Bringing Shen Yun to Turkey

(Clearwisdom.net)

I come from southern Turkey but have lived in Australia since 1994. I first encountered and began practicing Falun Dafa in 2001 in the city of Melbourne. Since I was 17 years old I have had many health problems but the worst one was my heart condition. Just one week after I started practicing Falun Dafa, practitioners at the practice site told me that they were going on an SOS walk around Melbourne to raise awareness about the persecution in China. When I heard about the persecution I was shocked and could not understand why anyone would persecute people who were trying to improve themselves. I told them that I would walk with them.

I did not know that they were going to walk over 11 kilometers (7 miles).

I did not have the right shoes and I normally could not even walk home from nearby shops because of my heart condition. But, I had a strong urge to protest against the evilness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I said I must do this walk even if I died on the road. I knew that Dafa was precious even though I still had not read Zhuan Falun at that stage.

I started walking and to my surprise I didn't get tired at all even though my feet were full of blisters. My heart was absolutely perfect even though the weather was extremely hot. I knew I was doing the right thing. I would not miss this opportunity to support and do something meaningful for a change. I was really amazed. I kept walking under the extreme heat with no discomfort. If only I had good shoes, everything would have been just fine.

A practitioner asked if my feet hurt. I said yes, but that it couldn't be as bad as being persecuted. She told me to send forth righteous thoughts and taught me the words for the formulas in English. All of a sudden I had a beautiful, warm energy flowing through my body. I said to myself that Falun Dafa is real. I felt so lucky. I experienced a happiness and peace that I had never experienced before.

I walked 8 kilometers that day but by the time I had arrived home, all of my blisters had disappeared. It was just a miracle. That day was the end of almost all of my health problems.

In 2004 I went back to Turkey to help more people there learn about Falun Dafa. In the following 6 months, many people learned the exercises and 7 of us set up a Falun Dafa association there.

We clarified the truth to our local government and the Turkish National Assembly (TNA) in Ankara. We had the TNA human rights section investigate the persecution of Dafa in China. We received a letter of condemnation of the persecution. Therefore it was clear to me that the Turkish government accepted the fact that the CCP was wrong.

After a 3-year stay in Turkey I returned back to Australia in 2007, just in time to see Shen Yun perform in Melbourne. I watched them perform 9 or 10 times in Australia in different cities. Mostly I had tears in my eyes watching them. I thought about them most nights before I slept. Every time they left Australia I felt very sad and did not want to talk to anyone for a few days. Some nights I cried thinking about them. I just wished that one day we could host Shen Yun in Istanbul. How wonderful that would be!

I soon heard that Turkish practitioners were informed that they could host Shen Yun in 2007, but we were not able to pull it off. Again in 2008 and again in 2009 we had the opportunity, but again we couldn't do it even though we had the wish. One of the reasons was that only a few practitioners lived in Istanbul. Others lived in Ankara and Mersin, and I lived in Australia. We simply could not form one body and that affected our work. We put a lot of effort to travel back and forth to Istanbul to have meetings and to find sponsors, but it did not work.

2010 came around and we again wanted to have Shen Yun perform. I was in Australia, however, and I agonized over not being able to be in Turkey for a longer time. I decided that I had to do it and that I would ask my boss, my son and my husband. I was waiting for the right time but then all of sudden my husband said that I should go to Turkey for a long time because if I didn't I would never be happy. The next day I went to my boss's office with a big smile and some Turkish delight. She asked "What do you want?" I said that I had a request but I didn't know how to ask but that it involved me going to Turkey for an extended time to try to host Shen Yun. She looked at me and said, "This time you are not going alone. I am coming with you to carry your bags!" She granted me six months of leave from work even though I had no more leave. I was shocked! I immediately called the Turkish practitioners and four of us decided to rent an apartment in Istanbul for as long as it took to succeed in hosting Shen Yun.

On April 1st we finally had all of the red tape completed. Even though there was a lot of demand for the chosen venue, the manager waited two months for us to finalize everything. No doubt that was Teacher's arrangement and no one could really break it.

The local governmnet offered promotional help after we clarified the truth and told them about the importance and the beauty of Shen Yun. The media office of the main government prepared a news bulletin with our help and sent it to all newspapers nationwide. The news about Shen Yun appeared in 6 major newspapers with full color photos and an excellent write-up. That same week, a practitioner who works in media was able to arrange a television interview. During the interview they showed the Shen Yun promotion video as well as facts about Cultural Revolution and the CCP's destruction of Buddha statues and other traditional cultural artifacts. I was happy that my government had positioned themselves really well.

Unfortunately all the good press provoked the CCP. The Chinese ambassador immediately visited the top Governor's office and declared Shen Yun to be "dangerous" and that Dafa practitioners were to be stopped otherwise China would cut all ties with Turkey. The CCP got the governor immediately to call the venue's general manager. The CCP also phoned the general manager of our company and threatened us to not host Shen Yun. We asked them to come to the show and told them that they would not succeed in taking us one step backward.

On the same day, after receiving the call from the CCP, the assistant manager of the venue phoned to inform us that we would have to have permission to host Shen Yun from the government before being able to grant us use of the venue. I asked the assistant to speak with the general manager about the matter. I told her that before we had signed the contract I had told everyone at the theater that there would likely be interference but that I had never been able to speak with the general manager. I elaborated and told her that the CCP has destroyed countless families; children are homeless because their fathers and mothers have been killed. I said that if they only believed the lies of the CCP and canceled our show then they would be siding with the murderers. I told her that I would forever be fighting against this injustice and that I would come to the venue with our lawyer on Monday. The assistant immediately said she would try to arrange a meeting and there was no need for a lawyer.

That Monday we went to the venue manager's office. We clarified the truth to her. She listened and asked many questions about Shen Yun, Dafa and the exercises. We showed her the promotion video of Shen Yun and all the other venues that Shen Yun performed in the world. She was shocked that such a beautiful performance had been demonized by the CCP. She didn't want us to go and offered us tea. After that, she offered coffee, and after that, another cup of tea. She asked us to demonstrate the exercises. Then she said I must phone the governor and that we must tell him the truth about Shen Yun and Dafa because there was a big misunderstanding. She phoned the governor when we were there. But the governor responsible for our case had a funeral in his hometown and had left Istanbul. She promised us that it would not be her who would canceled the show, but strongly advised us to go to the governor's office and to Ankara to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The same day we went to the main government body where 10 or more governors have their offices. It is a huge historical building and all major government departments also have offices there. It is a hard place to get into, let alone to have a chance to talk with the governors. It was amazing that the practitioner I was with had a relative who served as one of governors in that building. We decided that even though her relative was the governor in charge of an unrelated department that we would go to him first. The practitioner was a little nervous because she didn't want to bring pressure to her relative. But then we both calmed down and reflected on the situation. We adjusted our thinking and realized that it was his chance to be saved. If he could be saved and position himself well, he would help us without us even asking him for help. Of course, with this changed attitude, as soon as we went in to his office he was so pleased to see us. To my surprise he knew everyone in my family and he was even a very good friend of my relatives. We talked and laughed and had many cups of tea with him, too. Finally he asked why we were there. We simply told him about Shen Yun, Dafa and the interference by the CCP. Without our asking him to do anything he immediately took out the telephone and made a call. In Turkey, whenever an overseas show like Shen Yun comes, a branch of the police department makes sure that all of the visas and paperwork are in order. He called the governor in charge of the police department and was able to set up an appointment right away.

As we were waiting to be seen by the governor in charge of the police we used the opportunity to clarify the facts and hand out flyers to all of the other people going in and out of the office. We were able to reach many people this way and were touched at Master's arrangement. We knew that if we simply followed Master's arrangements, the show could never be stopped. We were confident that the police department would be on the correct side as we had already clarified the truth to them previously when we had secured all of the paperwork related to visas.

Finally we were taken to the office of the governor responsible for the police force. He was very busy signing papers and just said, "Look I know you are good but this is beyond me since the Chinese Embassy is involved. That means that the issue should be dealt with at the Foreign Affairs level. I know you are great but I can't help you." As he said this he would not even look at us. So I stood up and put the Shen Yun booklet prepared for Australia, Shen Yun flyers and the tickets on the papers that he was signing. In my heart I had great compassion, as I sternly said, "Sir, please look at the tickets, look at the dancers and look at us. This is for real. We have put so much effort into this. We paid so much money for the venue. The municipality is giving full support for this. The Shen Yun dancers have been granted their visas. They don't want anything from anyone. They just want to dance and sing and bring back their lost culture. The people of China are forbidden to do anything in China. People have been persecuted and they can't speak up for themselves." He looked at us as if he had been woken from a dream. He looked at the pictures of the dancers and said that they were so beautiful. He had tears in his eyes. The three of us also had tears. I asked, "Are you going to be on the CCP's side or let Shen Yun dance and sing. Ask yourself why is dancing and singing so dangerous for the powerful Chinese government? What are they afraid of?"

Our Master was there with us and we felt so blessed.

I continued, "If you treat me as a criminal and do not let me host Shen Yun, then lock me up in prison, but if you let me go out of this door as a free Turkish woman then I am not going to be stopped by any communist Chinese officials in my own country. As Falun Dafa practitioners, we are not going to take one step back. Who is running our country?" He was moved and told us that it would certainly not be him who would cancel the show. He then referred us to a third governor who was responsible for the embassies and had his secretary take us there.

You have to understand that it is extremely hard to see these governors. Yet, because of Master's arrangements, we saw three in a row.

This governor was a very angry looking man and he yelled at us and said that just because we wanted to make money that our government would have a bad relationship with the Chinese government. I was calm but at the same time stood my ground and firmly told him, "This is not about making money. You are afraid of having a bad relationship with the Chinese government, but what about the relationship with your own citizens? We have been harassed by the CCP! We need protection. But we are not scared. I came to tell you a truth that you don't know and yet you do not even listen to me. We are not doing this for money. We are Falun Dafa practitioners and we absolutely are not doing this for money!"

He stopped me and asked, "What kind of practitioners?" I told him, "Falun Dafa practitioners," and gave him a flyer and explained that it is a meditation exercise from ancient China. He said, "Look, you don't know how governments work. If, for example, if the PKK the terrorist group has any propaganda anywhere in the world about Turkey, we also try to stop them as the Turkish government." I stood up and said strongly, "How can you compare Shen Yun to a terrorist group?" He stood up as well, saying, "That was just an example. Maybe you don't like my example." I said, "Absolutely correct, I don't like it one bit." He asked me what kind of woman I was, and where I came from. I replied that he and I were similar because we came from the same hometown. He then started to soften and asked me to sit back down. He offered me tea and had dates brought into the room. I refused to drink anything until he agreed that the example he had used was a poor one. He then said, "Fine, if you don't like the example I used, then I will call on the governor who is in charge of central Asia. He will give you better examples and explain why we cannot say no to China."

And just like that we were on our way to see the fourth governor, all in the same day. This governor himself was a Uyghur Turk whose family was also being persecuted at this moment in China. He said that the Uyghur leader was not granted a visa to Turkey because of the pressure from the CCP. This was his example of why Turkey could not say no to Chinese government. I felt sad in my heart that this man has such an understanding and asked, "What did you do about this? You did nothing? If not you, then who is going to stop this evilness? I want to tell you that we certainly are not going to take one step backward!"

Upon hearing my determination the atmosphere changed again. The first governor, who at first had been very angry, softened up even more and asked me about the benefits of Dafa. With kindness in my heart I told him the story about my heart getting better. Now he was not angry at all and shared how he had heart problems and that he was interested in practicing Dafa himself. Then they both said that they would certainly not stop the show but that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs might, and that they could do nothing about it. Also, they added, the governor who had initially spoken to the CCP was out of town at a funeral and couldn't talk with us. They suggested that we travel to Ankara to talk with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly.

We did so and found that the official from the ministry was also from my hometown. She congratulated us on our project and wished us success and accepted a Dafa flyer with tears in her eyes. When we returned from this trip we finally saw the last governor, the one who had initially spoken with the CCP. He had a big smile on his face as he greeted us. He said, "I know you are here to fight with me but I don't think there is anything to fight about. I believe that there is nothing wrong with Shen Yun or Falun Dafa. You should go ahead and have your show."

I was still worried, however, with a heavy heart because we didn't have the official paper in hand that gave us permission. And even on May 21st, the day of the performance, we still didn't have the permission. The police were supposed to give us the permission but had sent the papers to another department. Even though they had been very supportive now they were not giving us a lot of information. I thought that maybe because it was a touchy, political issue, their strategy may have been to just look the other way and not make a stink about things. I didn't know what to do. Furthermore, by now there was friction with other practitioners who criticized me, saying that with everyone I ran into, a shouting match ensued.

But after talking with another practitioner and looking inwards I finally was able to have confidence again and remember that Teacher is always with us. The practitioner shared something remarkable. He told me to calm down in thinking about the police, because two days prior, as Shen Yun Performing Arts arrived at the border, with his third eye he saw a ladder descend from the Istanbul sky and brighten the heavens with enlightened beings eliminating the evil with long magic tools. They were happy and carefree. As the practitioner shared this with a kind smile on his face, he made me smile, too. Then I knew that nothing would go wrong.

Indeed, the venue finally said that even if they didn't have the permission needed, they would still go on with the show. But as it turned out, the police did position themselves well. Just five minutes before the start of the show, six officers showed up with written permission from the government to hold the show. The officers stayed and absolutely loved the show. Yes! We had finally succeeded in bringing the show to Turkey. There is still so much I could have shared but I can't take too much of your time.

Surely I've told you the best parts of our Istanbul Shen Yun story. I did not mention that at many times we exhibited bad xinxing. We sometimes had a lot of arguments. We are certainly aware that we need to improve in this regard, to become more compassionate, and to study the Fa much, much more and to form a better body in Turkey to be more successful in terms of promoting Shen Yun, selling tickets and ultimately in saving more sentient beings, clarifying the truth, cultivating ourselves and being worthy of salvation from our merciful Master.

Finally, I'd like to mention the Iranian practitioners. Without them we may not be able to have Shen Yun shows successfully. Many, maybe over 70 Iranian practitioners came to Turkey and humbly offered their support in every way they could. We learned a lot from them in terms of xinxing improvement and the way they cooperated with each other. They did every job without any argument or dissatisfaction. We felt that practitioners in Turkey and Iran are truly one body.

Master, I always have difficulty finding words to thank you and I'm not sure if it is even possible to truly thank you for sending Shen Yun to Istanbul.

Thank you fellow cultivators for listening.