[Celebrating World Falun Dafa Day] Stories of Falun Dafa Practitioners in a Remote, Mountainous Town

(Minghui.org) There is a small town in Liaoning Province that is surrounded by mountains but has easy access to interstate highways. It boasts rich natural resources and fresh air. In 1996, Falun Dafa, an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline, spread to this beautiful, remote town and attracted nearly 400 locals, myself included, to learn it in just three years. Many of us saw our health restored and character improved. Our families became more harmonious and we got along well with our neighbors. Even those who did not practice Falun Dafa often commented to us that “Falun Dafa is so good!”

Promoting Falun Dafa

After the first group of town folks learned Falun Dafa, we set up exercise sites around town to help more people get to know the practice. One summer evening in 1998, more than 300 Falun Dafa practitioners gathered at the town plaza to do the exercises together. As soon as the exercise music started, we began our movements in unison. The peaceful and magnificent scene drew a huge crowd. Many onlookers were in awe that there were so many people practicing Falun Dafa.

As more and more locals took up Falun Dafa, we formed several Fa-study groups for all learners, young and old, to read Zhuan Falun, the main teachings of Falun Dafa, together. People’s character improved quickly. Daughters-in-law and their mothers-in-law no longer fought with each other, and workers stopped stealing from their employers. There was a welder who used to give away his company’s welding rods to whomever asked for them, as if the rods were his own. After he took up Falun Dafa, he no longer did so, even when his brother-in-law made the request again. He instead offered to buy his brother-in-law welding rods with his own money. His brother-in-law thus admired Dafa very much.

Every weekend we went to the countryside to promote Falun Dafa. Once the seven of us rode our bikes to a village three miles away. A woman in her 60s invited us to come inside her house. She said excitedly, “I had a dream last night and saw seven deities descending from the sky to my courtyard. Today the seven of you came! You’re the deities in my dream!” That day, many of her fellow villagers learned to do the Falun Dafa exercises.

In 1998, nearly 1,000 practitioners from our town and more than ten neighboring towns attended an experience sharing conference held in a club in our town. More than ten practitioners presented their papers and shared the extraordinary changes they experienced after they took up Falun Dafa. Many people in the audience were touched to tears. As the attendees filed out of the club at the conclusion of the conference, many locals asked what was going on, and some of them later took up the practice too.

Defend Falun Dafa Before the Onset of the Persecution

In December 1998, Liaoning Province Qigong Association published a hit piece attacking Falun Dafa. On December 30 that year, several thousand practitioners across Liaoning Province, including more than 100 from our town, gathered outside the Qigong Association’s office building in Shenyang, requesting that it retract the hit piece and restore Falun Dafa’s reputation. We stood there for eight hours.

The next day, a few practitioners had a talk with the Qigong Association. At 4 that afternoon, someone from the Qigong Association drove around the crowd of practitioners and waved to us to apologize. They promised to restore our reputation, but we sensed that the worst was yet to come.

On April 24, 1999, our local coordinator told us that more than 40 practitioners in Tianjin had been arrested that day for appealing against an article attacking Falun Dafa written by He Zuoxiu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. More than 40 of our local practitioners decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. We arrived at around 3 p.m. the next day. We saw more than 10,000 practitioners from across the country outside the State Council’s Appeals Office. At 9 p.m., practitioners’ representatives who were invited inside to talk to the government officials, came out and told us that the arrested Tianjin practitioners had been released. We felt that the issue had been resolved fairly, so we all left Beijing for our respective hometowns.

That was not the end of the story however. On July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin, then leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), launched a nationwide campaign to persecute Falun Dafa. Many coordinators across the country were arrested that day, including the first person in our town to learn Falun Dafa. Upon learning of his arrest, more than 100 local practitioners went to the police department to seek his release. We stood in the courtyard of the police department, while two of us went inside to talk to the police.

At around 6 p.m., we saw our workplace managers and/or family members coming to the courtyard. They tried to drag us away. Some of us got our clothes torn, while others were punched or kicked. We linked our arms to prevent us from being dragged away.

At a bit past 11 at night, two mega buses and several police cruisers pulled up. Several dozen officers got out and began to beat us with their police batons, and dozens of us were arrested. Those not arrested lined up in front of the police cruisers to prevent our fellow practitioners from being driven away. The officers got out of their cars and dispersed us by hitting us with their batons.

More Trips to Beijing to Appeal for Falun Dafa

On the morning of July 21, 1999, some of our local practitioners embarked on our journey to Beijing, where we saw many other practitioners from across the county. We couldn’t understand why the government was framing and persecuting such a life-transforming spiritual practice that has improved health and saved the country huge medical expenses. Our appeals fell on deaf ears, and many of us were arrested.

After we were released and returned to Liaoning, our workplaces and local street committees pressured us to write statements renouncing our faith and promising to not appeal for Falun Dafa again. Those who refused to comply were suspended from work and/or forced to attend study sessions. There were loudspeakers at various workplaces announcing which workers had been disciplined for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. Every one of us practitioners was given two guarantors, who would be fined or terminated if the practitioner under their watch went to Beijing to appeal. We all felt tremendous pressure.

On October 20, 1999, Jiang said that Falun Dafa was a cult while being interviewed by a reporter during his visit to France. His baseless claim was followed by more practitioner arrests across the county. We again went to Beijing to appeal. Some of us were arrested and detained.

More than 40 of us returned to Beijing in late December 2000 and saw practitioners from other parts of the country. We worked together to distribute informational materials about Falun Dafa and help Beijingers understand that the propaganda was all lies.

We went to Tiananmen Square on December 23, 2000, to unfurl banners reading “Falun Dafa is good,” “Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa,” and “Restore the reputation of Falun Dafa.” Many practitioners from other provinces were there too and we yelled, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa!” Visitors stopped to watch, and the police rushed to arrest us.

Close to 1,000 practitioners were arrested at Tiananmen Square that day and we were all taken to the Tiananmen Police Department. Some of us were beaten and badly bruised, while others had their hair pulled out by police. We didn’t know the other practitioners but we all felt like one big family of cultivators. We yelled, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa!” One practitioner suddenly said excitedly, “Look! Falun!” We looked up and saw colorful Faluns spinning in the sky. They remained for quite a while.

Since there were so many of us, the police scattered us to different places. On the third day, there were still several hundreds of us who refused to reveal our names. The police said they’d take us somewhere. They called in several mega buses which drove more than two hours before arriving at a remote place in Ji County in Hebei Province. We looked outside and saw armed officers standing there with guns drawn. The police on the bus questioned each of us as to where we were from. We refused to answer the question and were all pushed outside the bus.

We were made to stand there facing the armed officers. It felt like they were going to shoot us.

Nothing happened though. The police got in their cars. One officer said, “You’re now released. Don’t climb the mountain. Just follow that road and you’ll be able to get out of here and go home.”

One practitioner had hung a banner reading “Falun Dafa is good” on the back of a police car when the officers were not looking. As the car drove away, the banner flew in the wind. We were all very happy. Even though we were not given any food to eat in three days, we were all in good spirits.

Upon our return, some of us were arrested, sentenced, given forced labor, sent to brainwashing centers, fined, or suspended from work. One practitioner’s mother led his children to the detention center and they all knelt down in front of him, begging him to write statements to renounce Falun Dafa. With tears in his eyes, he helped his mother to stand up and said, “Your son has not done anything wrong. What should I repent about?” His mother then understood and left with his children without further pressuring him.

Many of us were also tortured while in detention. After we were released, we faced misunderstandings and pressure from families. Some practitioners’ spouses divorced them. Nonetheless, we knew we were walking on a righteous path and our faith remained unshaken. We often shared experiences with each other and became clearer about our purpose of life being to return to our true self. With Master’s protection and our faith in Dafa, we pulled through those difficult times.

Spreading the Truth

Due to the CCP’s slanderous propaganda, many of the locals turned against Falun Dafa. We overcame numerous difficulties, including job loss, to use various means to help people see through the CCP’s lies. Some of us delivered informational materials, some hung up banners, and some talked to people face to face.

We pinched every penny to make the materials. One elderly practitioner no longer drew any income, but she gave us 100 yuan in small denominations. I was touched to tears. We used to get our materials from out of town practitioners. A local practitioner later said that we should set up our own materials production sites at home. We got computers and printers. After we produced enough materials, we switched our transportation modes from bikes, to motorcycles, tricycles, or cars, so as to travel to even farther-away places to distribute the materials.

After the CCP staged the self-immolation incident on Tiananmen Square on January 23, 2001, we spent a lot of time producing various forms of materials, including brochures, audios, posters, and videos, to debunk the lies that those self-immolators were Falun Dafa practitioners. We distributed these materials to almost every household in town. Some said to us after reading the materials, “Falun Dafa was framed in the self-immolation incident.” They thus changed their attitudes toward Falun Dafa.

May 13, 2000 was declared the first World Falun Dafa Day. To celebrate this special occasion and to help more people understand the facts, we decided to hang up banners and distribute other forms of materials the night before. As dusk fell, each of us went to our assigned locations to hang up banners. A total of 270 banners reading “Falun Dafa is good,” “The World Needs Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” and “Celebrate World Falun Dafa Day” were seen everywhere around town. The next day, we heard police sirens around town. One local resident said, “Falun Dafa banners are everywhere! How can you suppress it?!”

Urging People to Quit the Party

After the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and Disintegrating the Culture of the Chinese Communist Party were published in 2004 and 2006, respectively, we produced numerous copies of the two books for distribution in our town and neighboring villages. We even delivered some copies to government agencies. One official said to us, “Falun Dafa got some really talented people. They’ve seen through the CCP, and it seems the Party is indeed going to disintegrate!” Several officials did the three-withdrawals (quitting the CCP and its two junior organizations).

Over the past twenty plus years, we delivered truth-clarification materials to every household in town at least hundreds of times. Some of us also talked to people about Falun Dafa face to face on a regular basis. About 60-70% of the folks in our town quit the CCP and its two junior organizations.

Falun Dafa calendars are one of the popular materials. In the beginning, we only managed to give out several hundred calendars. The number gradually increased to thousands every year. One year we even distributed 7,000 calendars. Many people, including company managers and blue-collar workers, asked for them when they saw us. As soon as a practitioner brought a bag of calendars to his workplace, the calendars would be gone in seconds. Another office had a calendar and other materials on the desk for the workers.

Many people, including taxi drivers, also heeded our advice to recite “Falun Dafa is good,” and carried charm amulets bearing Falun Dafa messages on them. They were in turn blessed. Several workers were unscathed after boulders fell at their work sites.

Our town as a whole was also blessed with a booming economy. When the country slipped into recession, businesses in our town were still able to pay their workers and hand out bonuses. Many out of towners said to us, “Why are your businesses still booming when everywhere else in the country is suffering recession?”

Suing Jiang Zemin

In June 2005, nearly 100 of our local practitioners filed complaints, using our real names, against Jiang Zemin for initiating the persecution. We also solicited public support and more than 3,000 locals signed their names to our complaints. We next submitted our complaints, along with our supporters’ signatures, to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Supreme People’s Court.

When the police and our employers harassed us for filing the complaints, we explained why we must hold Jiang responsible. They understood and stopped harassing us.

Another practitioner and I went to a nearby city to help practitioners there prepare their complaints against Jiang. Ms. Yang was once held at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp and brutally tortured there. As a result, one side of her body was stiff, she had trouble walking, and she could not speak clearly. When she came to see us, we saw her mouth crooked and drooling. She managed to recount her torture experience to us. After we compiled her complaints, we were surprised to see that she was no longer drooling, and her mouth had become normal. She walked just fine when she left.

We also mailed letters to governments, schools, and judicial agencies across China to expose Jiang’s persecution of Falun Dafa.

Never Letting up on Our Truth-clarification Efforts

We began using cell phones in 2012 to call the public and play automated messages that exposed the persecution of Falun Dafa. Some of us even got several phones for this project to call people across the country.

Additionally, we also directly talked to people on the phone and had many touching stories. One person said, “I’ll quit the CCP. Falun Dafa is good.” Another person said to the practitioner who talked to him, “You’re such a kindhearted person. I can feel that your call was really for my sake. I wish you peace and happiness.”

Of course, there were also people who cursed at us on the phone. We usually called back later and tried again. Some were moved by our sincerity and kindness and agreed to quit the CCP and its two junior organizations.

We also helped and encouraged each other. Whenever some practitioners got arrested, the rest of us would accompany their families to seek their release. Some of us even helped cover the attorney fees.

Once five practitioners were arrested and tried jointly for their faith. All five defense lawyers entered not guilty pleas and refuted the groundless allegations against them. One practitioner’s family member said after the court hearing, “I now understand that practicing Falun Gong has never been illegal.”

The Liaoning Province government set up a legal school in a village about ten miles from our town. The legal school was in fact a brainwashing center, and about 1,000 practitioners across the province were held there at one point or another over the course of ten years. Our local practitioners often went there to send forth righteous thoughts in close proximity.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, our local practitioners decided that we should quickly distribute materials telling people how to stay safe, before everything in our province was locked down. In one week, we covered our town and all neighboring villages. We also compiled phone numbers of Wuhan residents, and called them to tell them how to stay safe. Wuhan residents were moved and many agreed to do the three-withdrawals and recite the auspicious phrases of “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”

Our region had a surge of the pandemic in December 2022, after the CCP suddenly ditched its draconian lockdown measures. Many locals became infected, and we again distributed materials telling people how to stay safe. Some of us also went out every day to talk to people face to face. After we covered our locals, we also talked to vendors from out of town. Every time they saw us at the markets, they would say, “Falun Dafa is here again to deliver blessings.”

Master recently published “How Humankind Came To Be” and revealed many heavenly secrets in the article. We hope many more people can grasp the opportunity to be saved.

The past 23 years have tempered each one of us practitioners in our remote town. We are one indestructible whole body. We support and encourage each other on our Fa-rectification period cultivation journeys. We encountered difficulties, tribulations, mistakes, and confusion along the way. It was compassionate Master that purified our bodies and souls, and guided us forward. We are proud of being Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, and we have no regrets in walking on this path. Saving people enriches us and brings us happiness.

There are many more stories about our local practitioners than we can include in this article. We know that the stories of Dafa disciples assisting Master in saving sentient beings are magnificent and bear witness to history.