(Minghui.org) I was arrested in June 2019 for talking to people about Falun Dafa. While being held at the city’s detention center, I was subjected to mistreatment and torture. However, I also witnessed miracles when people learned the truth about Dafa and separated themselves from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
I didn’t have any money to buy daily necessities such as soap and toilet paper when I first arrived. The cell lead gave me some toilet paper once or twice. Then she stopped helping me and told the other inmates not to share anything with me. The guards told her not to help me. They tried to use this as leverage to get me to recite the detention center regulations and comply with their punishment.
She told me, “If you recite the rules and regulations, you’ll get a roll of toilet paper.” I said, “I practice Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and try to be a good person. I didn’t commit any crimes or do anything wrong. I am innocent but I am persecuted for my faith. I won’t recite the rules and regulations.”
The inmates use toilet paper for many things, from cleaning lunch boxes to cleaning up after using the bathroom. Without even a small roll of toilet paper, you have a big problem.
I thought, “If I don’t eat or drink anything, I won’t have to use the bathroom so I won’t need any toilet paper.” I stopped eating and drinking. When the guard made me the night duty I couldn’t sleep at night. During the day I still had to work in the workshop like everyone else, but I didn’t eat or drink anything.
During the hottest months of summer, more than 20 people were crammed into one small room to work. It was so hot that we all sweat profusely. The others drank a lot of a water to stay hydrated. I didn’t take a sip of water or eat a grain of rice for three days, and I didn’t sleep for two nights.
One inmate said, “With the weather being so hot, I feel lazy even without doing anything.” However, my body felt light and I was energetic. Only my lips were a little dry. I knew that Master was helping me. Everyone thought it was incredible and began saying that Dafa is supernormal.
Some inmates were detained because they were implicated in a crime. Many had mental health problems. How much they cared about and manipulated others using sentimentality, how greedy they were when it comes to money and profit, how distorted their thinking was due to the CCP’s brainwashing and indoctrination, and how narcissistic their words and deeds were, truly bothered me.
Some inmate language was so filthy that I couldn’t bear listening to it. I knew it was all caused by the CCP which destroyed traditional Chinese culture and values and brainwashed people with atheist ideology. The result is that people nowadays don’t have a moral bottom line or any honor. They are lost and no longer know what it means to be human.
Master told us to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. So I told myself, “Don’t be prejudiced or think negatively of them. Otherwise, how are you going to save them? Be kind and be tolerant. You cannot look down on anyone.” I adjusted my mentality and attitude and tried to be kind and friendly to everyone. I looked for opportunities when I ate, worked, or lined up to use the bathroom to talk to them about Dafa.
The first day I moved into my cell, I saw a woman who was handcuffed and shackled. She was only in her early 30’s. I later learned that her husband was a drug addict and abusive. They have two daughters and are very poor. The young woman saw no hope in life and had completely given up. She’d start a fist fight with anyone over any trivial thing and thus was considered dangerous.
I felt sorry for her and wanted to help. I quietly taught her to recite “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” and told her it would bring her blessings. When I asked her to quit the CCP and its youth organizations to stay safe, she readily agreed to quit the Young Pioneers.
After she learned the truth about Dafa and separated herself from the Party, her outlook on life changed and she started to smile. She has a beautiful voice and was not shy about showing it. She sang every day after she quit the Young Pioneers, loud and clear. She was able to hold a conversation without getting upset and was a completely different person.
She once was considered the most dangerous person in the cell. The guards said she was violent and uncontrollable. After learning the truth about Dafa, she completely changed. She became outgoing and kind. Her songs were sweet and happy. The guards soon removed the cuffs and shackles.
After reading a truth-clarification letter I wrote to the guard, an inmate told her friend, “Look at her. She’s doing such a great job.” Truth was, the letter she read was only half way done.
I clarified the truth about Dafa to her later. I told her Falun Dafa is based on the cultivation of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and is practiced in more than 100 countries and regions in the world. It does wonders for staying healthy and keeping fit.
I explained how important it is to quit the CCP and its youth organizations and said that millions of Chinese have already quit. She immediately asked me to help her quit the Young Pioneers and the Communist Youth League.
In turn, she received blessings. After filing an appeal, her term was reduced by almost a year which truly surprised her.
One of my cellmates was a 22-year-old woman from Guizhou Province. She was incarcerated for phone scams. The girl was thin and her complexion was sallow. She did not look healthy. She suffered from severe stomach pain that made her restless night after night. She sat on her bed and kept rubbing her abdomen. She was obviously in pain and sweat streamed down her face.
I felt bad for her but I knew Dafa could help. Since we were not allowed to talk at night, I found an opportunity during the day to talk to her. I clarified the truth to her and told her the importance of quitting the CCP and its youth organizations. I told her that Master would help her if she sincerely recited “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” She was very receptive and agreed to quit the Young Pioneers and the Communist Youth League.
Sure enough, that night she slept soundly and her stomach pain was gone. I later learned that she had had Hepatitis B for years and one of the symptoms was stomach pain. Because she didn’t have money for treatments, it became worse and worse. Her declined liver function caused rapid weight loss.
Hepatitis B is one of the diseases that is hard to treat and patients are likely to need treatment for the rest of their lives. However, after this girl learned the truth and agreed that Dafa is good, her symptoms were gone within a day.
She became healthier in the following months. Her complexion became fair and healthy and she gradually gained weight. Her appetite returned and she once ate three steamed buns for one meal.
She often told me, “Auntie, I can talk to you about anything.” The guards used to give her a pill to treat her Hepatitis B but soon stopped as she completely recovered.
Another cellmate was detained for illegally using public deposits. She was in her 30’s, very pretty and used to run a beauty salon. She often talked about her nightmares. She told us she dreamed that there was a big flood at the detention center. The walls crumbled and fell and people were drowning in the water. Another time she told us she was chased by people who wanted to kill her.
She told us yet another nightmare one day at breakfast. She dreamed of being at a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. A little girl drank human blood and tried to eat her. Her dreams were wild and terrifying.
I tried to tell her about Dafa and how it’s persecuted. I talked to her a few times before she finally realized what I was saying. She readily quit the CCP and its youth organizations. I told her to recite “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
I told her, “Starting from tonight, you won’t have anymore nightmares.” The next morning I asked her, “Did you have a nightmare last night?” With a big grin on her face she said, “I didn’t have one last night.” After that day her nightmares stopped.
We had a new cellmate who was a single 40 year old restaurateur. When she was brought to our cell she was handcuffed and shackled. She had made the mistake of buying 0.3 gram of a drug for someone and got caught. The shame was simply too great for her to bear. She tried to commit suicide a few times and thus was restricted.
She had a low and hoarse voice and said her chest hurt. Her facial expression was very menacing and intimidating. The bottoms of her feet were covered with pus-filled blisters. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at them. Some said that it was caused by fungal infection and was hard to heal. Most of the inmates stayed away from her, fearing they’d be infected.
I was friendly. She didn’t have money to buy necessities, so I gave her toilet paper, instant noodles and other things. When she slept on the floor, I covered her with my jacket to keep her warm.
Gradually, we started talking. I told her about Dafa. I told her the Tiananmen Square self-immolation was a hoax and was staged by the CCP. I told her the Party doesn’t let people be good and why it was important to separate oneself from it. She was very receptive and quit the Young Pioneers and the Communist Youth League.
Her voice cleared up in the next few days. The tightness and pain in her chest lessened. Her face looked soft and bright. She became optimistic and sang beautiful songs. As she was no longer suicidal, the guards removed the handcuffs and shackles. Her changes were obvious to everyone.
The blisters on the bottoms of her feet got smaller and smaller and eventually scabbed over. I reminded her to recite “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” As time passed, she was able to walk normally. By the time I was released, she completely recovered.
She had suffered from those big wounds even before she was arrested and was told they could not be treated. But after learning the truth at the detention center and truly believing that Dafa is good she completely recovered. She became outgoing and liked to talk and laugh. She asked for my contact information and invited me to visit her after she was released.
Another cellmate was in her 50s and had been detained for more than a year. She had faked a marriage for money and was arrested. Since she divorced her husband, her son and daughter never visited her. She had no money to buy necessities. Someone told me that she had stolen things from others before and was punished by the guards. She was very vulgar and most inmates looked down on her.
When I first arrived at the detention center, I didn’t have any money. She was very warm and let me borrow an old t-shirt so I had something to change into. I appreciated her for helping me and thus always shared with her what I had, such as soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, and snacks.
With my help, her situation improved. She didn’t have to beg others for a little bit of toothpaste or to use their soap or ask the guard for a roll of toilet paper. She no longer had to watch others eat snacks that she couldn’t afford.
She often had tiny little blisters growing on her feet. The condition was sometimes better and sometimes worse. She also developed mouth sores that lasted several months and caused her to have bad breath.
I clarified the truth to her many times. I told her the principle that good deeds will be rewarded while bad deeds will be punished and told her how to be a good person. She was very receptive and agreed to quit the CCP.
For a while, her breath suddenly became so foul that people could smell it from 10 feet away. Nobody wanted to be close to her. People felt like throwing up because of her bad breath.
However, her bad breath was suddenly gone after about a week. Her mouth sores also disappeared without treatment. She was happy and told me, “Thank you.” I told her, “Don’t thank me. Thank Master. Master purified your body. When your breath was really bad, it was Master cleansing the bad things that caused it. Now all of it is gone, you’re completely cured.”
She said with a smile, “It’s true. Dafa is good.” I told her to remember “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” and all bad things will turn into good fortune and she would be safe from danger.
No one ever touched her water cup before but now inmates sometimes used it. This seemed like a minor thing, but it was big deal to her. She told me, “After I’m released, I’ll look for you and also practice Falun Dafa.”
Not only were her illnesses eliminated but she also received blessings. Knowing that she had committed a crime and done many bad things, she decided not to appeal her sentence. However, she received a notification that the amount of money she scammed was 50,000 yuan less than what she was accused of. This came as a complete surprise to her. When one’s kindness emerges, blessings follow.
When the weather just started to cool down in fall 2019, a woman in her 60’s was placed in our cell. She was arrested for petitioning the government for forcibly taking her property and demolishing her home. Her house was gone but she was not compensated. Petitioning the government got her thrown into jail and she had nowhere else to go to seek justice. She was defeated and depressed.
Nobody wanted to share a cupboard with her so the guard assigned her to use a separate locker but her access was often restricted. She often wept when no one was around.
Her legs were swollen and her calves were twice the normal size. She had itchy yellow bumps on her head that she often scratched.
I invited her to share a cupboard with me so she could access it any time. She was thankful. We became friends. I told her about Dafa and how evil the CCP is. She agreed with everything I said. When I asked her to quit the CCP, she said she never joined the Party nor any of its youth organizations.
A few cellmates didn’t have money to buy things so I always shared whatever I had with them, including toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, crackers, and sausages. The 60-year-old woman thought I was being taken advantage of, “You don’t even have enough yourself, why are you sharing with others?” Especially when I shared things with those who weren’t so friendly, she thought it was unfair, “She is not even nice to you. Why do you share with her?”
I told her, “She doesn’t have money. It’s so difficult not having these things, especially here in this harsh environment.” She wouldn’t let me share my food and insisted, “She won’t remember any of the nice things you do for her. You might as well feed them to a dog.” I didn’t give up so easily, “The food here is so plain and not very nutritious. It’s torturous to watch others eat snacks without having any to eat yourself.”
She sighed and let go of the food hesitantly, “Fine. You’re so good.”
The coronavirus pandemic broke out after Chinese New Year in 2020. Many factories halted production or shut down. The detention center workshop didn’t receive any orders for a while. Everyone took advantage of the break to read books or chitchat with each other. I spent my free time trying to recall the contents of Master’s Fa teachings. Sometimes I sent righteous thoughts, or read books about traditional culture.
I had clarified the truth to most of my cellmates but waited until the pandemic to talk to our cell lead. She said, “The guards don’t let people talk about Falun Gong. I knew that you talked to others about it. But I didn’t want to interfere and chose to let it slide, because you’re such a nice person.” She agreed to quit the CCP and its youth organizations.
During the more than a year that I was detained, I never started an argument or fought with anyone. All the inmates had some type of conflict with others every day. Thirty detainees were crammed into a small room and everyone shared the same bed. With space being so tight, everybody was in a bad mood and constantly stressed out. Some purposely looked for conflicts because they needed a way to let off steam.
However, I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I simply followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and persistently clarified the truth.
After spending 24 hours a day and seven days a week with me for more than a year, all the inmates knew the truth about Dafa and chose to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. They sincerely said, “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” and their mental and physical health improved on some level. Because of Dafa, they now see hope in life.