(Clearwisdom.net) I started practicing Falun Gong in January 1997 of the Chinese lunar calendar. I was completely reborn after practicing Falun Gong. I used to be quick tempered and selfish. I did not live with my parents in order to shirk my responsibility and saved the money that I made by working in other provinces for myself. Sometimes I even talked back to my parents.
After practicing Falun Gong in 1997, I learned from our Teacher that we should be good people according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. I voluntarily went to live with my parents and take care of them. Their financial situation was hard so I gave them all the money I had saved. I also became very filial to my parents. It was a similar situation with my grandparents. Before, I thought I did not have much of an obligation to my grandparents. After practicing Falun Gong, I became filial to them, too. Their teeth were weak so I took it into consideration when cooking food for them. I also helped them do laundry. My father said with a smile, "Since you started practicing Falun Gong, our family has been harmonious."
The CCP's persecution of Falun Gong started on July 20, 1999. I thought at the time, "There is nothing wrong with my learning to be a good person." In the winter of 1999, I got together with several other practitioners and went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. However, since my understanding of Dafa was superficial, I obeyed the police when they arrested and detained me in the Tienanmen Square Police Station. After I told them my address, I was transferred to my hometown's liaison office in Beijing in the evening. There I saw many practitioners from my hometown. At the time I had 100 yuan on me that a fellow practitioner had given me earlier. The police confiscated it. Around 1 a.m. fellow practitioners gathered together for a discussion and the police noticed. The police pulled a practitioner out and forced him to stand facing the wall. I spoke out, "We practice Falun Gong to be good people. It does not violate any law. Why are we not allowed to practice?" After a while a dozen strong policemen came and beat me, shouting, "Do you still practice Falun Gong?" I replied, "I do." I did not feel the pain when they beat me and I knew it was our Teacher that had endured it for me. After beating me they handcuffed me to the stair banister until 5 o'clock in the afternoon the next day. It was not until the next day that I realized that my face had swollen from the beating and was black and blue from the bruises and I could not hear clearly out of one of my ears. A little after 5 p.m. the next day I was put on a plane and taken back to my hometown and detained for half a month. The day I was released, the local police station sent me to the brainwashing center sponsored by the township government. Because I had not studied the teachings well and my understanding of the teachings was superficial, I did things that were against my will and let down our Teacher (I copied and repeated the slanderous lies from the newspaper). I knew I had stained the path of my cultivation. (Editor's note: All solemn declarations with names will be sorted and published.)
In May 2000, the township officials came to harass me and my family after we had just finished planting rice in the field for the day. At the time my father (also a practitioner) and I were doing housework at home. I asked them, "We have done nothing wrong by practicing Falun Gong. What do you come here for?" The township officials made a phone call and in a while several policemen came and arrested me and my father. My father, in his 60s, was not wearing a shirt and was not allowed to put one on before they took us away. We were detained for 15 days. There were four other practitioners detained at the same time. After we were released, my grandfather said to me with tears in his eyes, "They are too vicious and merely gangsters."
However, it was not over yet. The township government held a brainwashing session again and forced us to attend daily. They compiled a book based on the 1,400 falsified cases slandering Falun Gong and read to us everyday. After more than 10 days, the new article written by Teacher "Towards Consummation" was published. We studied the article and realized we could not go on like that in the brainwashing center. After a discussion among fellow practitioners, we decided to write up our experiences practicing Falun Gong to show the government officials. The write-up was based on the physical and mental improvements we experienced after practicing Falun Gong. However, contrary to our expectation, after reading our experiences they said we had risen up against the government. Thus they transferred us to the police station for torture. Three of us were beaten by policeman Zhou. He cuffed one of my hands and pulled the cuffs, attempting to make me kneel down. Another policeman kicked my legs but I did not kneel down in front of him. Then he tightened my cuff and pulled on the other side of the cuffs and twisted it violently to cause pain. My wrist lost a layer of skin from it. When he got tired he sat down on a chair and demanded, "Do you still practice Falun Gong?" I smiled and replied to him, "I do!" He stood up and suddenly struck me with his knee. I immediately could not breathe. Afterwards, they cuffed me to the stair banister for a whole night. Then they detained the five of us for a month.
