and naturaldisasters. Hence, the familiarimage of the bodies of the Chinesecoolies, stripped to the waist, deformed,corpse-like, all ribs visible, apathetic,entered Westernconsciousness at the end of the nineteenthcentury. This image of "the Sick Man ofEast Asia" (dongyabingfu) would endureuntil Mao. During thistime, as Kurio Miura tells us, traditionalforms of exerciseand meditationdesigned to nourishqi were sustainedonly in the hermeticdaily lives of monks,nuns, and Taoists within

14See Kohn 1991 on the integrationof Taoist philosophywith religion.Also see Dean 1993 on the institutionalizationof Taoism in the late Han. "See Faure 1995 fora studyon the Chan body. 16JamesL. Hevia, in his studyof Qing guest rituals(1994), shows thatone of the tradi- tionalforms of bodily ritual, koutou, through which "subjects might be constitutedand human agencyenabled," was seen by the Westernhistorians and diplomaticofficials as a ritualof abject servitude,while in effect"the koutouempowers the lesserin a dependentrelationship with a superior."Ironically, the view thatkoutou was an abject and servilebodily ritualhas eventuallybeen acceptedby the Chineseas well, at least in the mainlandafter 1949. '7The Opium Wars (1839-42, 1856-60), the firstmajor military clashes between China and theWest, representedthe beginning of a centuryof humiliation by foreign powers through the impositionof unequal treatiesthat extractedcommercial privileges, territory, and other benefitsfrom the Chinesegovernment.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 971 the walls of monasteries,abbeys, and convents."These people weremostly specialists who spent all theirtime on the techniquesand did not care to pass them on to a widerpublic" (Miura 1989, 332).

From Self-Cultivationto Medical Practice: Science as Strategy

Interestingly,in the earlydecades of this century,a preliminaryof the debate underdiscussion seemed alreadyin place. Some of the issues deemed importantin the 1990s alreadyhad emergedin the beginningof the century.Jiang Weiqiao's Yin Shizijingzuo fa (Methodsof quiet-sittingmeditation by MasterYin), whichappeared in 1914 and became well known among the intelligentsia,might be the earliest attemptto popularizeqi practice.In the prefacewritten in the winterof 1917 for subsequenteditions, Jiang (Master Yin) commentson how quiet-sittingmeditation had been so mystifiedby fangshi}f? (men with variousTaoist skills involving exorcism,medicine, and divination)18 that nobody thought it could be studied anymore.He tells how he himselfwas cured of inveteratediseases by practicingit, which experience now prompted him to demonstrateand explain its effects scientifically.He writes: I haverecently learned that Okada Torajiro and Fujita Reisai in Japan are advocating quiet-sittingmeditation and havetens of thousandsof followers.The studentsof Okadahave written an OkadaMethod of Meditation, while Fujita himself has authored onebook on themethod of resting and regulating the heart, and another on thekey to strengtheningthe body-mind. These books have become quite popular and have beenrepublished more than ten times. I was touchedwhen I readthem, saying to myself:These are our skills. But their books introduce them in such a straightforward, honestand reasonableway thatthey are no longersubjected to mysteriesbut explainedby studies in scienceand philosophy.And theirapproach is so different fromthat of our classicalbooks. I could not stopthinking about it afterward!I ruminatedupon the character of our people: any learning, skills, techniques, or arts, oncebecoming excellent or superior, will be regardedas secretsand be held in private, notto be shownto othersfor public study. It hasbeen like this since ancient times. The Japaneseare different. When they have learned something from us, theystudy it in public.The resultis thatthey surpass us. ... Now thebook I havewritten heredoes not rely on strange, monstrous mystifications, buttries to give explanations on thebasis of psychology and physiology. All thatI discussin thebook are results ofmy experiments. (Jiang1917, 1-2)

Apart fromits echo of the stronglynationalistic feelings of that period, this passage soundsanother note of modernity:the emphasison rationalityand scientific method.When Jiangwas writingthis preface in 1917, the New CultureMovement was in fullswing. To thinkerslike Chen Duxiu, theeditor of the journalXin qingnian (New youth),'9modern science was not just the antithesisof traditionalculture, but

18There is no easy definitionof fangshi, but see KennethDeWoskin 1983 fora detailed historicaldescription of fangshi and theirpractices. 19NewYouth was the centerof the New CultureMovement, especially afterJanuary 1918, when the journalbegan to be jointlyedited by Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong,and others.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 972 JIAN XU a substitutefor it. The debatein the 1990s overwhether qigong practice and research are scientificis morerevealing when seen in connectionwith whatJiang said in the beginningof the century.It tells us that the power of scienceto give legitimation was a phenomenonof Chinesemodernity that had prevailedover the entirecentury. In the West, scientificcognition is basicallyan activityof humansubjects taken in relationto the objects of the naturalworld. The critiqueof modernityhas often problematizedthe moral nature of scientificknowledge and application. The Frankensteinmonster, born of scientific research and thescientist's playing "God," is a familiartrope in Western critiques of modernityfor the precipitationof an unsolvablemoral predicamentand dire consequence.But in China since the New CultureMovement, the term"science" has itselfbeen the discursiveconstruction of modernityand the signifierof "truth"or "virtue."In Wang Hui's "The Fate of 'Mr. Science' in China," we findthat "science" is used as a weapon to negate tradition, even while traditionironically sneaks back into "science"by confiningthe meaning of science in traditionalepistemology and moral philosophy(Wang Hui 1995, 1- 68). The consequenceof this traditionalized"science" is the beliefof which Wang writes: Scienceitself furnished an illustrationof theorganic connection among the universe, theworld, society, and life-this cosmogrammar, with the qualities of teleology and moralphilosophy, determined the ultimate direction (the true, the good, and the beautiful)of cosmic movement and showed clearly the basic norms (from political to moral)for how people should think and act. (1995, 58)

Quiet-sittingmeditation, a traditionalqi practice,could be modernizedif presentedto the public in a rational,scientific form. That was, accordingto Jiang, what theJapanese were doing with this Chineselearning. But Jiang'seffort did not meet with universalapproval. One negativereaction-though it did not matterat that time-anticipated a major adjustmentof qigongpractice some fortyyears later. It was a publishedresponse from Mao Zedong, thentwenty-five years old. Insteadof seeingJiang's work as soundinga noteof modernity, Mao saw it as a continuationof the Confucianscholarly tradition: Humanbeings are active animals and theylove to be active.Human beings are also rationalanimals and thusthey need a reasonfor their activity. Why is this? Becauseactivity secures survival. Yes, butthat is an easyexplanation. Because activitysecures the fortune of the homeland. Yes, and thatis a weightyexplanation. Neitherreach the basis of the matter. Activity is ultimatelywhat nourishes life and satisfiesthe mind. This and noneother is thetruth. Zhu Xi proposedrespect, Lu Jiuyuanproposed tranquillity. Tranquillity is meditation,and respect is notactivity either, it is butanother form of being at rest. Laoziemphasized to be withoutactivity, the Buddha wished all beingsto be serene. Sittingin meditationwas advisedby thefollowers of Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan overthe ages, the mostrecent example being Master Yin's book.He praiseshis methodas wonderfuland highlyspiritual and saysthat activity destroys the body. Thisis oneway of looking at things. However,I do notshare these ideas. In myopinion, there is nothingbetween heavenand earth that is notactivity. (Mao 1917 quotedin Miura1989, 334; translationslightly modified)

This preliminarydisagreement surrounding a formof qi exercisesheds a great deal of lighton qigong'snew facein the twentiethcentury. What Jiangis strivingto

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 973 do, enlightenedby theJapanese, is to disentangleqi exercisefrom its occultpractice so as to keep it as a techniqueof self-cultivation,whereas Mao, makingno dialogic comment on Jiang's advocacy of a rational understandingof qi practice,rather arbitrarilydisapproves it as a traditionof nonactivityin the line of Laozi, Buddha, and of the Confuciangentry scholar. The ensuing thirtyyears were most eventful.The anti-Japanesewar and the ChineseCommunist revolution wholly occupied history, making everything else seem trivial.If therewas any literatureon qi and its practice,it must have been lost. But we havereason to believethat qi practicecontinued, albeit only within a smallsection ofthe population. The emergenceof persons like Liu Guizhenin the 1950s, who were mastersof qi practiceand advocatedits medicaluses, suggests that these persons had inheritedqi exercisetechniques from others before them.20 The lack of medicineand medicaltreatment for the tremendousnumber of sick people at thattime provided a test case for various kinds of traditionalhealth practices;the most effectiveand practicalof these thus survivedand were takenup by ordinarypeople. These years were also when the discourseof Marxistmaterialism gradually came to dominance, along with changesin social and power relations.After 1949, the Maoist discourse became the guiding principleto which all social activities,and qi practicewithout exception,must adhere. Qi practice eventuallysurvived Mao's disapproval and came back with a vengeance,but notwithout losing something. For the cost of its survivalwas a gradual shifttoward increased bodily movements in practice,and toward"ways of treatment that involveda high degree of active interactionbetween physician and patient" (Miura 1989, 334). In the 1950s, Liu Guizhenand othersset up clinicsand conducted experimentsto adapt qi techniquesto clinicaluse. Though Liu newlyenhanced the curativeeffects of qi exerciseas a branchof Chinesemedicine, the neologismqigong no longersignified techniques of self-cultivation (at leastnot in its officialuse). Except perhapsin a verysmall sectionof the population,about whichwe have no verifiable knowledge, the qi exercisesselected, experimentedon, and modified by Liu's influentialclinics became a legitimatemedical practice used now by bona fide physicians.This practicebegan to be knownas qigong,largely due to the book The Practiceof Qigong Therapy (Qigong liaofashijian, 1955) thatLiu compiled. The constructionof the category qigong helped many forms of qi exerciseto survive the antisuperstitioncampaigns aimed at many traditional bodily cultivation techniques.Besides thosepractices that were seen as part of the Taoist immortality cults, therewere otherTaoist bodily cultivationtechniques that were lost. Among the lost practiceswere those that use sexual intercourse,as discussedby Schipperand also studiedby Wile as an "art of the bedchamber"(fangzhong shu), as well as those thatcultivate sexual desireto form"medicine," a "highlyconcentrated feeling of qi thatis to be moved up along the spinal columnto nourishthe brain" (huanjing bu nao).There were also thosethat depended on visualizinggods insidethe body in order to cultivateqi. These outlaw practiceswere not coveredby the termqigong, while those that were so covered therebyacquired legitimationas part of traditional medicine.

20Variousreconstructed qigong histories usually mentionthe name of Liu Guizhen to representthe group of people workingwith him, presumablybecause he compiledthe book Qigongliaofa shijian (Practice of qigong therapy,195 5) and headedthe experimentsand clinics set up in 1956 in Tangshan and Beidaihe. I could not findinformation on any of the other individualswho must have contributedto popularizingqi practiceat thattime.

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The Body,Qigong and the Maoist Subjects

Apartfrom delivering "a highdegree of active interaction between physician and patient,"qi was also practicedfor the firsttime in group settings.In orderto make a revolutionand build a socialiststate, the CommunistParty needed the people to act as one uniformmass. The historyof Chinese nation-statebuilding was consequentlyalso a historyof turningindividuals into masses. At all levelsof society after 1954, collectivizationon a national scale graduallybut steadilywiped out anythinglike a privatespace. The transformationof privateenterprises to state ownershipand the buildingof the People's Communesin the countrysidewent hand in handwith the new state rituals of confessional self-criticism and severechastisement meetings.Besides building the socialiststate materially,everybody had the task of "remolding his/her own world outlook" (gaizao shijieguan).Mechanisms of interpellationwere employedto weed out what was named "private"and "selfish" frompeople's minds and habits.The campaignsof "Strugglingagainst the Private and Criticizingthe Revisionist"(dousi pixiu), which got underwayin 1967, included such activitiesas diary writing,learning from Lei Feng, political study sessions, strugglemeetings, and self-examinationwriting (Mayfair Meihui Yang 1994, 266- 67). The transformationof traditionalforms of bodily self-cultivationinto modern qigongis commensuratewith changesin the body politic and in subject formation with the onset of Chinese modernity.The body did not disappearin the People's Republic. On the contrary,Mao Zedong placed a great deal of importanceon the healthof the body,which he saw as the basis forthe healthof the nation."Develop physicalculture and sports;strengthen the people's physiques"(fazhan tiyu yundong, zengqiangrenmin tizhi), the sportsslogan he pennedin 1952, dominatedthe central space in everysports field and stadiumfor almost forty years before it came to share thatspace with moreeye-catching Marlboro and Coca Cola ads. When Mao decided to launch the CulturalRevolution, he swam acrossthe Yangtze to demonstratethe fitnessof his own bodyfor the enterprise.China has since movedup in international sportscompetitions. The image of the "Sick Man of East Asia" is gone. Yet the body nurturedby socialismis verymuch a public, mass body. Individual,private bodies have effectivelydisappeared. Susan Brownellwrites in Trainingthe Body for China:

In theMaoist order, the body was to servesocialism primarily through labor and militaryservice. The goal ofphysical culture was to promotepublic health, increase productivity,and preparethe people for national defense. ... Maoistbody culture was also egalitarianin that,in a sortof twistedlogic, not engagingin physical trainingwould emulate the privileged exemption from exercise of the feudal elites; thus,people could be undera gooddeal of ideological pressure to traintheir bodies. ... To Westerners,news footageof hundredsof darklyclad, sexlessChinese exercisingin perfect harmony provided one of the enduring images of the Maoist era. (Brownell1995, 58)

As Lei Feng, the authorizedmodel to emulateduring this era,21wrote in his diary, everybodywas a tinyscrew in the giant machineof socialistrevolution. Everybody

2"Yang writes,"Lei Feng was a People's LiberationArmy hero whose diary was first publishedand promotedin 1963. During the CulturalRevolution, Lei Feng enjoyeda minor cult statusas one of the most faithfulof ChairmanMao's followers"(1994, 258).

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 975 was now equidistantfrom the center,the singlehead of the state.Thus the bodywas broughtinto alignmentwith and by the building of the socialist nation and the formingof the Maoist subjects. We can now sensewhy Mao implicitlyobjected to JiangWeiqiao's promotionof quiet-sittingmethods: behind the rhetoricof bodilyactivity lies the problematicof the individualbody versusthe mass body,later to be politicizedinto an opposition betweenthe elite feudalbody cultureversus the Maoist communistbody culture.In such a situation,the small numberof people who during the CulturalRevolution practicedqigong for other than urgent medical reasons must have done so underground, since theyrisked chastisement for belonging to the feudalist"leisurely and carefree party"(xiaoyaopai). Nevertheless,interstitial and marginalas it was, qigong secured foritself a space in Chinesetraditional medicine along with massage and acupuncture. Afterthe CulturalRevolution, the firstbatch of qigong masters who came out to teach qigongwere all medicaldoctors, and theirteachings all followedthe pattern set in the fiftiesby Liu Guizhen'sqigong clinics.22 In a way,the reorganizationof separateand discretehealth practicesinto the general categoryof qigong was a signal of their detachmentfrom the intelligentsiaand theirrelocation among the masses.The thirty yearsafter 1949 constitutedan importantperiod of adjustment in thisrespect. Many traditionalmethods were tested,revised, incorporated into qigong and thus made accessibleto ordinarypeople in the nameof medicine.Another significant change we should notewas thatqi practicebecame moreeasily accessible to women.Although therehad traditionallybeen womenpractitioners, their numbers were few compared to thoseof theirmale counterparts.Now, qigongbecame truly a unisexpractice, and it is in factcommon to findmore women than men practicingin largegroups. The death of Mao was a shock to the manywho had neverthought of his body as mortal.The preservationof Mao's dead body, thoughintended symbolically to preservethe CommunistNation, was inevitablyalso a reminderthat an epoch was over. "Economy"became a key word in the ensuingChinese vocabulary. It defined the ethosof the new era and also broughtabout crisis."With the declineof Maoist subjects,what tookplace was a restrengtheningof the redistributivestate apparatus, even as economicreforms in the 1980s introducednew marketforces, which began to curbsome spheres of its operations"(Yang 1994, 276). The newpolicies established to fosterrapid economic growth also unleashedforces that "created a predicamentfor China's socialistsystem. Economism, taken to its logical conclusions,is at odds not onlywith the socialistrevolutionary vision, but with the existingsocialist system as well" (Dirlik 1989, 35). Amid thecontestation between a stateredistributive economy and a commodityeconomy, not to mentionthe contradiction between a socialistmoral vision and capitalist consumerism,there arose among the populace considerable confusion,dislocation, and disillusion. The new subjectwas interpellatedinto new ideologiesby such truismsas "only practiceis the yardstickfor truth." The "thoughtliberation movement," as it was called, initiated by discussionson the criteriaof truth,paved the way for the reemergenceof an ideologyof humanismwith its advocacyof the preceptof the independent,autonomous and self-regulatingexistence of the human being. The post- Maoist subjectthus began to reactagainst the collectivizationof individualwill. In the 1980s, somethingsimilar to the May Fourth movementperiod took place. Intellectuals,students, and othersectors of the urbanpopulation stood up to claim

22Exceptfor Guo Lin, formerlya popular Beijing actress,who was nota doctor,but whose New QigongTreatment (Xin qigong liaofa,1980) was devisedfor curing cancer.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 976 JIAN XU individual autonomyand uniqueness. They emphasized individual thought and expressionand demanded recognitionof individualdignity and individualrights. These ideas were consistentlycondemned by officialdiscourse as "bourgeois liberalism,"but theycontinued to exertgreat influenceon post-Mao culture,even afterthe tragedyof Tiananmen Square. In fact, the Tiananmen massacreonly momentarilyshrank the cultural space that had opened up to a humanist understandingof the body. The individual body is once again seen as a natural ontologicalcategory with its own values, its own historyof pain and joy, detached fromsociety. Against this backdropof transformationof the ideologiesof the body politic reemergesthe idea of the individualsubject/body that had predominatedin the Taoist tradition.

The Constructionof QigongDiscourse and Its Counter Discourse

Nothingcould have predictedthe extentof the explosionof qigongactivities all overthe countrytoward the mid 1980s. At the beginning,the scientific claims made forqigong were modest: apart from its traditionalmystic beliefs, the method of qigong does effectivelycure many, hence its resultscould be explainedin scientificterms. If that could be done, the methodcould be demystifiedand used more regularlyto benefitmore people. This simple idea had also motivatedJiang Weiqiao's effortsto popularizeqigong early in this century.Hence therefollowed in the 1980s attempts to describeqigong phenomena objectively with referenceto scientificknowledge. Wang Peishengand Chen Guanhua'sRelaxing and CalmingQigong, for example, tries to describe"the feelingof qi" (qigan): It is notknown what causes the feeling of qi. Herewe will introducea hypothesis aboutit. In recentyears some scientists have found that in thestate of qigong, brain waveshave a lowerfrequency and greatermagnitude, and are moresynchronized. Also,the temperature at the acupoint to whichone's attention is directedis 1 to 3 degreesC higherthan at otherparts of the body. From modern physiology we know thatsuch an actionas bendinga fingeris causedby brain waves whose messages are sentto thefinger through the nervous system; the terminal of the nerve releases some chemicalswhich enable the corresponding muscles to stretch or to retract. Proceeding fromthese facts, we proposethat special brain waves, generated while practicing qigong,cause the expansionof themicrangiums in yishouchu,23 thereby increasing the blood supplyand stimulatingthe acupoint.Consequently there is a rise in temperatureand otherunusual phenomena at theacupoint, which in turncauses a feelingof warmth, expansion and other sensations-the feeling of qi. (Wangand Chen 1987, 3_4)24

Insteadof explaining and definingqi, theauthors describe the feelings of qi and make propositionsabout it in scientificlanguage. Thus, what mattersis not whetherqi

23Micrangium"is definedas a capillaryin Dorland'sIllustrated Medical Dictionary (1994). Yishouchu 9 XL is the "acupoint"(7A it xuewei)to whichone's attentionis directedin qigong practice.Fixed spots on the body whereqi is thoughtto concentrate,yishou chu has becomea more preferredterm than dantiani' Ffl,because dantianhas complex associationswith the "cinnabarfield" of alchemical Taoism and becausethere are disagreements as to whethercertain places wheresome schoolsof qigongdirect attention should be called dantian. 24Thetranslation is modifiedfrom an originaltranslation by Chen Guanhua.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 977 reallyexists and whatkind ofsubstance it is, but the specialeffects achieved through the exercisethat bears its name. As more books on qigongbegan to come out, this approach,which was based on an effortto be objective,gradually got side-tracked. The book The ScientificBasis of Qigong,published in 1988 by Xie Huanzhang, a professorin The Beijing Instituteof Industry,summarizes some scientists'work in examiningqi as a materialforce. It introducesQian Xuesen's idea of establishing "PhenomenalisticQigong Studies" (weixiangqigong xue), firstraised by Qian in a speechgiven at a forumheld by the ChineseQigong and ScienceResearch Association on Febuary23, 1986. Althoughthe term"phenomenalistic qigong studies" implies both the presentinability to explainqigong phenomena in termsof modernscience and the need to systematizethe mass of sporadicpractical experience as well as scientificexperiments already made on qigong,Xie neverthelessthinks that the key issue is whetherqigong is onlya religioustechnology, a superstitious,deceptive quack practice,or whetherqi "objectively"exists. This is the entirebase of his advocacyof qigongstudies (Xie 1988, 29). In a chapterdevoted to provingthe "materialbase of qigongemanation" (waiqide wuzhi cunzai), he introducesa seriesof researchesmade since1978 on qigongemanation that show as theirresults the low frequencyfluctuation modulatedinfrared radiation effect, the low frequencymagnetic signals effect,the infrasonicwave effect,the staticelectricity increment effect, and the effecton liquid crystal,all charted,well-documented, and originallypublished in major scientific journalsin China.On thestrength of these findings, he takesa stepfurther to speculate about qigongemanation's capability of affectingthe biogenic field,decreasing the entropyof the human body, and workingas "energycarriers of life informational waves.' AlthoughXie makesinteresting connections between various theories of the biogenicfield25 and Chinesetraditional qi cosmology,his studiesalso providea lot of science-fictionimaginings. At one point, forinstance, he suggeststhat neitherthe aurasdrawn around the headsof the Buddha and JesusChrist in Christianpaintings, nor thoseseen in Chinesemythological fengshenbang tales, are merelyfantasies. "To the mindsof qigong masters in our country,ancient and modern,they have a material existence.They are theimages of qi and ofthe biogenic fields" (Xie 1988, 287). Thus, ironically,a workthat aims at a scientificmethod in its effortto provethe existence ofqi ends up in revivifyingancient myths. It "scientifically"reinaugurates the Taoist body, replacingits supernaturalpowers with a moderndiscourse of teyigongneng (supernormalprowesses).26 Xie says more explicitly at another point: "Some extraordinaryphenomena would happento a personwell trainedin qigong.He would, forexample, be able to speak a special language,to see the insideof a humanbody, and to see, hearand feelwhat ordinarypeople are unable to see, hearand feel"(Xie 1988, 326). While thesephenomena may indeed be attachedto somespecific, concrete instancesof the practice,they have never been thoroughlyverified by scientific methods.

25"Biogenic"is definedin Webster'sThird New InternationalDictionary as "producedby the action of living organisms."Xie discussesVon Reichenbach'sOdicforce, Kilner and Muftic's aura,Inyushin's bioplasma field, the Bendits' and Tansely'snadis field,and Chakra,to mention a few. They are all supposed to be "biogenic fields,"comparable in conceptto the Chinese understandingof the body's qi emanation.Although these special termswould still be too vague forthe laymenof "bodyscience," I includethem here to facilitatethose who understand them. 26Teyigongneng is usuallymanifested by extrasensoryperception and psychokinesis.Web- ster'sThird New InternationalDictionary defines psychokinesis (PK) as "the productionor alter- ation ofmotion by influenceof themind withoutsomatic intervention in objectsdiscrete from the subject'sbody."

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Xie mightbe the firstscientist who triedto make qigongscientific by evoking the limitationsof scientificcognition in understandingqigong. Following his brief discussionof the curativeeffects of qigongon cancer,vasculitis, and paralysis,he deplores,for instance, the fact that qigong is stillnot officially acknowledged in formal documentsthat summarize recent years' cancer cures in the country.He analyzesthe cause of the neglectin this scenario:

A doctormade a definitediagnosis that a patienthad cancer. That patient then tried and succeededin curinghimself by practicingqigong. When he cameback to the doctorfor a re-checkand toldhim what he had beendoing, the doctor, facing the factthat the cancerdisappeared, would rather admit that he madea mistakein diagnosingthe patient than acknowledge that qigong had curedhis cancer. Because themedical education he had receivedand themodern medical knowledge he had had nothingto do withqigong's cancer cure, he couldnot explain the phenomenon at all. Without"reasonable" explanation, he certainlycould not accept and acknowledgeit. Whatdo zhenqi[genuine qil andyuanqi [primal qil mean?Where couldthey be foundin physics,chemistry and modernmedical science? (Xie 1988, 19-20)

Again ironically,a discoursethat advocates making qigong scientific can easilybe read as indicatingthe inadequacyof science:the irrationalnature of qigongphenomena is not a problemby itself;it is rathermodern science that is not developedenough to have conceptsand terminologyto defineand explainthose phenomena. Thus, almost imperceptibly,qigong, which used to be thoughtof as superstitionand lacking a scientificbasis, and was thereforedismissed when China enteredthe modernera, now subtlyturns the table on science. By challengingthe authorityof science,qigong discoursebegins to situate itselfin an ambivalentposition between science and mysticism.Gradually, the very inability of modern scientific knowledge to understand and explainqigong phenomena in medicalcases became a populartopic. People seemed to enjoya greatdeal the presenceof somethinginexplicable, mysterious, and baffling to science,something like UFOs and BermudaTriangles, yet much less remote,much moresubstantially real, something working with perceptible effects on themateriality ofthe body.Numerous training sessions throughout the country turned out countless people who declaredthemselves to be curedof inveteratediseases or who claimedto have acquiredunusual powersas a resultof the training.There appearedacross the countrysocieties and associationsdedicated to studyof qigong.Different from the "how-to"guidebooks that teach with pictures and diagramsa particularkind of qigong but do not much commenton its power beyond promotinghealth, a literature appeared that was clearlydeveloping the discourseof its mysticalpowers into an ideology. Qigongdaigong baogao (qigong report with actual qi emanation)became a very popular source of this literature.These were reportsgiven by qigongmasters who would releasetheir qi while speakingto the public in orderthat the listenersin the auditoriums could themselvesphysically benefit. The "reports,"consisting of anecdotes,episodes of popular history, grapevine news, exhortations, and legends,were usually improvisedand were understoodto be not really an end in themselves. Nevertheless,they were preservedas mimeographedtranscripts and cassettetape- recordingsand widelycirculated. These materialscarried the most obvious signs of inventionand construction.For example,they sought credibility by claimingthat all great qigongmasters are people with superiormoral strength;therefore, one's gong advancesin directproportion to one'smoral growth and one'scultivation of gongde X1)j {

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(virtuesrelated to one's gong).Yan Xin's earlyqigong reports invariably reiterate this point and also include the dubious claim that Mao himselfwas adept at qigong.At about the same time, magazineson qigongappeared. These containeda varietyof articlesthat ranged from the exegesisof Taoist or Buddhisttexts on qigongto reports of currentqigong activities to discussionsof modernscientific methods of studying qigong.Quite a fewpassages from the Daodejing as well as the Yijing(Book ofChanges) wereinterpreted as containingmessages directly related to qigongpractice. In themid 1980s, books were publishedthat treatedqigong as a systematicfield of study,one witha historiography,a theory, and a citingof the major popular schools at thattime. The titlesof thesebooks usually included phrases such as "qigongxue" (qigong studies) or "qigongxue gailun" (an introductionto qigongstudies), which make qigong sound in Chineselike a disciplinarysubject such as physicsor economics.Along withgeneral studies such as these came "cross-disciplinary"studies that exploredqigong from cultural,philosophical, scientific and psychologicalperspectives. These essaysand thesessometimes appeared in journalsof physicaleducation or martialarts. Toward the end of the 1980s qigongfiction emerged, usually stories about qigongmasters and the incrediblefeats they would perform. One of the importantthings that has happenedto qigongin the 1990s is that qigongdiscourse has found its own standard-bearer.Ke Yunlu, a well-known mainstreamwriter who has publishedseven novels and numerousstories and essays, and who was well liked forhis novelXinxing (The New Star,1984), suddenlybegan to turnout a large quantityof literatureon qigong.In the prefaceto his novel The GreatQigong Masters (Da qigong shi, 1994), he issues some bold challengesto the philosophicalfoundations of Marxism:

Marxistmaterialist philosophy teaches that matter is primarywhile consciousness is secondary.Matter decides consciousness, while consciousness reacts upon matter. Manyrepeated scientific experiments made on qigongmasters and ESP and PK phenomenalead to the conclusionthat consciousness is matter.Qi is releasedby consciousness,and whenat a highlevel of gong, consciousness and qi becomeone. Consciousnessitself is a specialkind of energytaking the form of a field.Qigong masterscan breaka steelbar or reconnectit by thinkingabout breakingit or reconnectingit. (Ke 1994, 13-14)

The protagonistof the novelis a youngman who befriendsqigong masters, researches on the basis of cross-disciplinarystudies, and writesabout the mysteriesof qigong- a personwho in manyways resembles the novelisthimself. He is drivento searchfor an explanationfor well-known qigong phenomena: is thereany connection, for instance, betweenthe way Yan Xin curescompound bone fracturessimply by talkingto his patientand the way Zhang Baoshengremoves tablets from a sealed medicinebottle and returnsthem without breaking the seal?27The protagonist'sthoughts are often occupiedby his attemptsto answersuch questionsin a mystifyinglanguage. Should we understandthe featsas a resultof returningthings to theiroriginal state, so that time is reversedlocally? Or is thereanother level of the universewhere the theories

27ZhangBaosheng has performeda series of magic shows all over the countryand is recognizedas having "teyigongneng," which means he is not considereda mere magician. Removingtablets of medicinefrom a sealed bottleand returningthem without breaking the seal is one ofhis performancesthat has been widelydiscussed. For a reportof his performances, see Ou Nianzhong 1987.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 980 JIAN XU of our physicsdo not make sense and to which some qigongmasters of high calibre have access?Not onlycan time be reversedbut space shiftedat differentlevels of the universe.Yet may these speculationsthemselves be confinedby our constructed conceptionof physics and its mode of thinkingso thatthey do not lead us anywhere? Ke also tackles the dangerouszone of teyigongneng, known as shentong shu (techniquesof communicatingwith the spirit-self)in traditionalliterature, and tries to freeit fromthe modern label of "superstition."In his Qigongxiuliande aomi yu wuqu (ProfoundMysteries and Possible Areasof Errorsin Qigong Training,1995), one of a dozen recentbooks in the Ke Yunlu LifeScience Culture Series, he writes: Shentong, teyi gongneng, is an especiallysensitive topic. The reasonfor this is thatit goesbeyond our common sense.... Accordingto modernphysics, it is unthinkable to takemedicine out ofa sealedbottle without breaking the bottle. But a person withteyi gongneng succeeds in doing it, in the publicgaze. Facingthis physics phenomenon,the scientistsall confrontthe question of negatingthemselves, and theyinstinctively adopt a negativeattitude. Why? Because the phenomenon conflicts withall yourexperience, knowledge and learning.To go deeperthan this, it is as muchas to sayit conflictswith the social status you have achieved. As a physicist, or a medicalspecialist, when all yourtheory cannot explain this simple fact-you cannotexplain it withoutchanging your theory, you would not be willingto change yourtheory because your authoritative position is basedon thistheory. Obviously thisis a sensitivetopic. . . . Now if all the teyigongneng phenomena are openly acknowledgedas true,all thetheories and doctrineswill haveto be rewritten.At thatpoint, the questionof whatsuperstition is becomesespecially acute. To my mind,remaining at the stageof ancientgod worshipand makinga fetishof all phenomenaof teyi gongneng is superstition, but staying at today'slevel of science and callingall phenomenaof teyi gongneng superstitious and pushingthem aside is also superstition. (Ke 1995,27-28)

Though Ke points to the personal investmentthat scientistsmay have in maintainingthe authority of science, the political implications of his critiquego even further.The situationhe describeshere can easilybe paralleledin thepolitical arena- people who havea heavypolitical investment in Maoist-Marxistdiscourse will notlet it go, evenwhen it provesunable to explainand guide presentsocial practices, because negatingit is to negatetheir own hard-earnedsocial status.In some of his writing, Ke holdsthat seriously believing in and practicingqigong necessitates questioning the basic theoreticalpremises of the Marxistdiscourse and evena radicalchange of faith. Ke's The GreatQigong Masters weaves into its plot a confrontationbetween a high- rankingstate leader who is an authorityon Marxistphilosophy and theory,on the one hand, and the protagonist,on the other.The powerfulman, a representativeof the dominant ideology, is obstinatelyblind to the extraordinaryphenomena demonstratedin qigongmasters' performances, even though he witnessesthem himself. In defendingthe thus enfeebled political ideology, he organizesa campaignto criticize thosewho "spreadreactionary philosophical thinking in thescientific field" (Ke 1994, 148). The novel characterizeshis outlookas narrow-minded,bigoted, and dogmatic in a worldof constantchange and proliferatingmysteries. The impulse to reinterpretmysterious phenomena in the world, a look back towardthe Yijing(The Book ofChanges) and bagua(the Eight Trigrams), Lao-Zhuang philosophy,and variouskinds of traditionalcultural practices and ritualsin searchof "buried" meaning, and a hermeneuticquest that tries to disregardimportant principlesof modernscience and to seek new perspectivesfrom which to see the

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 981 world-all these reflecta general desire afterthe Cultural Revolution to revive traditionalbeliefs and values and to reconstructon the "ruins"of a nationalculture. This tendencyis not limited to the discursivefield of qigong;it engages the imaginationof a broad spectrumof culturalpractices, but qigongdiscourse seems to representthe most enduringof these revivals.It is not difficultto figureout why. Given its historicalroots and its mysticrelation to themateriality of the body,qigong is not only an ideal cultural institutionfor inventinga "tradition" that can convenientlyreplace the now dead "meaning"of the Maoist ideology,but it is also a site of resistanceto a new competingideology that negates Maoist ideologyfrom the oppositedirection, as we will see below. It is importantto note heretwo things:(1) what is appealingin the "revivalof tradition"is verymuch its irrationalaspect, and (2) this "revival"does not effecta truereturn to the traditionnegated by the spirit of the May Fourth movement.The rebelliousstrain in the presentdrive toward modernizationcan be understoodas the negationof a negation,which, as Adorno writesin NegativeDialectics, "does not bring about its reversal"(1973, 159). The culturaltransformation calls into question the privilegedsignifiers of the Chinese socialistsymbolic order; what has been presentedas scientifictruth and objective rationalitybegins to be perceivedas a particularform of representingthe world,but not the onlyform. Ke Yunlu's clarionvoice has eventuallymet its no less vocal oppositionin the articlesand speechesof Sima Nan, who has takenupon himselfthe task of exposing pseudopracticesin qigong:it was he who initiatedthe discursivebattle over the scientificnature of qigongphenomena in 1995. The followingquotation, taken from his long essay"Weiqigong zhonghengtan" (The Long and Shortof Pseudo Qigong), firstpublished in fourparts in fourissues of Beijing qingnian bao (Beijing Youth) from May 12 to June 2, 1995, later collected in his two- volume book Shengongneimu (Behind the Curtain of MysteriousQigong), shows conciselythe reasons for his opposition: On an occasionof high level performance, a "Chinese superman" faked teyi gongneng withsimple magic tricks and performedteleport and shookmedical tablets from a sealedbottle. From a psychologicalpoint of view, I reallywish it wasall true,because thatway, the world would be moreglamorous. . . . But,considering the fact that overa hundredyears both at homeand abroad, this kind of supernatural phenomena havebeen repeatedly exposed, and also in relationto myown experience these few yearswhen I followedcertain "men with high-power qi skills"(gaoren), "supermen," "greatmasters" and was duped, I am moreinclined to thinkit false. (Sima1995, 1-90)

Apartfrom writing and giving speeches,Sima Nan also performsin public. He is capable of manyincredible feats, the same as thoseperformed by qigongmasters. Afterthe performance,when everybodyis convincedof the power of his qigong,he will surprisehis audienceagain by revealingthe magic trickshe has used, pointing out that theyhave actuallynothing to do with qigong.He calls Ke Yunlu a great wizard(dawu), Yan Xin "thepatriarch of a new religion"(xin jiao zhu),and challenges all their claims of qigong'sextraordinary power. Sima Nan professesa veryclose relationshipwith many "great qigong masters" and declaresthat he has learnedthose magic tricksfrom them. "If I exhibitmy abilitiesjust like them,people probably will not be able to recognizethem as false.If I don't declaremy performancesto be pseudo-qigong,it may take quite some time and effortto revealthem as such" (Sima 1995, 8).

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One importantstrategic move in Sima Nan's counterdiscourseis to arguethat qi does not reallyexist, let alone waiqi (emanationof qi). What enablesqigong masters to curepatients in thename of waiqi is actuallypsychological suggestion (xinli anshi). Sima Nan attributesthis explanation to Zhang Honglin,associate researcher, director of the qigongresearch section of the Chinese Research Instituteof Traditional Medicine.Sima explainssome of Yan Xin's successfulcases in thislight, but questions his case ofcuring compound bone fractures.He suggeststhat that cure was fabricated by ChongqingDaily's newsreporter Ao Dalun, and thatit cannotbe replicated.Sima's book includesan open letterto Ke Yunlu, whom he attackswith biting sarcasm. AlthoughSima's performancedevastates anyone's impression of any qigongmaster's mysteriouspower, thus earninghim the title "China's Randi,"28one may findhis oftenvitriolic writing dubious itself-for being insufficientlyanalytical. It was not until the spring of 1996, when Zhang Honglin's book came out, that the counterdiscourseseems to havegained equal strengthand credencewith the discourse of qigong. The theoreticalcornerstone of Zhang Honglin's book ReturnQigong to Its Original Look(1996) is also the argumentthat qi as matterdoes not exist,but Zhang offersa briefdiscussion of qi in earlyChinese philosophy and medicinein which he argues that the earlyphilosophical yuanqi lun (theoriesof primalqi), the medicalxiantian zhi qi (qi as theresult of a unionof parental yin and yang),and houtianzhi qi (nutrition derivedfrom breathing in the air and takingin food) all reflectnaive materialism; theyare not reallymetaphysical. He thinksthat the zhenqi(genuine qi) in the qigong discoursediscovered in Huangdineijing refers to physiologicalfunction and is theeffect of qigongpractice, not somethingoriginally there in itself.But what "pseudo-qigong" meansby qi now,he writes,is an entirelydifferent matter. "It is an illusoryqi in the nameof traditional medicine and qigong,with a surreptitiouslychanged definition, in theservice of the totem worship of a hereticalreligion" (Zhang 1996, 31). He declares thatall thoseexperiments made to findthe material existence of waiqi werenot strictly scientificand thereforelack repeatability.Challenged by people asking how his definitionof qigong could denythe material base ofqi fromwhich qigong got its name, Zhang Honglin arguesthat it was Liu Guizhen's"grave historical mistake" to name in the 195Os the various kinds of traditional health practices-Taoist yoga,circulating qi exercise(xingqi), meditation, inner elixir-qigong. This naming is what helped "pseudoqigong" lay its theoretical foundation (Zhang 1996, 29). To explainwhy qigong mastersdid successfullycure patients without touching them, Zhang Honglin points out the functionof psychological suggestion and even hypnotism.He writes: Beforethe patient decides to seekqigong therapy, he has alreadyknown about the mysteriouspower of waiqi treatment through various channels such as newspapers, journals,radio and television,relatives, friends and colleagues;thus he has already preparedthe foundation for receiving psychological suggestion. When he stepsinto thetherapy room and sees all kindsof silk banners, certificates, newspaper and journal

28Asearly as 1990, Zhang Yanghou publishedan articletitled "China's Randi" inJiaoyu daobao(Education Guider), introducingSima Nan and his performanceto the public. James Randi is theAmerican author of Flim-flam!: The Truth about Unicorns, Parapsychology, and Other Delusions(New York: Lippincott& Crowell, 1980), and The Faith Healers(Buffalo, N. Y.: PrometheusBooks, 1987). He is said to have exposednumerous supernatural feats of famous magicians,mystic healers, "spokespersons" of God, supermen,and the like. He can imitate manyof the trickshimself. For twentyyears he has carrieda ten thousand-dollarcheck for anyonewho can prove to him that he has supernaturalcapability. No one has been able to take thatmoney from him yet.

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clippingsdisplayed to proveand eulogizethe master'spower and goodness,the patientis morepsychologically prepared for the extraordinary capability of the qigong master. (Zhang1996, 19-20)

Zhang Honglin thenstresses the importanceof theqigong masters' language, gesture, and facialexpression in effectingthe patient'spsychological transformation. Zhang says that based on the numerousobservations he and his colleagueshave made, he believes that nothingwould happen if the channelsof both verbal and nonverbal communicationwere to be obstructedwhile qigong masters are releasingwaiqi to their patients(Zhang 1996, 20-21). Togetherwith six otherscientists, Zhang has been investigatingand challengingthe Yan Xin experimentsmade by a groupof scientists at Qinghua University;he has called thoseexperiments "pseudo science"on account of theirlack of strictprocedure and of the repeatabilityfactor. Zhang's book also introducesJames Randi to the Chinese readerand includes Randi's picturesand a pictureof Zhang and Randi together.

Toward an Ideological Analysis of Qigong Discourses

The counterdiscourserepresented by Sima Nan and Zhang Honglin maywell be closerto the "truth"of science.As we have seen, despitemodern efforts to provide qigongwith a scientificdiscourse, what gives qigong current cultural value is notreally its scientificbasis; it is rathersomething irrational, some scientificallyinexplicable quality that has come to representChinese traditionalculture. It is ratherthose "superstitions"that Ke Yunlu discusses,derived from traditional self-cultivation techniques,that both give qigongits enigmaand make it popular. "Science" has been a high-poweredword in China, signifyingtruth since the onsetof modernity. For example,Marxism is truthbecause it is "scientific."Scientific discourseas developedin China has alwaysbeen seen as unpositioned,value-free, and not culture-bound.After the CulturalRevolution, in reactionto Maoist voluntarism and ethic-purism,this scientific discourse developed into a scientism,claiming to be the only way to know the truthand to be able to solve all the socioeconomicand political problemscaused by the Cultural Revolution.29That is why qigongrelied heavilyon medicalscience for the better half of the 1980s. But ultimately,one's belief in qigong'scapability to cultivateteyi gongneng does not seem to depend on the proof of a scientificmethod. Nearly every school of modernqigong observes some formof the time-honoredmaxim in qi cultivation:"It will workif you believein it" (xin ze ling f- 5JIljX). The situation bears some similarityto Kierkegaard'swell-known critiqueof the proofof God: Attemptsto prove God's existencehave little worth becausethey are unnecessaryfor people of faithand will be regardedas impossibleby people who do nothave faith (Kierkegaard 1985, 39). Justas Christiansdo notbelieve in Christbecause they consider him wise and good, but becausethe act ofbelief itself gives them an insightinto his alleged goodnessand wisdom,those who believe in the potentialcapabilities of the humanbody forteyi gongneng find reason everywhere

29ShipingHua 1995 analyzesthe historicalcontingency and the ultimatefailure of sci- entismin remoldingthe politicalculture in contemporaryChina.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 984 JIAN XU fortheir belief and do not need to be reassuredby science.Indeed, they may rightfully see modernscience as not "scientific"enough to explainqigong, whereas those who do not believe simplycannot be convincedeven when witnessingphenomena of teyi gongneng.There seems ultimately to be no "truth"there. The same goes for medicine. As Zhang Honglin's theoryof psychological suggestionshows, those who believein the mysteriouspower of qigong stand a chance to be cured,while those who do notbelieve see qigongwaiqi as nothingbut deception. The curativeeffects of waiqi are verylikely those of faithhealing. To nonbelievers, qigongemanation simply does not exist;qigong is just anotherform of health practice. While "faithhealing" does not commandmuch respect,and althoughpeople frequentlyassociate it with manipulationand deception,Dr. Herbert Benson of HarvardMedical School connectsit to "a scientificallyprofound source of healing," whichhe terms"remembered wellness," more commonly known as theplacebo effect. Based on a seriesof medicalstudies that he documentsin his TimelessHealing (1996), he shows that the majorityof the time, "the complaintspatients bring to medical clinicsare of unknownorigin and are probablycaused by 'psychosocial'factors" and cannotbe healed "withexternal tools and devices.. . . Instead,doctors must rely on patients'internal mechanisms" (pp. 49-50). Dr. Benson posits not only that "the marvelwe attachto healersand to conventionaland unconventionaltherapies may be therapeuticin and of itself' (p. 189), but also that "all of us have the wiringthat predisposesus to findfaith enormously healing" (p. 206). He goes on to aver that "religiousfaith is a particularsoothing form [of healingi, but beliefsof all kinds assumetremendous influence over the body" (p. 221). Backed up by numerouscases of successfulfaith healing, Dr. Benson contendsthat faithhealing does not need to be in conflictwith scientifictruth. It is interestingto juxtaposeBenson's observation that "beliefs of all kindsassume tremendousinfluence over the body" (Benson 1996, 221) withBourdieu's remark that I cited in the introduction:"the body believesin what it plays at" (Bourdieu 1990, 73). What bothstatements point at is theintimate and mutuallyaffecting relationship betweenbelief and the body. Not only does beliefproduce effects on the body,but the body,by practicingwhat is asked by belief,forms and strengthensthat belief. In this light,any meaningfulexplanation of qigongphenomena needs to attendto the body's materialpractice of belief.It is verylikely that the bodilypractice of qigong bringsmany in contactwith what Bensonalludes to as "the wiringthat predisposes us to findfaith enormously healing" (1996, 206). In this sense,faith in the master and in the kind of qigonghe or she teachesis not onlya ritualthat serves a symbolic purpose;it also has a morepractical psychosomatic reaction on the practitioner. Zhang Honglin may be correctin pointingout thatthe qi of "pseudo qigong"is illusory.Historically, qi indeed does not refermerely to a substance.It resoundsin Chinese cultureand carriesa value beyondits natureand function.Although the concept of qi as it is understoodin the culturesof East Asia-as a vital energy/ substancecirculating in the bodyand informingeverything in the universe-maybe comparedwith similarconcepts in othercultures such as mana,aether, shakti, prana, and akasha, the perceivedeffects of qi duringpractice are neverthelessinseparable from their culturallyspecific mode of articulation.What is behind the highly transformativepower attributedto modernqigong, but is denied to otherforms of traditionalexercise such as taiji, is a special narrativeof empowerment.Zhang Honglin'sdiscussion of the conception of qi in earlyChinese philosophy and medicine seeszhenqi (genuine qi) merelyas a physiologicalfunction; it thusoverlooks this special narrativethat gives modern qigong its culturalvalue. By reducingthat in qigongwhich

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 985 people believein to mereillusion, the rational, scientific counterdiscourse makes itself unable to accountfor the body'sproduction of beliefthrough practice. But the counterdiscoursedoes draw our attentionto the questionof whyqigong discourse,and forthat matter the entirepostrevolutionary revival of tradition, invests so much in irrationalismor mysticism.In other words, what is the appeal of mysticism,and whydoes it becomefor many practitioners the particular form of belief thatthe body enactsthrough qigong practice? Qigong discourse has in the past fifteen yearshelped open a privatespace in thesymbolic order of Chinese socialist modernity forthose who wantto cultivatetheir individual bodies. But someqigong lovers do not seem contentwith this and continueto claim moretheaters of operationfor qigong. What contemporaryrelevance is there in the mystic vision of ancient bodily cultivation?Can the vision of immortalityand reachingthe gods reassertits power today in a changed formafter a long absence?Behind disputesover the scientific nature of qigongphenomena seem to hide more fundamentalissues. By way of conclusion,I will now suggestwhat some of thoseissues are. A greatpart of qi-relatedbodily cultivation has historicallyresided in a special space in the symbolicnetwork. It is a space of fantasywhere desire is constituted. This fantasy-constructionconstitutes a veritableideology, one thathas beenoutlawed since the onset of modernitywith its proliferationof new ideologiesvalorizing the "rational"and "scientific."The death of Mao and the abrupt end of the Cultural Revolution,marking a radical exhaustionof Maoist ideology,left a huge void. For many who had identifiedtheir whole being with the Revolution,this void was commensuratewith the threat of loss ofany positive content of the self. For in another way,the Chinese socialist symbolic order was also built arounda centrallack, namely a Maoist projectionof utopia and dystopiaat the same time.30The virtualcontent of this projectionwas an incomprehensiblefuture plenitude resembling the imagined lost plenitude of some past social formationin which all temporaryhistorical formationssuch as thefamily, private ownership, and thestate would simply vanish.3' This vision,largely based on a radicalcritique of capitalismin the West, was fora people with a Confuciantradition and an underdevelopedindustry, both attractive and forbidding.The Maoist social-politicaltheory which posits this vision is an ideologyprecisely in thesense that it masksor explainsaway a centralfelt lack in the lived experienceof Maoist subjects. What is at stakein the debate about the scientificnature of qigongalso involves, it seemsto me, a similarfantasy space. We know thatthe unusualpower of modern qigongresults at least partlyfrom a materialistdiscursive construction. Qigong is empoweredby discourseinasmuch as the bodygives thediscourse a materialform by turningit into belief.In traditionalChina manyforms of qi practiceowed much of theirpower to the beliefin immortalityand the possibilityof reachingthe gods, whereasin contemporaryChina, under the influencesof both the discourseof teyi gongneng(e.g., ESP and PK) and the practiceof obscurantismof manyqigong masters verymuch in the spiritof Eastern"enlightenment," qigong has been elevatedfrom a medical device to the position of a special, high-poweredtechnology of the self, situatedbetween science and mysticism.The enigma,the magic spell, the irrational natureof qigong rather than its scientifictruth have made qigongpractice popular; the two corollarybeliefs, that it cures where medicine fails,and that throughqigong traininghumans have a wayto improvethemselves morally and biologically,conspire

30Fora historyof the Maoist visionof the future,see Meisner1982, 184-211. 31SeeEngels 1972 fora historicalpresentation of this belief.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 986 JIAN XU to produce anotherpotent cultural identityfounded on the vacuum of a "lost tradition."For the manywho practiceqigong because qigong fulfills their fantasy and whosebelief in qigongconstitutes who theyare, to exposemagic trickswill not make much sense. The discursivepolitics of qigong,opening a space of fantasyand developing otherwiseonly potentialbodily capabilities,thus satisfiesa basic need in post-Mao China, namely that of reinventingthe body. The individual,private body had graduallydisappeared, since individualsall had only to bear signs forthe socialist symbolicorder. In discussingsocialist rituals of subject-makingsuch as the Party practice of labeling individuals or households as "law-abiding" or "spiritually civilized,"Ann Anagnostwrites: "They [ritualsof subjectionand subject makingi producedocile bodiesand transformthese bodies into signifiers that figure in a master narrativeof progresstoward a socialistmodernity. These ritualsobjectify subjects in a way thatdoes not individuatethem but causesthem to be subsumedwithin a mass identity,the 'people as one,' forwhom the partybecomes the sole authorizedvoice" (1994, 139). But along with a rejuvenatedeconomy, the subjects of theretofore Maoist-politicizedbodies began to desirea rejuvenated,depoliticized body. Qigong's reinventionof the body in defianceof modernscience parallels the economicreform of a superseded"orthodox" socialist economic system.In a certainsense, qigong discoursewould not be able to circulateif the reformpolicies had not firstloosened the grip of the stateideological machine. The strongdesire to reinventand to empowerthe body, however, is also a reaction to post-Maosocial conditions.As quite a fewMarxist scholars of China in the West have observed,post-Maoist Marxism is based on a deterministicreading of original Marxisttexts and emphasizes"objective economic laws" to the neglectof human will (Meisner 1989, 341-61). The Maoist beliefthat human behaviorcan play decisive rolesin the courseof historyand effectleaps in natureis renderedobsolete (Brugger 1989, 117-35). In its investmentin the economismof modernizationtheory, the ensuingpost-Maoist/Marxist, supposedly socialist, ideology in factreconciles all too well with the spatialand temporalteleology of capitalism(Dirlik 1994). "The social tendenciesthat have resultedfrom . . . 'reforms'. . . are simplyincongruous with any conceptionof socialism" (Meisner 1989, 353). This transformationof a "critical Marxism" that had recognizedthe dynamic role of human will to a "scientific Marxism"that entrusts everything to the "objectivelaws of history''32 has givenrise to certain crisis in the subjects of the "socialist" modernization.A sense of powerlessnesshas arisenin themwith the disappearance both of the human agent and of the attendantnotion of the possibilityof transformingpeople's worldview.Since the lessonsof the CulturalRevolution seem to confirmthat thereis nothingto be done at thisstage to hurrythe course of history, except perhaps to preparethe material conditionsfor what the "objectivelaws" dictateis to come,it does not mattermuch how the task of actuallydeveloping the country'sproductive forces is carriedout. Under the termsof thisrationale, anything that contributes to economicgrowth can be labelled "socialist."Private entrepreneurs who succeed in gettingrich are hailed

32AlvinW. Gouldnertraces the developmentof the two divergentMarxisms to theworks of Marx himself.He writes,"Scientific and CriticalMarxism are divergentparadigms because Marx's 'science'is especiallyconcerned to discoverlaws independentof human will and which cannotbe suspendedby scienceitself, while his 'critique'is concernedto exhibitthe manner in whichoutcomes depend on human efforts.His science'sstandpoint, then, is deterministic and structural;his critique'sstandpoint is voluntaristic"(1980, 70).

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 987 as "socialistentrepreneurs." Bureaucrats and capitalisttools are paid moreand more in recognitionof their contributionto socialist modernization.As the new socioeconomicinequalities increase, a considerablepart of the populationthat has remainedpoor, hence of low social status,feels alienated from the symbolicorder of socialistmodernization. Those, especially,who are weak or old mustfeel jeopardized in the extreme.Yet because the presentideology of socialistmodernization can call up the catastropheof the CulturalRevolution to justifyitself, the senseof impotence and alienationthat people feelcannot but be repressed. Thus we have reasonto read qigongdiscourse as a symptomof represseddesires. People like Xie HuanZhang and Ke Yunlu have in effectworked as translators;they translateand conceal "the real of theirdesire," and the desireof manypost-Maoist subjects,into the language of the "political unconscious,"and thus open a fantasy space. What qigongdiscourse now providesis a badly neededsense of power,a sense ofpower derived from sources outside the symbolic network of socialist modernization and foundedupon the culturalheritage "outlawed" since the May Fourthmovement. This "reinstatedtradition" is psychologicallyhealthy to many,and it appearsvery subversivesometimes, but on thewhole, as ideologygoes, it probablymaintains more thanundermines the symbolic"reality" of Chinesesocialist modernization. Now the counterdiscourseof Sima Nan and Zhang Honglin,which champions a rational,"scientific" position, is also an ideologicalconstruct; it too arisesin reaction to the modernizationdrive. As ShipingHua argues,"iconoclasm is the precondition forthe surge of scientism, while scientism is a majorby-product of iconoclasm" (1995, 144); the ideologyof scientismnaturally negates much of traditionaland Maoist culturalheritages, deeming them feudal and superstitiouson groundsthat they cannot be "scientifically"proven. It is precisely"feudal superstitions" (which can includethe personalitycult of Mao) thatthe counterdiscourserepeatedly denounces, not "pseudo qigong"or "pseudo science,"per se. The subjectsof this ideologyare people whom ArifDirlik calls "'socialist'modernizers." He writes:"'Socialist' modernizers, or what is leftof them,as in China, simplycontinue to insistthat modernity will also result fromsocialism. Symptoms to the contrary,regardless of how seriousand insistent theymay be, are consequentlyattributed to the 'backward'legacy of the past that must be cleared away for modernizationto succeed" (Dirlik 1994, 65). The "modernizers" cannot see the oxymoronic nature of the phrase "socialist modernization,"as Dirlik triesto show.Their "scientific Marxism," initially launched as a correctionto Maoist "criticalMarxism" and on whichis based all the coherence of developingsocialism with capitalistmeans, has not enrichedMarxist theory, but ratherimpoverished it. Such an ideologythreatens the possibility of any social change in the nearfuture. Precisely its failureto understandthe need foran imaginaryspace forthe bodypolitic makes its scientific,rational discourse depressing. The "socialist" modernizerswill not see social dislocationas reflectingthe internalproblems of the ideology,but ratherattribute these problems to the "backwardlegacy of the past." It is possible,of course,to arguethat people like Sima Nan and Zhang Honglin representthe government'sattempt to gain controlover qigong practice by defining whichkinds of practice are sanctionedand whichare deviant(along the linesof Ots's and Chen's studies).But thedisadvantage of such an argumentwould be its tendency to reducewriters, scientists, and qigongmasters on thisside to a sortof "medium"or the spokespersonsof the Party/state,thus neglectingthe economyof qigongas a cultural practice that is based on a particularform of belief. As qigongmasters themselves,Sima and Zhang werelikely making sincere efforts to get rid of the aura of mysteryhistorically surrounding qigong practice and to base it on such a new, rational,belief. We also need to be awarethat it is onlyin theorythat a neatdivision

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 988 JIAN XU ofthe two ideologiesis possible.Even thoughthe two sidesseem to dividethemselves aroundthe controversy as completeopposites, in manyways they are closely connected. For example,Sima Nan has personallyexperienced deception at the hands of his teachers,but ironicallyhe himselfuses methodsof waiqi treatmentto curepatients. His accountsof those treatments in Shengongneimu (Behind the Curtain of Mysterious Qigong) give the impressionthat he would neverexpose the "illusion"to his patients as long as it was working,even when he was takenfor a semi-god.Could the same be trueof the majority of the qigong masters who demandfaith in, ratherthan rational understandingof, qi fromtheir students? Likewise, Zhang Honglin should be seen as a defenderof qigongrather than its detractor,because his demystifyingpractice is obviouslydriven by an intentionsimilar to thatof Jiang Weiqiao at the beginning of the century.On the otherhand, Xie Huanzhang's effortto situateqigong in the language of science can hardlybe thoughtof as antiscientism,even though his "scientific"study mystifies qigong. And outsideof this debate,the two ideologiesin many subtle ways complementeach other. Alhough the discourseof revival of traditionconflicts with the presentsocialist modernization ideology and worksas a protestagainst its overlymaterialistic form, both sides negatethe Maoist ideology, and both adopt strategiesto cope with century-longunsatisfied psychological and economiccravings. At present,the dispute over the scientificnature of qigongphenomena has not been resolved.The contestationbetween the two discourses,and their seemingly awkwardcoexistence, are a realityin post-MaoistChina, a realitynot only in that their ideologies are embodied in material practices, but also, perhaps more importantly,because their discourses constitute the real itself.Although the current Falun Gong incidentmay have enabled the scientificdiscourse momentarily to gain the upperhand insideChina, the lingeringof the debatealso testifiesto the strength of the embodiedmystic and psychosomaticbeliefs. The mutuallyopposed discourses of qigong-the one a privilegedsignifier of what is mysticallyOther to "modern science," the other a cosmogrammarof a science in the dubious service of antitraditionalism-aresimultaneously fantasy constructions of qi that speak in responseto a particularhistorical condition, namely the multiplecrises of Chinese modernity.Because the officialMarxist discourse has leaned entirelytoward the objectivismof science, the need arisesfor an oppositionaldiscourse that will keep the balance.The resultis a widespreadrevival of a hostof "traditions,"ranging from the Confuciancult, ancestorworshipping, and Buddhist pilgrimages(merged with tourism)to lavishweddings. Eric Hobsbawn writesin the introductionto the book TheInvention of Tradition: Insofaras thereis such referenceto a historicpast, the peculiarityof 'invented' traditionsis thatthe continuity with it [thispast} is largelyfactitious. In short,they areresponses to novelsituations which take the form of reference to old situations, or whichestablish their own past by quasi-obligatoryrepetition. It is thecontrast betweenthe constant change and innovationof the modern world and theattempt to structureat leastsome parts of social life within it as unchangingand invariant, thatmakes the "invention of tradition" so interestingfor historians of the past two centuries. (Hobsbawn1983, 2)

It is in this sense of "inventedtradition" that the individualbody of the Taoist traditionhas beenreclaimed. In themidst of this extraordinary waxing of "traditional" activitiesand beliefs,qigong, with its fairlyrecent history of construction conveniently forgotten,thrives as a self-sufficientcultural form.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:32:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CULTURAL POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE QIGONG 989

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