(Minghui.org) In May 2000, ten months after the persecution began, I went to Beijing for the third time to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. Upon returning, my employer detained me in a small room at my workplace. According to management, anyone who went to Beijing twice would be sent to a forced labor camp. So, by holding me in the small room, they were “saving” me.
Every day, a manager would come to check on me. Other than that, five young security guards in their 20s took turns watching me. With nothing to do, they would play with their electric batons. The popping sound from the batons always made me feel stressed as if a hand was grabbing my heart.
I couldn’t study the Falun Dafa teachings, nor did I have a family member or a fellow practitioner to talk to. The only thing that supported me was my faith in Dafa and Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa).
One day, I looked up at a rope draped over the beams supporting the ceiling and thought, “This is too much for me. Why not hang myself here?” Then I thought, “I am a Dafa disciple and I cannot do things that Master disallows!” [Translator’s note: Falun Dafa prohibits killing, including suicide.]
The next day, the factory president came in with the deputy Party secretary. They talked to me for over an hour. “You need to have a clear understanding about Falun Dafa. Otherwise, we will send you somewhere else. The police have many detention facilities for stubborn people like you.”
I remained silent. Seeing that they were unable to force me to renounce Falun Dafa, they left in frustration. The factory president also instructed the security guards to remove everything from the room, including the table, chair, and ropes, leaving only the bed.
Thinking about their threat of sending me to the police, my fear intensified. Ever since I was a child, I was afraid of being beaten. But the more fear I had about the persecution, the more trouble followed.
A few days later, my wife came to see me. She worked for the same factory and she did not practice Falun Dafa. She told me that the factory recently suspended her salary (after having suspending mine), with the excuse that she did not stop me from practicing Falun Dafa. As she couldn’t even afford to pay for our child’s kindergarten admission fee, she asked for a divorce, which was the only way the factory would reinstate her salary.
I had a limited understanding of Dafa’s principles at the time, so I agreed. I said I didn’t want anything out of the divorce settlement. I told her that if I became financially solvent in the future, I would make payments for child support. I did not feel much when I said that. But after she left, I was overwhelmed with fear, depression, despair, and the feeling of uncertainty. I felt that cultivation was so hard and I began to cry.
After a few more days, on May 18, my wife and I, along with two security guards assigned to watch me, went to the Marriage Registry Office to file for the divorce. When signing the paperwork, both my wife and I cried. The pain was beyond words.
Leaving for Beijing
As we walked to the bus station, I whispered to my wife my plan of going to Beijing. I had been thinking about the trip over the past few days. Since I had nothing left, rather than passively waiting for them to send me to police custody, I should find an opportunity to escape and go to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. She quickly handed me the 30 yuan cash she had, without the guards seeing it.
It wasn’t easy for me to make the decision. The pressure I was facing was like a huge mountain and I also had to deal with all kinds of worries and fears. But whenever my heart wasn’t stable, I would recite the following words from Master,
“If humans didn’t take action when cosmic changes occurred, such situations would therefore not come about in ordinary human society, and neither could they be called cosmic changes.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
After returning to the detention room at my workplace, I started to prepare for the trip. I remembered when I went to Beijing the second time, I met a practitioner, a 20-year-old college student, who traveled to Beijing on foot after escaping from detention. It was March and the weather was still cold in northern China. But he just walked to Beijing with nothing but thin clothes on. I decided to do the same.
I managed to find a broken lock and also found an opportunity to replace it with the good one on the door. One night, I removed the lock and successfully walked out of the room. I could hear the guards snoring next door. I scaled the fence and quickly left.
I didn’t stop walking the entire night. By 6 a.m., I’d already left the city and was in a neighboring county. I was exhausted by then and my feet were developing blisters. Then I saw an abandoned house on the roadside, with a pile of wheat straw in a room. I went inside for a break.
Right when I was about to lie down on the straw, Master’s Fashen (law body) appeared, which was higher than the house. Holding me with his giant hand, Master said, “My child, you can have a rest here.” His giant hand then placed me on the straw. I was surrounded by compassionate energy. The warmth and gentleness was beyond words. Tears rolled down my face the moment I lay down. When Master saw me overcoming all kinds of difficulties to step forward to validate Dafa, he gave me the maximal help. I made up my mind that I must go to Beijing to validate Dafa.
A Long Journey
Walking to Beijing was not easy. I soon began to experience all kinds of problems. It was about 700 kilometers (or 435 miles) from my city to Beijing. I was wearing a pair of leather shoes, which were not good walking shoes. In the first two days, the bottoms of my feet hurt and then the entire feet were painful. Later on, my calves began to hurt. Then I had pain from my armpits to my feet. After that, I had so much pain all over that I could no longer tell where the pain came from. It hurt when I walked; but when I stopped, it hurt even more. I had no choice but to keep walking.
When I was tired and could not continue, I knew it was hunger. I bought some dried steamed buns and continued walking after a break. When I ran out of food, I would pick up something by the roadside and eat it. One morning, I walked for over an hour, and could not continue due to thirst and hunger. Then I saw several broken watermelons in a ditch. I picked up one half to eat. That was the best watermelon I ever had in my life. The taste was better than anything else in this human world – almost divine.
The temperature in May could reach over 20°C (or 68°F) during the day and dropped to 10°C (or 50°F) at night. Every morning, I woke up cold and shivering. I slept in various places such as well houses, ditches, vegetable greenhouses, and wild fields. Growing up in the city, I was scared of snakes, bugs, and rats since childhood. But now I did not have any fear, not one thought about fear. I knew Master removed the substances of fear from me.
There was one thing for sure – I was always on the right path. There were two reasons I knew this. One was that my third trip to Beijing was on a bike with another practitioner, so I roughly remembered the road. Second, whenever I took the wrong road, someone would come up and ask me, “Where are you going?” After hearing that I was going to Beijing, they would say, “You have to walk this way to Beijing.” I never doubted the direction they showed me and I could not remember how many times I was corrected. I knew Master was guiding me.
Sometimes I told people that I was going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. If time permitted, I would spend more time explaining to them how Falun Dafa was unjustly persecuted. It was before the communist regime fabricated the Tiananmen self-immolation hoax, so most people didn’t have any hatred against Dafa; they just knew that the government had banned it.
Once, I bought a popsicle from a woman with the last few coins I had. She offered me a camping stool to sit on and asked where I was going. I said Beijing.
“What for?” She asked.
“I am a Falun Dafa practitioner and the practice is very good. But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doesn’t allow us to practice. They have also detained us, beaten us, and sent us to labor camps. I need to tell the authorities this is wrong!”
“We also have Falun Dafa practitioners here,” the woman answered. “Some of them were arrested and some of them have been sent to brainwashing centers.”
Then she told me, as she pointed to an intersection, “There are officials on this road to intercept people like you. Those officials often stay there. When you pass there, better be careful and don’t get caught!” I was moved by her kindness.
I wanted to buy another popsicle, but I no longer had any money left. She noticed my situation and she offered me some ice water she’d brought for herself. I stayed to chat with her. She told me that their region hadn’t had rain in the past three or four years. Young men had moved out to look for jobs, and only women, the elderly, and children were left behind. Pointing to a field far away, with dust blowing, she said, “See, the crops have died of drought.”
After staying for a while, I set off on the road again. Thanks to her tip, I wasn’t caught at the checkpoint.
It was really hot out there. With the ongoing drought and wind, there was dust everywhere. I was sweating and couldn’t walk very fast. When it got dark, I stopped in the woods and decided to spend the night there. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened by raindrops hitting the tree leaves. I got up, found a plastic cover and continued walking.
The rain became heavier and heavier, and I could not find a shelter. I was soaked to the skin. I kept walking until dawn. I had no energy left and I was sleepy and hungry. Passing a bridge, I saw some large concrete pipes, so I went in for a rest. Sitting in the concrete pipe, I thought, “The woman said there hadn’t been any rain for three or four years here. Maybe her kindness had brought blessings.”
Day after day, I kept walking. I was hoping to find a practitioner to walk with. After a few days, I came to realize that I needed to let go of my attachment to loneliness. So I gave up that thought.
Occasionally, I had thoughts of giving up or “what if I die because of starvation and tiredness?” But with faith in Master and Dafa, I was able to overcome them.
On May 27, I started walking early in the morning. By about 9 p.m., I was exhausted. I saw a hut on a fruit farm by the road. I went there and slept on a stone slab. Not long after that, I woke up in the cold and wind. Since I could not sleep anymore, I decided to start walking.
Arriving at Beijing
After walking several hours, I saw a lighted area in the darkness. As I kept walking, someone called out, “You! Where are you going?”
“I am going to Beijing to appeal,” I replied.
“Come here!” shouted the man.
Then I saw a stout armed officer standing in front of a building carrying a submachine gun. Then I realized: this is a checkpoint for entering Beijing!
I went up to him and said, “I am Falun Dafa practitioner and I came here to appeal.”
When he heard this, the officer pushed the muzzle of the gun against my temple and shouted, “How dare you oppose the Party! I will kill you now!”
“I’m not against the Party,” I replied peacefully, “I am just here to explain the facts of Falun Dafa since the suppression is wrong.”
Then a man in his 50s arrived. He seemed to be there specifically to stop people from going to Beijing to appeal. He led me to a room behind the checkpoint. He was about to yell at me, but after hearing that I’d walked all the way there, he did not shout and asked me to sit down. He then talked for over one hour about the CCP’s policy. But I didn’t listen to a single word he said. He got tired and went back to sleep. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 2 a.m. on May 28. It was exactly 10 days since I’d started the trip!
At around 7 a.m., they handcuffed me to an electric pole by the road. All vehicles entering Beijing needed to stop for paperwork. Every driver would look at me and ask, “Why are you here?”
“I am Falun Dafa practitioner!” I would reply.
In the beginning, I was a little embarrassed. After some time, I realized that I am a Dafa disciple who had committing no wrongdoing. So I would look up and talk to the drivers. Although my face was dusty after walking for 10 days, my mood was good. Some drivers gave me a thumbs up.
By noon, two police officers arrived. They filled in some paperwork and took me into a police van. After some time, we arrived at the Daxing District Police Department of Beijing and they took me inside for some paperwork.
“You are a Falun Dafa practitioner. Why did you come to Beijing?” one of them asked.
“I want to tell the central government that the persecution is wrong!”
“So you walked all the way to Beijing for this?” he asked.
“Yes!” I replied.
Right then I noticed another police officer’s shoulder shivering. I saw that both of them were shocked by what I did – walking over 700 kilometers to appeal.
The police then took me to the Daxing District Detention Center. My mind was calm and I was even a little happy seeing the conditions there. Although over ten people shared a big bed, at least we could take a shower with cold water. And there was a big piece of steamed corn bread for each meal. All of this was much better than what I’d had on the road.
After staying at the Daxing District Detention Center for two days, a police officer from my city came to pick me up. One of them gave me a thumbs up and said, “You have brought glory to our city!” After arriving at the Liaison Office in Beijing, they treated me nicely. I felt relaxed and happy.
Epilogue
After returning to my city, the local police deceived me into going to a detention center and kept me there for 25 days. Officials then notified my father to pick me up. When my father saw me walking with my head lowered, he said to me, “Raise your head! You didn’t do anything wrong. This is your faith!”
After that I went to Beijing a few more times to appeal for Dafa. Although my understanding was shallow at that time and I had attachments to reaching Consummation, I still tried my best.
Looking back on those days, the following words from Master always gave me strength when I was in the most difficult moments:
“When I practiced cultivation in the past, many great masters told me these words, and they said, “When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” In fact, that is how it is. Why don’t you give it a try when you return home? When you are overcoming a real hardship or tribulation, you try it. When it is difficult to endure, try to endure it. When it looks impossible and is said to be impossible, give it a try and see if it is possible. If you can actually do it, you will indeed find, “After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!”” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
Copyright © 2023 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
