(Minghui.org) As the saying goes, “A leopard can't change its spots.” It is very hard to change one’s character even if the person tries really hard. I would like to relate how Falun Dafa changed me from being a rebellious girl and shrew of a wife to someone who is always considerate of others.
(Continued from Part 1)
The Persecution Begins
After Tianjin police arrested dozens of Falun Gong practitioners on April 23 and 24 1999, three local practitioners and I took a taxi to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. It was April 26 by the time we arrived and we heard that the practitioners in Tianjin had been released, so we returned home.
When Jiang Zemin, then Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader, gave the order to suppress Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, other practitioners and I went to Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, to appeal. We met many practitioners from all over the province. Regular police and riot police officers dragged us into buses and took us away. When we refused to get on the bus, we were beaten and kicked, old and young alike.
It was during summer break, and the police held us on school playgrounds, where officers our names and addresses. I was held at a school far away from my home, but I managed to leave when the guards were not watching. It took me a long time to finally get home late in the evening. My family already knew about the persecution and my husband Lei said to me, “Falun Gong is not allowed anymore. Just stay home.” My mother-in-law and her younger daughter were also worried about me. They asked Lei to watch me.
Lei was a good friend of Wei, a police officer. On July 21, 1999, Wei called Lei and told him to take me to the police station. Once there, Wei ordered me to write a statement promising to stop practicing Falun Gong. “You can do whatever you want when you are at home,” he said. I refused. Wei told Lei to “persuade” me to sign and left the room. Lei started to kick me. Hearing the sound, Wei returned and said to Lei, “Even we police did not beat her (referring to me). How could you do that? It’s fine if she does not want to write the statement. You both can go home now.” After that, Lei refused to let me do the Falun Gong exercises at home. But I did them whenever he left.
One time I was doing the sitting meditation when Lei came home. My legs hurt too much and I couldn’t uncross them. Lei found this funny and teased me, “Poor girl! How could you be so uncoordinated?” From then on, he did not worry about me practicing anymore. When my mother-in-law asked him about me, he said, “She’s fine; she stays at home all the time.” When I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong later, Lei helped me put away my Falun Gong books. Once when police came to search the house, he asked a neighbor to keep my Falun Gong books and Master’s portrait.
Lei faced a dilemma at that time. He had seen how I’d changed and knew Falun Gong was good. On the other hand, he was frightened of the CCP and did not want his family destroyed. He started to drink again, especially when he was in a bad mood.
One evening I met with several practitioners and we talked about going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. I ran into my mother-in-law on my way home. She said Lei had been looking for me with a cooking knife in his hand. She had calmed him down already and he had gone to sleep at her place. Worried about my safety, she suggested I not go home and stay somewhere else for a while. I smiled and said things would be all right.
The next day, Lei woke up and returned home. He was fine. “Falun Gong has taught me to be a better person and you know that,” I said. “Please don’t worry so much. When the persecution stops someday, you will be proud of my determination to practice.” Lei did not say anything. From that day on, he no longer beat me or prohibited me from practicing.
Going to Beijing Twice
Since the local government officials did not carry out the illegal persecution, other practitioners and I went to Beijing to tell the central government that it was wrong to persecute Falun Gong. Every time we went to Beijing, I would recite Master’s poem:
“Mighty Virtue
Dafa does not leave the body,The heart harbors Zhen-Shan-Ren;In the world is a great Arhat,Spirits and ghosts fear greatly.”(Hong Yin)
When another practitioner and I went to Beijing the first time, we were not familiar with the area and got separated other shortly after we arrived. An official from my area who had been dispatched to Beijing to stop local practitioners from appealing ran into me and said, “You are so naive. There are police officers all over the national appeals office. You’d better just go home.” He knew my husband well. He took me to the train station, bought me a ticket, and made sure I got on the train.
From then on, Lei kept a tight rein on our funds. I had no job at the time, so I had to ask him for money whenever I needed to buy anything. I saved the change, even if it was just one yuan or 50 cents. Gradually, I saved enough to buy a train ticket to Beijing, and another practitioner (who later died due to the persecution) and I went. On the way there, I also recited Master Li’s poem mentioned above.
No one stopped us en route, but the other practitioner and I got separated in Beijing. I asked around and made it to Tiananmen Square, where I saw practitioners doing the exercises and holding up banners. I went to a nearby store and bought a roll of paper and an eyebrow pencil. I wrote “Falun Dafa is good” on the paper, then returned to the Square. Holding the paper up high, I had no other thoughts and my heart was pure.
I do not know how long I stood there. A police officer came and took the paper. He asked a street cleaner to watch me and left. I did not want to go home, so I just hung around. Later on I saw some practitioners calling out “Falun Dafa is good” and “Master Li and practitioners are innocent!” So I joined them.
At the Tiananmen Square Police Station, I met many practitioners who had come to Beijing to appeal. Just for speaking up for Falun Gong, we were detained. We recited Master Li’s poems together.
The police ordered us to give our names and addresses. Anyone who refused to answer would be beaten. I could not bear the pain and gave them my information. That evening, I was taken to my local place’s liaison office in Beijing. I was taken back to my hometown the following day and held a detention center for seven days.
After I no longer had any opportunities to save money. When Lei and our daughter and I went to visit my parents for the 1999 Chinese New Year, he bought the tickets and gifts and didn’t let me touch any money. A cousin gave our daughter 100 yuan as a gift and I saved it.
Appealing in Beijing the Third Time
On February 11, 2000, a few days after the Chinese New Year, I decided to go to Beijing again. I left when my husband and daughter were still asleep. To save money, I bought a bag of popcorn and two cucumbers.
The trip was a breeze and I planned to unfold a banner I’d prepared on Tiananmen Square. With nothing in hand, I easily passed the inspection. Right after unfolding the banner, however, I was arrested and held in the Tiananmen Police Station.
During the interrogation, the police beat me with wet rubber clubs (which left few surface injuries). An officer held me down on a table and hit me from my neck all the way to my calves. It sounded loud, but I did not feel anything. I knew Master suffered for me.
I made up my mind to not reveal my name and address. More practitioners were brought in. Police took me and two other female practitioners who refused to give their contact information to a detention center. But the facility was full and the police let us go on the way back to the police station.
One of the two practitioners was from Hebei Province and the other was from Shandong Province. There were police almost everywhere. They also hired people to search for practitioners at train stations, bus stations, highway crossings, hotels, and other public places.
The three of us walked past a brick factory around midnight. The workers started a small fire to heat some steamed buns for breakfast. Cold and hungry, we went up to them. They knew we were Falun Gong practitioners and asked us to join them for warmth and food. We told them about Falun Gong and the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. “We know this. Please be careful—the police are checking everywhere,” one of them said.
We kept walking after we ate. When dawn broke, we ran into a male practitioner named Rui from Shandong Province. He said that local officials had sealed his home due to his belief, so he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was staying at a practitioner’s home about 12 miles outside of Beijing. Rui took us to the host practitioner’s home, where we met another practitioner named Lian. She was a coordinator in the area and we decided to study the Falun Gong teachings together. When it was time to sleep at night, Lian noticed that there were bruises all over my back and legs from being hit with the rubber club.
A month later, 15 practitioners, including Lian, Rui, and myself, made banners and balloons that said, “Falun Dafa is good” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.” We also prepared some self-adhesive posters, red paint, and stencils. We broke up into two teams, one led by Lian, the other by Rui and me.
On the way to Beijing, we picked clean, visible locations to spray paint “Falun Dafa is good.” The stencils were well designed and the results looked good. Other practitioners distributed pamphlets and put up self-adhesive posters along the way.
Halfway to Beijing, a patrol police van found us. We scattered around and went into hiding, except for an auntie who carried balloons. It was dark and she hid the balloons well. The officers saw only an elderly woman walking, so they left. Rui called us together and we continued our journey. The other team also encountered patrolling police, but nothing happened.
It was already dawn when we arrived in Beijing. We separated into groups of two or three and walked to Tiananmen Square. Two elderly practitioners slowly released balloons. Many people saw them and the words “Falun Dafa is good” on them.
Because the police were busy catching the balloons, five of us, including Lian and me, unfurled our banners. We held them up high and called out, “Falun Dafa is great!” “Master Li and practitioners are innocent!” Other practitioners also raised their own banners.
We saw police officers calling for police vans as they rushed toward us. The banners were very long, and the officers had to wrap them around their bodies to seize them from us. We did not give up and pulled again, unfolding the banners. We kept calling out “Falun Dafa is good” while protecting the banners. In the end, the police snatched all the banners. They beat and kicked us and forced us into the police vans, but no one paid attention to me. I took out a smaller banner, unfolded it, and called out aloud “Falun Dafa is great!” They arrested me, too.
At the Tiananmen Square Police Station, we heard from the police that the station couldn’t hold any more practitioners. So big buses arrived to take us to different locations. Young male practitioners stood in the front, arm in arm, and recited Master Li’s poems. Armed police hit and kicked us, wave after wave. In the end, several of us were transferred to Miyun County Police Department.
The police interrogated us overnight. An officer closed the door and asked for my name and address. I refused to answer, so he slapped me in the face. When he was tired, he slapped me with shoes. But I did not feel pain, and I knew Master Li had suffered for me.
“Tell me your name and I will release you,” shouted the officer. “Are you from Dezhou City in Shandong Province?”
“I cannot tell you,” I replied. “If I tell you, officials and police officers in my area would lose their jobs. Master teaches us to be good people, so I won’t do it.” “Send her to a detention center!” someone outside the room shouted.
Sixteen of us were taken to a detention center. The concrete floor was wet and cold. One practitioner used her own money to buy a blanket for us to sit on. Another shared the only food he had, a cucumber, with the rest of us. We each took a bite. After passing it around once, there was still half a cucumber left.
Lian, the practitioner who bought the blanket, and I decided to go on a hunger strike. Three days later, the police took us to a local bus station. “Don’t come back!” said an officer and they left.
Good Cooperation
I returned to my hometown the following evening. I decided to visit Ping before I went home. I had no money (the police took it all), so I had to walk a few miles. It was already midnight when I arrived. We talked and decided it was time to share our understandings with others so that more practitioners would step forward to validate Dafa.
One practitioner from another city happened to come the next day to pick up truth-clarification materials. He gave Ping and me a ride to another city, where we had a small gathering with local practitioners, and I talked about my experience in Beijing. Ping also discussed her understandings. Over the next two weeks, we visited different places, village by village, encouraging more practitioners to step forward.
When I return to Ping’s, it was late at night. She asked me what my plans were. I said I had been gone for two months and I hoped to go home and see how things were. “My husband Lei often turns off his cell phone at night,” I said. “I will give him a call. If he answers, I will go home.”
I called and Lei answered.
Lei was very happy to hear I was back.
“I knew you would be home soon—a magpie was singing in the yard all morning the other day. That’s why I left my phone on all the time these past two days,” he said. “You can take a taxi home right away and I will pay the fare.”
Ping and I looked at each other, and we both smiled. We thanked Master Li for all his help.
Back home, I saw Lei had already opened the door. He showed me the clothes he had bought me.
“When you go to Beijing again, please dress nicely so I won’t be embarrassed,” he said with a smile.
He said his mother had been taking care of our daughter. I went to my mother-in-law’s home and she was also happy to see me home safely. “Finally I can sleep well and no longer need to worry about you,” she said with relief.
Distributing Materials
Afraid of being harassed by the local police, Lei decided to keep our daughter at his mother’s. He and I went to live with my parents, and he started a video game establishment for me to run. He often came to the store to repair and update the machines.
One day he said he wanted to read Zhuan Falun. He and I listened to Master’s lectures together once. He liked the teachings, saying it was true people were divine. But he did not read the book or listen to the lectures again.
I contacted local practitioners and got some materials. I took care of the video game shop during the day and went out to distribute materials in the evening. Sometimes it was almost dawn when I returned. Lei sometimes went out with me on this motorcycle. Once he said the poster I’d put up was too low and easy to remove, so he moved it higher.
Once when we were out distributing materials, the police saw us. So I returned to my mother-in-law’s place. I did not like the video game shop anyway, because many students went there and I realized this would harm them.
After returning to our own home, I went out to distribute materials and put up signs on walls. Once my cousin (not a practitioner) came with me. We first distributed materials and then put posters on a school.
After that we went to a village office. Inside the office, people were playing cards and making a lot of noise. It was a great opportunity to put up posters with my cousin on the lookout nearby. My mind was pure and I focused on aligning them perfectly.
After we were done, my cousin said, “When you were doing that a moment ago, a man was standing behind you. When you were almost done, he left quietly. I was so scared.”
Thankful for Master’s protection, I said, “We are doing the most righteous thing. There is nothing to worry about.”
(To be continued)
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