(Minghui.org) It happened in 2008, more than a month after the Wenchuan earthquake. I had just finished taking care of business in the provincial capital and was in the waiting room of its train station ready to board the train home.
I overheard a tall gentleman, with wife and child next to him, speaking to a group of people about the earthquake. I decided to go over to them.
The tall gentleman was saying, “… the earthquake relief was very slow, not like how it was reported on television...”
Somebody cut in, “Didn’t it all end up with foreigners being invited in to do the rescue work?”
Another offered, “If the Communist Party doesn’t want to do anything, nobody can do anything…”
I piped in, “You’re right. Everybody knows that. The foreigners were finally allowed to help in the rescue. But, it was three days after the earthquake!”
I continued, “Right after the earthquake, when we hadn’t even had time to react, many countries, because they have that kind of emergency rescue operations in place, had already sent requests to our government for permission to help, but, it took the Communist Party three days to respond and agree. Three days! Can you imagine what three days meant to the people who were buried in the rubble?”
I then continued, “In earthquake relief, the first 72 hours are called the golden hours. That means, people who are rescued within the first 72 hours have a wonderful chance to live. After the initial 72 hours, over 90 percent of people rescued will eventually end up dying. That’s because the terror, starvation, fatigue that is suffered in that 72 hours will create body organ failure, making it really difficult for people to stay alive. But, does the Communist Party allow people to be aware of this basic knowledge?”
When I talked, everybody’s attention was turned toward me. So, I went on, “The worst and the most appalling is, the Communist Party actually uses this disaster to toot its own horn. It’s acting as if without the Party, nobody would have been rescued from the disaster area. But why wouldn’t the Party allow the foreigners to come during the first critical hours?”
The tall gentleman answered my question, “The Party is afraid the foreigners would diminish its glorious image. Moreover, will the Party let the foreigners go to areas with signs of life so they could find survivors? The places it guided the foreigners to were places it had already searched.”
I looked at the gentleman and he looked back at me. We both knew the information we were sharing was obtained straight from having broken through the imposed firewall and circumvented the government’s online censorship.
Someone said, “No way. That’s impossible. It’s way too cruel.”
I said, “If the foreigners were able to search and rescue more people than our own army, the Communist Party would lose face. Would it hold a celebration party for the foreigners? If our army actually discovered people alive among the rubble, could these people be saved with a few shovels and their meager equipment?
If foreigners discover the possibility of lives under the ruins, they will definitely not give up. This is how foreigners look at and value life. What if foreigners insist on saving lives that the Communist Party has already given up on, what will the Party leaders do? What if this kind of news succeeds to leak outside of China? And so, you see, every foreign rescue team allowed into China left with nothing accomplished. But, of course, it doesn’t stop the Communist Party from broadcasting its own greatness over and over again. How many lies has the Party spewed out, and spewed out in a resounding, grand style.”
During the interchanges, I found out the people in the group were lawyers who were in the provincial capital to attend a meeting.
So, I addressed them directly, “In fact, as lawyers, you know better than ordinary people the Party's evil and villainous ways. I won’t speak of all its other atrocities, I just want to touch on why it continues to target Falun Gong. It doesn’t allow any lawyer to defend Falun Gong practitioners. Why? At the beginning, you all did make some protesting noises, but after a while, you grew accustomed and became complacent. Have all Chinese people become scared silly by the Communist Party’s violent tactics?”
The lawyers all looked down and became quiet, only the tall gentleman spoke up and told everybody that, in order to understand the Party's evil, they should read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
His wife seemed to suddenly understand. She looked at me and smiled, as if we were long-lost friends.
The son was also moved to remark, “The Communist Party can be really, really bad.”
Just then, the train arrived. I noticed most people moved to the front to board the first cars, so I walked to the back and boarded one of the rear cars. I found a seat and settled down.
When I looked up, I noticed the tall lawyer and his wife and son were also looking for seats in the same car. So, we ended up sitting down together.
An old man and two college students were also sitting with us.
With the old man at the lead, our conversation turned to the treacherous way the Communist Party had treated the landlords back at the start of the regime.
The old man said, “At that time, everybody was against the landlords because the Party said so. Nobody dared say a good word for any landlord even if that landlord happened to be a very good person.”
The lawyer's son commented, “But isn’t that confusing the common people so that they couldn’t tell good from bad? What was the Communist Party trying to achieve?”
The old man smiled at the young son and responded, “You’re right. Nobody could tell the difference between good and bad. People had to do what the Party told them to.”
The young son continued to be thoughtful, “Then isn’t the Party a rogue if it does that?”
His father agreed with a nod, and said in a subdued tone, “The Party is indeed a rogue, but it wants you to say it is good. That in itself is the true nature of a rogue.”
Then, he asked no one in particular, “What will become of us as citizens of this nation?”
Nobody responded, but the questions the lawyer raised got everyone thinking.
After a bit, the lawyer answered his own question, “It will be that we will all adopt the roguish ways in different degrees, and a whole lot of us already have, except we aren’t aware of it.”
Again, nobody spoke, but some apparently did not agree with that statement.
The lawyer continued, “When the Party instigated students to beat up their teachers, these students were behaving worse than rogues… At that time, every citizen was involved in the massive rightist campaign.”
The lawyer’s son shared what was on his mind again, “I understand now. If all of us take up the roguish way and share that mentality, we will all be listening to and doing what the rogue says. Good people will not follow the rules of the rogue, so it will be hard to keep them under its dominance, but if all people become just like them, they can then be easily controlled.”
The old man smiled and said, “Well, well, well. The Communist Party is coming to its end for sure. Even a young person knows it so well.”
The two female students sitting opposite to me had not spoken, although they had been listening intently. After the lawyer’s son summed up his understanding so succinctly, they smiled and joined in everybody’s agreement.
As we were still talking, the train arrived at its next stop. The tall lawyer and his family had to get off. He turned around and gave me a knowing smile.
The train started again.
I turned to the two college students, “Did you hear what that lawyer was saying? What do you think?”
One of them answered, “I think we are all pretty much aware of what he’s talking about, although not with such deep understanding. I’m amazed at his son. Such a young age and so thoughtful and logical. He’s truly a terrific young man.”
I asked, “Do you know about the 1989 Tiananmen student movement?”
They said, “We do, but our knowledge is very sporadic. Some say that the students should not have blackmailed the government, others say that the government should not have shot at the students.”
I said to them, “The whole thing is easy to diagnose. Do the students really have the wherewithal to blackmail the government? Have student movements in the past and all around the world ever blackmailed the government? The students merely expressed their wishes, to impose some legal and moral pressure on the government. If a government is strong, it will use communication to handle the students and to resolve the situation by listening to the views of the young people and perhaps even recognizing their merits. That is the basic premise of communication. But how did the Communist Party communicate? With tanks and machine guns. Is it necessary to use force? Is it communication? No! It is repression!”
The students asked me, “What do you do? Are you a university professor? Do you teach journalism, or history?”
I said, “What a person does doesn’t matter. What matters is we need to have a fair and just environment. We shouldn’t become used to an environment of suppression and treat it as normal.”
The old man looked at me and observed, “You young people are great. You all have such deep understanding of our society.”
I told him, “Maybe what I have is a clear understanding of the Communist Party.”
I then turned back to the two students, “You had been against Falun Gong in elementary school, right?”
One responded, “Isn’t Falun Gong an evil cult? Didn’t Falun Gong practitioners self-immolate at Tiananmen Square.”
I advised them, “We can’t just go blindly along with the government-controlled media coverage. You also can’t just blindly believe everything you learn from the textbooks the government imposed on you in school…”
I continued, “Let me ask you a simple question. Did any Falun Gong practitioner alert the media about their planned self-immolation in Tiananmen Square?”
The students said, “Of course not. Who would do such a silly thing? Notify somebody before you intend to commit suicide? Won’t it defeat the purpose?”
I asked a further question, “If the media was not notified of the self-immolation, who did the recordings that were later widely broadcasted?”
The two students looked at each other, smiled in embarrassment, and said, “If you hadn’t had brought this up, we really wouldn’t have thought about it.”
I said, “You are college students, with better and wider visions. Think about this: Why are there so many Chinese people practicing Falun Gong in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau?”
One said, “Who really knows?” Then, she thought for a bit, and continued, “If it’s true, the Communist Party will surely put a lock down on this news.”
I shared with them another piece of information, “Now, Falun Gong has been spread to more than a hundred countries and regions in the world. Foreigners think it’s a great cultivation practice. Only in China is Falun Gong being called an evil cult, to be banned and persecuted.”
The train arrived at the next stop. The two students got off. The old man and I continued with the topic.
He said, “You must have studied a lot of history. Listening to you, and to the gentleman who just got off, is better than watching television.”
I told him, “As living and breathing and thinking people, we must have our own ideas, and not just listen to and accept what others are saying. Above all, we mustn’t listen to the Communist Party.”
He asked me, “Do you see where our society is heading?”
I answered, “This issue is too sensitive. But one thing is sure, no matter what, Chinese society cannot fool around with this fundamental issue of morality. Abandoning this issue is paramount to abandoning the people.”
He said, “You are dead on.”
I continued, “China's fundamental problem is a lack of faith, that has led to moral collapse. In this regard, Falun Gong stands alone and outshines all.”
“Falun Gong can solve China's problems?” He wanted to know.
I told him, “Falun Gong aims at people’s hearts. Falun Gong has been persecuted for so many years, yet it’s still standing tough and striving. The Communist Party has failed to beat it, suppress it, crush it, or subdue it. Why is the Party’s persecution of Falun Gong so severe? Isn’t it not because it is at the end of its wits?”
The old man suddenly brightened up, “Now, I understand. Falun Gong will cause the disintegration of the Communist Party, and in so doing, will be delivering all Chinese people from the clutches of the evil Party.”
