Chen's daughter Li came to Salt Lake City earlier this month to do an all-day clapping-hands workshop with adults. She also spent a couple of hours at the Montessori Community School working with a small group of 7- and 8-year-olds.

First she taught them four chants. In English they mean "super energy is all around us; mentally connected with it, whole body is cleaned" — but in Chinese they sounded much more exotic. The children chanted while moving their arms down their chest, then down their back. Then they chanted while marching around the auditorium. Then the clapping began: first, a clapping movement with the fingertips touching, then clapping with the fingers interlocked, then an exercise that Li warned might be a little painful: slapping the wrist with the palm of the other hand. "These two points are connected to your heart," Li told the children, "so this is good for your heart."

Then the heavy-duty clapping began, coupled with marching and chanting. Parents and other grown-ups were invited to join in. When it was all over, Li showed everybody photographs of hands that had apparently done a lot of vigorous clapping. Many were covered with dark spots; proof, Li said, of the toxins that had been released.

"So keep clapping every day," she told the students.

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