I Witnessed the Beginning of the Persecution When I Was 11 Years Old

(Minghui.org) I began to practice Falun Dafa with my mother in China when I was ten years old. Blessed by Dafa, I changed from being one of the worst students and a rebellious youngster whom no one wanted to be around into a happy person and top student.

After we began practicing Falun Dafa, my family lived in harmony. Our happiness was destroyed when the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) started to persecute practitioners. After my mother was taken to a forced labor camp, I stopped practicing Dafa for a period of time. As I sought purpose in life, I eventually resumed practicing.

Since I left China two years ago I have been telling people, both Chinese and Westerners, the truth about the persecution of Falun Dafa. The persecution has gone on for 22 years now—I recall when it all began, almost as if it was yesterday.

My Amazing Transformation after Practicing Dafa

I was a lonely and rebellious child with low self-esteem. My father was an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was two years old due to “domestic violence.” In the early 1990s, divorce was rare in China, so I became a focus of local gossip. People pointed at me when I passed them on the street, and I overheard them as they gossiped about my parents. Every time, I tried to run away as quickly as possible. The experience harmed me psychologically, and I became depressed. I even dreamt about these humiliating situations many times.

I was raised by my mother. In China, a single mother did not receive any support. Furthermore, she had to endure the constant pressure of negative public opinion. My father did not give her any money for me, so my mother and I were poor.

At the time, my mother suffered from severe heart disease and aortic arteritis, and I was often ill. I had pneumonia, gastritis, hepatitis, and a constant sore throat, which made it hurt to swallow.

My mother remarried when I was five. From the first day, I completely refused to accept my stepfather. Even the relationship between my mother and me became tense. I was stubborn and did not listen to my parents. I often forced my mother to compromise by refusing to eat.

I was a naughty kid and my clothes were always dirty. None of my classmates wanted to play with me. My teacher basically ignored me as my scores were usually second to last in the class. My mother and stepfather often quarreled over my education. They said kids who don’t listen to their parents end up in jail when they grow up. No one said anything positive about me, and I dared not think about my future.

In the spring of 1998, my mother started to practice Falun Dafa. Although no one pressured me to practice, I felt that it was something good—perhaps because all the practitioners I met were very kind.

I began practicing Dafa with my mother. Every morning, we would get up at 5 and go to the town square to do the exercises with other practitioners. After dinner, we would meet to read Zhuan Falun and then do the sitting meditation for 30 minutes. While this all seemed so simple, the changes in my life that followed were dramatic.

As I entered the third grade, before I realized what was happening, I’d become a top student in my class. By reading Zhuan Falun, I was no longer self-centered, and my classmates liked me. I even accepted my stepfather as I realized our relationship was predestined. Both my mother and I became healthy. Our family became harmonious. Occasionally, my stepfather would read Zhuan Falun with us.

I look back on those days as some of the happiest of my life.

July 20, 1999

After many practitioners appealed in Beijing during April 1999, newspapers began publishing articles slandering Falun Dafa. Many practitioners wanted to let officials know how much they had benefited from Dafa. As an 11-year-old girl, I witnessed some of these mass appeals.

On July 19, 1999, I went with my mother and my aunt to the offices of the provincial government. It was almost evening when we arrived and government officials were already off work, so we decided to go again the next morning.

More and more practitioners from different cities in the province arrived and gathered in front of the office building. We all had the same thought: to tell officials about how we benefited from Falun Dafa.

At sunset, we walked to a square where many practitioners had gathered. Suddenly someone shouted, “Look! A Falun (Law Wheel) in the sky!”

I looked up. It was true! A giant Falun was rotating above our heads in the sky! All of us applauded. The Falun could be seen for several minutes. The sky was covered with rosy clouds afterward. We all knew it was Master encouraging us.

To save money, many of us, including my mother and me, had bread for supper and spent that night on the street.

Early the next morning, Dafa exercise music could be heard throughout the square. Practitioners would stand and begin to do the exercises. About ten minutes later, several buses stopped around the square and more than 40 armed police officers dressed in riot gear surrounded us. “Hold your heads and squat down! Don’t move!” they yelled.

Seeing the police aiming their weapons at practitioners who were peacefully doing the Falun Dafa exercises, I was confused. “Why do the police want to shoot us?”

Several other buses arrived, and the police rounded us up and put us on the buses. We were taken to a school, which was empty since it was summer vacation. We were forced into the assembly hall, where a police officer sat on the podium and read from a stack of papers. He repeated many lies that defamed Dafa and Master.

Several practitioners stood up and shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” I was short and could not see what was happening, but many practitioners soon stood up and called out, “Stop hitting people!” A policeman said to an elderly practitioner near me, “You are a Party member. You should take the lead and denounce Falun Dafa.” In response, the practitioner calmly and firmly answered, “I now quit the Chinese Communist Party.”

Around noon, all the practitioners, including children such as eleven-year-old me, were instructed to line up on the sports field in the scorching summer heat. I began to sweat profusely. A policeman walked around, stopping here and there to say nasty things to us. I particularly remember the police stopping in front of a thin male practitioner and laughing: “You practice Falun Dafa? Look at you! You are so poor you don’t even have enough to eat!”

As soon as we were allowed to move, many practitioners took out the food they had with them and handed it to the thin man. I gave him a piece of bread. I still remember that when he looked at me, his eyes were full of gratitude and kindness, with no trace of resentment.

In the evening, many practitioners were called separately into classrooms, where the police asked questions and took notes. A middle-aged policewoman asked me a lot of questions. I answered truthfully. Then she read back to me what she’d written down and told me to sign it and leave my fingerprint.

After I was done, she looked at me again and hesitated, “You are too young. This report will not be counted.”

I was puzzled. Why would what I said not count? I had been telling the truth! Some time later, I found out that practitioners who were questioned that evening were put on a blacklist and became primary targets in the ensuing persecution. The policewoman had been kind by saving me from being listed.

That night, police officers from different areas of the province arrived to take us all back to our hometowns. My mother and I were taken back, but my mother was then detained for seven days.

Finding the Meaning of Life

Over the course of these 22 years of persecution, every practitioner in China, as well as their family members, has had sad experiences. When I was in middle school, my mother was put into a forced labor camp for two years. The police took away all the Falun Dafa books in our home. Since I lived in a remote area in the countryside with no other Dafa practitioners around, I did not have any access to information about the persecution.

At school, I was constantly being brainwashed. We were taught about atheism and evolution and inundated with communist ideology.

I had many questions, but no one could answer them. As children, all we could do was sit and listen. In my second year of middle school, I gave up practicing Falun Dafa and decided to not to have any beliefs.

Gradually, I came to understand that when people have no beliefs, there is no truth and there is no standard by which to measure right and wrong. Bureaucratic laws are not fair.

I wondered why people existed and what was the real purpose of a human life? Do we live for fame? For money? All the prosperity and wealth in the world last only a few decades. You cannot bring these things along with you at birth or carry them away with you after death. Emotions and sentiments are unreliable.

Why are we here? Could it be that there is really no eternal truth in this world? Every day, I pondered this again and again, but there were no answers.

I began to develop health problems. First, I got severe sinusitis. I was congested and had to sleep with my mouth open. I often coughed and had a sore throat, my ears itched and I had headaches, cervical pain, athlete's foot, and hemorrhoids. My eyes were red and swollen. Eating anything cold gave me a stomachache, and I was taking all kinds of medication. Yet the most painful thing of all was I could not figure out what the purpose of my life was.

Several years passed. One day, I had the urge to read Zhuan Falunagain. After all those years, I had forgotten what the book said. Given my situation, there was no way for me to get a copy and I did not mention my desire to anyone, but, miraculously, a copy of the book soon found its way into my hands.

When I read Zhuan Falun again, I was like a lost child finally finding my home. It answered all my questions, including about the origin of life and the true meaning of human life. I knew that the sole criterion to discern good and bad is Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

I also read the book Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. I understood what the CCP was like and why it persecutes Dafa practitioners.

After my deepest questions and doubts were answered and resolved, I tried to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Within two weeks, my body returned to being free of illness. I felt my entire body becoming light again.

Most importantly, I found inner peace. I firmly believe in Falun Dafa and Master Li. At work and in my personal life, I always remember that I am a practitioner. As my character improved, my family members and friends were positively affected as well.

I became a reputable mathematics teacher in my hometown. No matter where I worked, in private or public schools, I was welcomed by the parents and other teachers. Many parents said that, after their children became my students, they improved not only in mathematics but also in their character. Many teachers arranged for their own children to be my students.

After moving to Australia, I joined a project that makes phone calls to China. I want to save more Chinese people who have been poisoned and brainwashed by the CCP’s lies. On weekends I often go to my local Chinatown to clarify the truth to people. As a young person I have a deep-seated fear of “losing face,” so it has not been easy for me to stand on the streets and talk to people—especially when they sometimes refuse to accept the brochures I am handing out. Some even say rude things to me. But I have continued since I know there is nothing more important than letting more people understand the truth.

A Final Word

Over all these years of living under the persecution, many of the practitioners I know have been arrested by the CCP multiple times, some were forced to do slave labor work, some were tortured, and still others lost their lives.

Yet there is no resentment in my heart. Dafa practitioners have valiantly opposed this brutal persecution in the most peaceful ways, for we want people to know the truth, distance themselves from evil, and choose a bright future for themselves. We do not have political goals.

I hope all sentient beings find out the truth before it is too late. Evil will be punished, and I hope more good people remain safe!