BEIJING -- Xue Aiying, a 65-year-old retired worker from Nanjing, used to go to Bailuzhou Park every morning to practice Falun Gong before the sect was outlawed in July last year. "I didn't know what to do with myself after I retired," she explains. "I felt lonely and empty before I joined Falun Gong."
Xue is just one of an estimated 2 million followers of Falun Gong, which combines breathing exercises with Taoist and Buddhist elements. Now Xue's children are encouraging her to take up "yangkou" dancing instead, originally a harvest celebration dance but today a popular form of exercise among the elderly.
The crackdown on Falun Gong has highlighted the plight of China's elderly people, who make up 60 percent of the sect's followers. "Most of the aging population have low income and poor health and get little respect. This makes them vulnerable to new religions like Falun Gong," said sociologist Xu Xixiang, of China's Ethics Association.