11/20/2003

Exiled Chinese Falun Gong practitioner Amy Lee (l.) looks at a pamphlet for a toy with her daughter, Luo Meng Lin, 8.

In her new Forest Hills home, Luo Meng Lin, 8, brought out her collection of Barbie dolls last week - 16 American Barbies sent to her from the United States by her mother, an exiled Chinese Falun Gong practitioner - which she carefully packed into a suitcase before leaving her father in Guangzhou.

"Beautiful," said Luo Meng, using one of the few words she knows in English. Accustomed to moving to new environments, Luo Meng is not shy. With a bowl of scrambled egg and shrimp rice in her hand, she cheerfully pattered around her living room Friday, offering explanations of pictures that she had drawn in China and showing her mother a backpack full of textbooks from her new school, PS 196 in Forest Hills.

"Mommy does the best for you," said Amy Lee, 35, Luo Meng's mother, who tearfully reunited with her daughter at JFK airport Nov. 8 after two years of separation. "Let's never be separated ever again."

As part of China's crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners, Lee was arrested, imprisoned and forced to divorce her husband before she fled her country toward the end of 2001, leaving her family behind.

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement that combines philosophies derived from Buddhism and Taoism with special exercises. According to a Falun Gong Web site, about 100 million people practiced Falun Gong in China before it was deemed a threatening "cult" and outlawed in 1999. Since then, thousands like Lee have been arrested and detained.

In the United States, Lee was granted a refugee asylum visa. She settled in a small studio apartment in Elmhurst and eventually found a job working for a fashion designer on the 53rd floor of the Empire State Building.

Lee called Luo Meng and her ex-husband every weekend and dreamed that they would see each other again one day.

In June 2002, Luo Meng was granted an asylum visa by the United States, but she was not able to leave China because the Chinese government refused to issue her a passport.

Experienced in dealing with Chinese bureaucracy, Lee called the Guangzhou police bureau every night and was told that her daughter would never receive a passport because she is the child of a Falun Gong practitioner.

Unwilling to give in, Lee wrote letters to U.S. assemblymen, congressmen, immigration officials and other public officials. She gained a network of supporters, including co-workers, other Falun Gong practitioners, activists and politicians.

In March, the Chinese government conceded and granted Luo Meng a passport.

In anticipation that her daughter would soon receive a visa to come to the United States, Lee moved to a larger apartment in Forest Hills in August, after she was hired by another fashion design company that put her in charge of an entire showroom.

"I thought to myself, 'she must get a visa, she must get a visa,'" Lee said. "I booked her ticket (to come to New York City) many times, but always it was cancel, cancel, cancel."

Finally, two weeks ago, Lee received a phone call at noon from Luo Meng, who could hardly speak because she was crying.

"She said, 'Finally I get it, I get it! I can see you now, I can see you now!'" Lee said.

Accompanied by about 100 people, including Falun Gong practitioners, co-workers and members of the media, Lee waited nervously for her daughter at Kennedy Airport on Nov. 8.

When Luo Meng emerged from the airplane after a 13-1/2-hour flight, she looked strange - thinner and more "girly," Lee said. But Lee was sure she was her daughter because she was wearing red slippers, jeans and a T-shirt, as her ex-husband had described by e-mail.

"I said, 'Yes! She's mine!' and I grabbed her and ran away," Lee said.

Still jet lagged from her trip, Luo Meng sleeps on the living room couch, close to her Barbies and a pile of artwork that she drew in China. Included in the pile is a white handkerchief that breaks Lee's heart, because her daughter wrote on it in Chinese: "Promise - Tonight I won't sleep. My mom is coming back."

Last week Luo Meng wrote a letter to her father before starting school, where she was expected to be put in English as a Second Language classes.

"I wished him and my grandmother good health and I said I hope he can come to America to be with us," Luo Meng said in Mandarin.

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