(Minghui.org) We were a happy family of three. My husband and I were honest, hard-working and frugal, and our son was sensible and obedient. We got along well with our neighbors and coworkers, and no one would expect such a stable family to be imprisoned.
However, since July 1999, when a former CCP leader began persecuting Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), my husband and I have been in and out of detention centers, brainwashing sessions, mental hospitals, labor camps and prisons.
Historically, whoever the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) wants to fall, will fall in less than three days. However, more than 20 years have passed, and we are still here because Master watched over us.
In fact, our son has a stable job, our family has doubled, and our grandchildren are well-behaved. My husband and I are in good health, and our entire family is bathed in the Buddha’s light of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. Our happiness is reflected in our glowing faces, and we are the envy of our neighbors.
We will never forget the kind people who helped us. We are reporting their good deeds here so they’ll last forever, and for our children and grandchildren to remember.
My husband went to the Appeals Office of the State Council in Beijing to petition for Falun Gong in November 1999, but he was brought back to our area by the police and taken directly to a detention center. This was big news in our workplace compound, and my husband, who was quiet and unassuming, suddenly became famous.
A retired coworker said the CCP went too far when people like my husband were imprisoned. Two coworkers visited me and comforted me. Given the entire state machinery was against us, their visit was not out of friendship—it was a manifestation of their conscience and sense of justice.
In March 2000, the guard in charge of the detention center called me to get my husband’s winter clothes. I went there and gave him the main text of Falun Dafa, --Zhuan Falun, asking him to give it to my husband. He took the book, turned to the page which had Master’s picture and asked, “Is this your Master?” I said yes. He said gently, “You want me to violate the rule.” I said, “You don’t have to, but I’m hoping you will read this book as well.”
He quietly put the book in his jacket. He later gave the book to my husband, which was passed around in the detention center for a long time. Years later, a practitioner brought the book out of the detention center.
I went to Tiananmen Square in April 2000. As I was about to begin meditating under the flagpole, a police officer noticed me. He did not hand me over immediately; he told me to go home, but I refused. I was taken to my province’s Beijing office.
An older police officer talked to me all afternoon. I told him Falun Dafa is a cultivation practice in the Buddha school that teaches people to be good by following the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. Practitioners do not fight back when we are beaten or sworn at, and we do not to kill or commit suicide.
I hand copied a few poems from Master’s Hong Yin and showed them to him. He read them and said, “They’re really well written!” and put them in his pocket. He brought me dinner, but another officer cursed, “Don’t eat our food, let your Master provide it instead.” He sternly told that officer, “Stop this nonsense!”
That night, while handcuffing me to a chair, he asked me if it was too tight, and left room for my wrists. In the middle of the night, he covered me with a blanket.
After I was taken back to my province, I was illegally held in detention for 15 days. The detention center guards let me out to the yard every morning to help in the kitchen. They said, “You are not like them (inmates); you should not be locked up.” They gave me leftover fried dough sticks which was better food than the facilities breakfast. I gave them to the cellmates and ate buns and pickles instead.
One girl was detained for drug abuse, and her parents were extremely worried. The guards told the parents, “Let your child befriend Falun Gong practitioners, they will help her.” The girl later told the others, “We are here because we deserve it, but Auntie (referring to me) is here because the government is wrong.”
Another girl was detained for prostitution. I helped her and talked with her about how to be a decent human being. She later told me, “I will never be a prostitute again, even if I am starving to death.”
I walked out of the detention center 15 days later. In June 2000, my husband came home as well. The workplace leadership held a meeting to discuss firing us because we had both been to Beijing, but our manager said, “There is no policy from the authorities to fire Falun Dafa practitioners, so we can’t do that.” We ended up being given a light disciplinary action.
The head of our workplace, and the District 610 Office agents, took me to a psychiatric hospital on December 23, 2001. Early the next morning, my manager brought me a blanket and said, “They went behind my back and did this. I would not have let this happen If I had known.”
A few days later, as my husband was returning home from out of town, The 610 Office agents stopped him at an intersection and attempted to take him to the psychiatric hospital as well. The manager stopped them and said, “He’s mine, and I’ll be responsible for anything that happens.” The 610 Office agents had to give up.
After the Chinese New Year in 2001, the 610 Office requested our workplace authorities to arrange for someone to spy on my husband. The co-worker who was assigned the task told my husband, “The leadership asked me to keep an eye on you.”
That year, my husband stayed in a hotel room with the same coworker during a business trip. The housekeeper found a Falun Dafa book while cleaning the room and reported it to the police. When the police arrived to raid the room, the co-worker pointed at my husband’s bag and said, “This is my stuff; it’s not to be touched.” The coworker’s act of kindness protected my husband.
My husband was illegally taken to a labor camp in 2009. Every Mid-Autumn Festival after that, the head of the workplace sent the district manager to visit him with moon cakes and fruits. (The original head of the workplace had been replaced)
I was illegally sentenced to prison in 2014. My relatives from my hometown came in a van. They went straight to the 610 Office asking what law I had broken by believing in Falun Gong and being a good person. The 610 Office and the court personnel said, “She would have been fine if she wrote a guarantee statement saying she would stop practicing, but she refused.”
Every time something happened, my relatives have been on the side of Dafa and never helped the bad people.
I regularly did the exercises in the detention center without any problem. The guard reminded me not to practice facing the door, because she would be in trouble if someone on the opposite side of the yard saw me practicing.
In the prison, I was in a prison within prison because I refused to give up my belief. For 24 hours a day, two “helpers” stayed at my side, and looked for excuses to curse and hit me. If I needed to use the toilet or washroom, everyone must be cleared except for the helpers and the security inmates.
Some security inmates approached me and quietly gave me suggestions, “When they hit you, just shout ‘so-and-so is hitting me!’ and report it to the guards when you have a chance.” Although the helpers are chosen by the prison guards, the latter did not dare to explicitly take sides with the inmates who violated the prison rules.
The security inmates did not have to work; they were on duty in the cell when inmates came back from labor and were on patrol at night. They had certain privileges such as access to hot water. One security inmate told me, “I can get you hot water when you need it.” I said, “I don’t generally need it, but I just have a hard time falling asleep after a shower at night.”
She said, “Hide the hot water bag under your blanket. I’ll fill it with hot water when I clock in and tuck it back under your blanket.” She did it every time I took a shower in the winter.
The prison gave a reward meal once a month. Each cell block would report the headcount to the cafeteria, and after receiving the meals, the head inmates distributed them. The head inmates ate my share and told the cellmates not to share theirs with me. An inmate secretly put some of hers into my bowl and winked at me to stay quiet.
For more than 20 years of the persecution, people have given us warmth and support out of their sense of integrity and kindness. I saw hope for mankind through them. I also saw the power of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
For their sake, I will strive to do my best so that more kindhearted people can wake up from the CCP’s deception, understand the truth, and have a bright future.