(Minghui.org) I was officially planning for retirement in October 2001. However, I was denied my pension due to the Chinese Communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
When I went to the HR department about it, I was shown the document “sent from above” to our work unit by the chief of personnel. It said that anyone who went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong would have their salaries stopped and all benefits canceled upon their return. In addition, they would not receive earned retirement payments.
It was August 25, 2002, when, upon the recommendation of a fellow Falun Gong practitioner, I went to a local university to apply for a job as a custodian.
My husband suffers from severe diabetes and was still 10 years away from retirement. Our child was studying at that time. Our life was already hard, and now it was getting worse. I had to leave my ailing husband on his own and went to work as the cleaner in an information center at one of the universities.
According to the rules of the center, the cleaners had to come to work an hour before the normal start time every day. The very first thing every morning is to get a supply of sulfate kept in an old water bottle to clean the toilets. It is advised not to ask for more due to safety reasons.
At the beginning of September 2002, I went to pick up a bottle of sulfate after I arrived at work. Since I had to work on other jobs first, I left it next to a bottle of drinking water in the employee rest area while I went off to work elsewhere.
It was a very hot day, and I soon felt thirsty. I rushed back to the rest area to drink water. I picked up a bottle and started to drink. It didn’t taste right. It felt hot and burning.
I realized it was the sulfate that I drank! I immediately started to spit it out. As soon as it hit the concrete floor, it started foaming.
I rinsed my mouth with water while rushing downstairs to the duty room. I told everyone there, “I drank the wrong water! I drank the sulfate!”
Everybody there was frightened and brought water for me to keep rinsing my mouth. I kept doing it, and everyone was nervous.
Soon, the university leadership, lecturers, and administrators all found out that I had drunk sulfate by mistake. Frightened, they all rushed over to see me.
When they discovered that I didn’t seem to have anything wrong, they all felt relieved but still frightened. I told them not to worry, as I practice Falun Gong and had my master’s protection.
However, after saying there was "no problem,” whenever I rinsed my mouth and spit it out, anything it touched had small holes burned into it.
When I showed everyone the holes in my uniform, socks, and shoes, they were all amazed: “Falun Gong is amazing! Falun Gong is awesome! A normal person’s mouth would be severely burned.”
One of them even said, “I witnessed those who use sulfate to harm people. It was really horrific. Why didn’t the sulfate harm you? Falun Gong is truly amazing!”
This incident caused a big stir in the university and in the surrounding area. People were all spreading the word: “We have a Falun Gong person who drank from the sulfate bottle by mistake, but she was not hurt at all. Falun Gong is truly amazing!”
It was compassionate Master Li, founder of Falun Gong, who protected this disciple. How much more would Master bear for me? As a disciple, I can only be more diligent in return to express my gratitude to Master.
There are six floors in the information center where I worked. Each floor has two cleaners. After finishing their assignments, employees would do some of their own chores. Some might use the university washing powder to launder their own clothes. Others might catch up on mending clothes for their family. Some employees might even bring home items from work. I never do things like that.
Other cleaners said to me, “Sister Li, you can bring your own work here to do.” But I said to them, “No. I am a Falun Gong practitioner. Our Master requires us to be a good person wherever we are and not to take advantage of others. We need to behave ourselves according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
A cleaner on the second floor said, “I’ve heard about Falun Gong in the past. Then the authorities stopped people from practicing. Everything I heard about Falun Gong was negative. Now, look at sister Li. She practices Falun Gong. Why is she different from what the TV news programs tell us? The Communist Party just keeps telling us lies all the time!”
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