(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in late September 1996. My mind and body have undergone tremendous changes over the past 20 years. My once gloomy life has become full of light and hope. All of these changes have been a direct result of practicing Dafa.
Even as an infant, I was plagued by a number of illnesses. I would have died before my first birthday if not for a blood transfusion from my father.
As I failed the college admission test, I started to work at a local bank. For my hard work, I was promoted to mid-level management and was among the few finalists in a nationwide financial competition.
However, due to my poor health, I had to quit my job. I was in my 30s but suffered from many ailments common only to seniors.
I have sought treatment at various large provincial hospitals without any success. I also saw voodoo doctors that resulted in my body being possessed.
Because I could not do any household chores, my husband had to do them. He also had to shoulder the responsibility for taking care of our child and myself on top of his own job. It hurt me deeply to see my husband have to work so hard. I thought that if I ever became bedridden, I would commit suicide so as not to burden my husband and family. But thinking of my poor daughter stopped me.
As I was getting desperate, a former neighbor came to visit. Upon seeing my miserable condition, she recommended Falun Dafa and told me about its health benefits.
She brought a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main book of Dafa, two days later. I started reading and could not stop crying. I found answers to many questions in the book. I learned about karma and reincarnation.
On the third day of reading Zhuan Falun, I felt that my entire body had been purified from head to toe. I ran to the mirror and saw a completely different person. My facial complexion, which used to resemble a dark purple eggplant, became like that of a newborn baby. I no longer had any symptoms of my former illnesses and threw out all my medications. I also returned to my old job.
As I continued to study the Dafa books and do the exercises, I learned to follow Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Many accountants from different companies tried to give me gifts around the holidays in exchange for preferential treatment. Instead, I declined the bribes and talked to them about Dafa.
My colleagues were amazed by the dramatic change in my health. Some borrowed Zhuan Falun to read for themselves. Eventually, most of my coworkers and managers had read the book, and some even started to practice Dafa.
My family also took notice; seeing my transformation, my father recommended Dafa to my older sister. My former classmates and other acquaintances said, “Practicing Dafa makes you younger and prettier.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its persecution of Falun Dafa in 1999. Because I had benefited so much from practicing Dafa, I wanted to use my personal experience to tell people about Dafa and expose the lies propagated by the government. I went to the provincial government and Tiananmen Square in Beijing to speak out for Dafa. I also distributed informational materials to people in my area.
For doing this, I was arrested seven times, put on the wanted list for two years, and lost my job.
One day, I was one of eight practitioners distributing Dafa materials in a village. We were arrested and detained. I went on a hunger strike to protest the unlawful treatment and was force-fed a mixture of corn and salt.
Two male inmates pushed me onto a chair and held my arms behind my back. They grabbed my hair and forced a plastic tube down my nostril and throat into my stomach. After that, I vomited blood for several days. On the eighth day of my hunger strike, I was taken to the local hospital for emergency treatment. The next day, I fainted. The hospital diagnosed me with early-stage acute uremia.
During my detention, the head of the Politics and Security Division at my workplace and a local neighborhood policeman came to visit. The division head said, “How can a healthy person be persecuted to such a horrible state? She used to be my coworker, a kind and honest person. She’s been tortured to the brink of death in just a few days.” He went back and told other co-workers to visit and see me for one last time.
Several co-workers came to the detention center and brought winter clothes, underwear, and food for me. Seeing me disfigured and in shackles, they were all in tears. When my husband came to the hospital, he could not recognize me. I was conscious at the time but could not speak. My family started planning for my funeral.
The other practitioners arrested with me were sent to forced labor. I was released after 79 days of detention. As I was able to do the Dafa exercises and read the books, it did not take long to recover.
When I returned to work a week later, my co-workers welcomed me with a standing ovation. Some said, “Falun Dafa is so extraordinary. Your being alive in itself testifies to the extraordinariness of Dafa. No matter what the TV says, I can see with my own eyes that Falun Dafa is good.” When some of them were promoted to a higher-level bank branch elsewhere, they asked me for copies of Zhuan Falun.
At my school reunions, my classmates were curious to see me, since they all knew I had been persecuted for practicing Dafa. They were shocked by my healthy appearance and my optimism.
“What you see is all because of my practice of Falun Dafa,” I said. “It is Dafa's principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that purified my mind and body and transformed me into a healthy and upright person.”
As many people knew me due to the public nature of my work, I became a celebrity in town–someone who was persecuted for practicing Falun Dafa. I thus remained open and upright when talking to people about my faith. Even the local police chief quit the Communist Party after talking to me. Many who used to hold prejudice against practitioners due to the government’s propaganda have changed their views after seeing the positive changes in me over the past 20 years.