(Minghui.org) I came to live in North America in January 2019. I would like to share to share some of my family’s experiences with those who do not know much about Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and Shen Yun.
I began practicing Falun Dafa in October 1998 and enjoyed the best time of my life until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute the practice in July 1999. At the beginning of the persecution, teachers and leaders of my university talked to me a number of times, trying to persuade me to give up practicing Falun Dafa. They threatened that if I refused to do so, I would be expelled from the university. They also said that they would send me and a few other students who practiced to a brainwashing center.
A few classmates and I were forced to drop out from the university and became homeless. We went to Beijing to appeal, only to be arrested, beaten and unlawfully detained. The police later raided my place and confiscated all my Dafa books. Despite the persecution, I remained unmoved in my determination to practice Falun Dafa.
After I was released and returned home, I was saddened to learn that my elder brother and his wife were both detained for practicing Dafa. The police came to harass my family every day. My mother was in tears all day long and she was at the edge of a mental breakdown. She said to me in tears that if I was expelled from the university, she would not be able to live anymore. I felt that my situation had become the last straw for my mother. I have been filial and obedient since childhood. I had never upset my parents and I couldn’t bear to see them suffer. With great pain in my heart, I gave up practicing Dafa.
Shortly after I gave birth to my son, I was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, with the worst prognosis. The doctor told my family that even if I underwent a surgical procedure, I might have had a year to live at the most, or half a year. Persuaded by a family member who also practices Dafa, I resumed practicing. Dafa and Master gave me a second life in the most desperate situation, and I quickly regained good health.
I thought of writing a sharing article about my cultivation experiences a number of times, but gave up each time, thinking that what I experienced was too trivial to share. I felt very upset when I read the reports by the New York Times that distorted facts and discredited Shen Yun. Such reports could easily be used by the CCP to deceive people in China. With a strong sense of responsibility, I decided to write about my son’s experiences at Fei Tian Academy, hoping that people in China would not be deceived and good people would not be wronged.
My son has always been cheerful and outgoing since he was a little boy. Being the only child in the family, he gets a lot of attention and care. When he reached school age, in order to give him a good learning environment, my husband and I decided to sell our house and buy a new house near where he was working in a good school district. Even though neither of us came from a rich family, we were very lucky to be able to have enough money for the down payment and found a suitable house, and gradually paid off the home loan.
The school my son went to had a quite good reputation, which has a brand new teaching building on campus, equipped with various good facilities. But my son wasn’t happy at school. When answering a math question, he couldn’t understand why he could only use the method taught by the teacher, but not other ways that could lead to the same results. He and other boys worked very hard to do well, but only those few girls who often reported to the teacher about others were awarded. He never caused any trouble to others, but was often poked by his classmates with the tip of a pencil or pushed into a ditch. He liked playing football and joined the school team, hoping to win a good ranking for his school, but he and his teammates were often beaten or scolded by the coach, and were asked to withstand multiple football kicks with their bodies, without moving or trying to dodge the hits. I noticed that my son became quieter and more reserved.
Later, a local practitioner who had frequent contact with my husband was arrested. His family told us that the police had been monitoring my husband as well and they reminded us to pay more attention to our safety. In order to avoid the persecution, our family moved to the U.S.
The morning after we arrived in the U.S., my son said to me that he had a very good sleep with no worries. Only then did we learn that back in China, he could not sleep well because he was always worried that the police might break in and take us away. Each time we did not pick him up from school on time, he became very worried and anxious, for fear that we might have been taken away by police like some of our fellow practitioners.
Now in a free world, where we can freely practice Falun Dafa, he no longer needs to fear the police taking us away. However, life wasn’t easy for him in school at the beginning. Due to the language barrier, he felt rather lonely as he could not interact with his classmates as he wanted to, and there were also misunderstandings from time to time as a result. He did not enjoy going to school and his English was improving very slowly. My husband and I couldn’t help him as our English was also very basic. I found him an English tutor, as suggested by his school, and with his help, my son’s English improved very quickly, and we arranged homeschooling for our son.
In order for our son to have better homeschooling, we moved to another state, where we also had the opportunities to help promote Shen Yun. My son was very much involved in putting up posters and delivering flyers door to door. It was quite demanding physically, but he never complained.
My son loves studying history, and he knows a lot about Chinese historic figures and stories. He was very much attracted to Shen Yun performances, which showcase what China was like before communism and the brilliance of China’s 5000 years of civilization. He was also moved to tears when he watched the programs depicting the cruel persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China.
“Mom, I hope I can join Shen Yun one day,” my son said to me after attending a Shen Yun performance. In order to fulfill his wish, he wanted to attend normal school again. My husband and I both supported his decision. However, he had never taken any dance class before and had no training in musical instruments. He was already 11 years old then. We were not sure if he could make it.
Besides, it is quite expensive to learn dance or a musical instrument. We had just bought a house and spent almost all our savings, and any extra expenses were beyond our means. A fellow practitioner told us not to worry if my son could go to study at Fei Tian Academy, because even though it’s a private school, it provides full scholarship and full board for students.
With the encouragement from fellow practitioners, we sent our son to study classical Chinese dance at Northern Academy, Middletown, N.Y., and in the same year, he was very lucky to be admitted to Fei Tian Academy of the Arts.
We were very surprised to see my son’t changes when he came home during the school break. Even though he was at Fei Tian Academy for less than a month, he had turned into a very cheerful, polite, and confident young man. For example, when I was talking to my husband, he would wait till we finished before he started talking. At meal times, he would always wait till we started eating before he picked up his chopsticks. He did his homework and practiced dance skills attentively without us reminding him. I also found that he became much more focused and calmer than before. He used to have a bad habit of smacking his lips while eating, but it was no longer the case. His table manners became very polite and elegant, and my husband also noticed that even the way he held chopsticks improved. We were so surprised and happy to see all these positive changes in our son after such a short time at Fei Tian.
My son loves Fei Tian school and would choose to stay at school even during school holidays. I used to ask him how he handles it if he comes across things he is not happy with. He said such situations are very rare. If he encountered something difficult, he would talk to his teacher. He told me that the teachers at Fei Tian are very kind and considerate.
My son is not very strong physically. Not long after he went to Fei Tian, his teacher called me and told me that my son was not very strong physically and suggested some snacks I could buy him to help build up his physical strength and energy. We found that the teachers at Fei Tian not only taught the students academic knowledge and professional dance skills, but also showed them how to be good and even better people by setting good examples for students.
With the help from teachers, my son passed the tests and gained an opportunity to join Shen Yun as part of the practicum program. He was so happy! Whenever it comes to festivals or Father’s Day or Mother’s Day, my son would call us or send us greetings. Each time we see him, he always brings us more surprise and happiness.
Before his first tour with Shen Yun, we took him out for a meal, and after he made orders for us, he took out his tablet provided by Fei Tian and read quietly as we waited for our food. He told us that he still had some schoolwork to finish for the day. During the meal, he told us that he would be joining the Shen Yun tour that year, and he might not be able to see us for some time, but we do not need to worry about him and he would call us from time to time. We told him that we would support him in doing all these great things. He was very happy and relieved, because earlier he was a bit worried that we might not feel comfortable about him being away for so long. He showed such filial piety to us, we almost forgot that he was only 13 years old.
My husband and I drove six hours to watch the first show our son was performing with Shen Yun in a prestigious theater. We felt so proud and grateful when we saw his smiling face, heard the heartfelt laughter from the audience and saw the tears they shed when they were deeply touched. My son has turned into such a wonderful and talented young dancer within just one year! We cannot imagine just how much effort and sweat the teachers at Fei Tian have put into the students’ education and training.
When we saw our son after he finished with the Shen Yun tour that year, we found that he had grown taller and stronger. He told us happily that everywhere they went, they were provided with excellent food, and the tour also broadened his horizons. He studied some American history and local customs in each state while he was homeschooling. But we could not afford to take him to visit those places.
During the summer vacation this year, we took him to visit Hawaii. We planned to go last year, but due to my husband not being able to take time off work, we postponed the trip to this year, because my son didn’t want to leave his dad behind. My son was actively involved in planning the trip, from how to get to our hotel from the airport, to picking sightseeing spots and ordering food at restaurants. We did not need to worry about anything. My husband noticed that our son is very observant and has a strong ability in solving problems.
My son also demonstrated maturity and calmness beyond his age. Once we took him to see a dentist. Staffers there seemed surprised that our son was so young, as he was so composed, polite, and communicated very well. One dentist is a graduate from a well-known university in the U.S. The manager of the dental clinic told us later that it was the first time he heard the dentist have such positive things to say about a patient.
Each time we take our son out and when he sees something his classmates like, he would ask if he could take some back to his classmates. Once, when I was watching a video interview with a Shen Yun performer, he mentioned that in Shen Yun, people always help each, and there is no jealousy among them. My son said, “It’s true. That’s how we treat each other.”
Once, I talked with my son about things in his childhood. At that time, he always wanted to have a younger brother or a younger sister. “I still want to have one now,” my son said, “But an elder brother or sister.” My husband and I both burst out laughing. Our son is the youngest in his class, and he is well taken care of and enjoys the brotherly friendship.
As parents, we always wanted to give the best to our son, but we found that Fei Tian has given our son the best we could imagine, much more than we could ever have given him.
Before he went to Fei Tian, I reminded him to be kind to everyone, and to treat his classmates as his brothers, and respect his teachers as his own parents. He should be polite and grateful to all who are teaching him and caring for him, including volunteer workers. “Fei Tian and all its staff members are doing their best to educate and train you. You must always be grateful for all these things,” we said to him.
It is parents’ responsibility to bring up and educate their children. But since he went to Fei Tian, we have not needed to worry about him. Fei Tian is bearing all the cost in his education and training, and we do not need to spend any money. We told our son to always feel grateful for everything given to him at Fei Tian, and we as parents feel equally grateful from the bottom of our hearts.