Remembering an Old Landlord Who Was a Falun Gong Practitioner

About one year ago, I stayed in the house of an old lady for more than half a year as a tenant. Since the old lady was a Falun Gong practitioner, I had an opportunity to understand closely the lives of Falun Gong practitioners and their thoughts. Although I have moved out, I still keep in contact with them. During that period of time, I was really impressed by the perseverance and compassion of the old landlord.

Via the introduction of a friend two years ago, I happily moved into the house of the old lady with a rent lower than the market price. She lived alone because her husband had passed away years ago, and her sons and daughters all lived elsewhere. The old lady told me that the reason why she let me move in was because she knew from a Falun Gong practitioner that I was sympathetic towards Falun Gong, and since there were always Falun Gong practitioners coming and going from her house, and she was worried that it might cause inconvenience to the tenant.

It was a spacious house with a big living room inside. When it came to weekends, some 10 or 20 practitioners of various ages and sexes would come to the house, and sit on the floor of the living room, and took turns to read Zhuan Falun for two hours. Then, they would hold a discussion session, during which they talked about their own experiences and family issues. Whenever someone was confused over some issue, the participants would help to resolve it based on their understanding of the “Fa-principles”. The participants could be doctors and post-doctors from prestigious universities, businessmen, chefs, or baby-sitters, but they were all equal in the living room. I was very curious about them so that I often joined their conversations, and talked to them about my viewpoints as an ordinary person. They treated me as a person with pre-destined relationship, and tried quite hard to explain to me. Although they have never persuaded me, I did not persuade them, either. In the end, we respected the each other’s choices, and stopped attempting to convince each other.

They were just like a big family. They helped and encouraged each other. Although conflicts were inevitable, and even profound at times, they always “searched inside”, so the conflicts never hindered their feeling as a group. The old lady was not home quite often because she attended activities to promote Falun Gong in other areas. Whenever there were public activities, such as setting up information boards, distributing flyers, or exercise demonstrations, the local Falun Gong practitioners would try their best to participate. However, in many small towns where only one or two Falun Gong practitioners were present, and the workload exceeded the capacity of the local practitioners, the old lady would rush to help because her time was more flexible. Many Falun Gong practitioners had the key of the old lady’s house so that the Fa-study during the weekends still took place even when she was not out of town.

The basement of the house was very large. There were several old computers installed to enable e-mail exchanges with China and to log onto Internet chat rooms. Although the old lady came from Taiwan, where a different spelling system was used, she learned how to key in simple Chinese greeting sentences in a computer. She also learned how to access the Internet, how to send e-mail messages, and how to log onto chat rooms. She could not type too many Chinese characters. Fortunately, the Falun Gong practitioners who were good at computer technology developed a program that can paste information about the truth of Falun Gong automatically. She learned how to paste the prepared information onto the chat rooms.

I did not quite agree with this way of pasting information about the truth of the persecution. On one occasion when the old lady was busy pasting the truth-material to the chat rooms, I joked to her, “Who are you harassing?” The old lady was stupefied and stayed silent for a while. She turned her head and looked at me. On her face was a sorrowful look. Her lips moved a little, but no words came out of the mouth. Then, she turned her head back to the computer. I did not care about it too much at that time, and started reading the news on the computer. After a period of silence, the old lady got up and went upstairs.

Later on, the old lady told me what I said on that day deeply hurt her heart— she actually went upstairs and cried. She was sincerely “rescuing people”, but I misinterpreted it as harassing people. She said it was Falun Gong practitioners’ fault if the future of the Chinese people were negatively influenced because they were deceived and did not understand the actual situation of Falun Gong. On the contrary, if the Chinese people were aware of the truth, and still hostile to Falun Gong, it would their own choice. What Falun Gong practitioners should do was to make more people realise the truth so that they would have opportunities to eradicate their hostility against Falun Gong. The purpose was to save them.

Although I don’t quite agree in doing so because there are many people who did not want to receive the truth materials, I am sure Falun Gong practitioners’ thought is sincere and compassionate. The old lady was in a deep sorrow because I could not understand her.

In a certain period of time, Falun Gong took the initiative of doing an SOS walk appeal. The old lady discussed with the other three elderly Falun Gong practitioners about walking across the state where I reside. Although this state is one of the smallest states, it would take several weeks to travel across on foot. I tried to persuade her to drop the idea because of her age. However, the old lady had made up her mind. They set off several days later. There was a car following behind them to carry food, water and sleeping blankets. They wore yellow Falun Gong T-shirts with a board “Stop Persecuting Falun Gong” hung on their backs. Whenever they arrived in a city or a town along the road, they would go to the city counsel to meet councilors, and introduce the situation of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. They would also conduct other activities such as distributing flyers on the streets. They spent more than 2 weeks on the road. By the time they got back, their faces were dark because of sunburn.

Falun Gong practitioners hold Fa-conferences (also called experience-sharing conference) several times in different major cities of USA, including New York, Washington DC, and Chicago. Other European cities such as Geneva also host Fa-conferences sometimes. The old lady attended almost every Fa-conference. She would share a car ride with other practitioners if the location was within driving range. If it was too far, she would take an airplane. The travel expense was in the range of one hundred to six hundred dollars. The old lady was not reluctant in making this expenditure, but the food and clothing in her ordinary life was very simple. On one occasion, a friend accompanied her to buy new clothes. The friend strongly recommended her to buy more expensive clothes for higher quality. The old lady could not resist her friend’s recommendation and bought it home. She thought about it over and over again once she got back home. In the end, she returned the high-quality clothes to the store, and exchanged them for very cheap ones. At that time, she had just sold a house, and was not short of money. However, she said that the money obtained from selling the houses could provide freedom for her to spread the truth about the persecution, and should not be spent on clothes.

It is a very common phenomenon for Falun Gong practitioners to bear hardships. They can spend money to make banners, rent a place for conference, make flyers, or make advertisements on newspaper, but they are very frugal in eating and clothing. In a very extreme case, a doctor, who came from Texas to attend the Fa-conference in the city where I reside, stayed in the old lady’s house. He ate only streamed buns and pickled vegetables for almost every meal.

Some people said those Falun Gong practitioners who attended Fa-conferences or protest activities were hired with money. This did not conform to what I saw. Once, I drove with several Falun Gong practitioners to Washington D. C. — they attended the Fa-conference, while I visited museums.

Afterwards, the old lady decided to refurbish the building (the old lady was in real estate business— buying old houses, refurbishing them, and selling at higher a price), I had to move out. I felt the rent I paid was much less than the market price, and would like to give her several hundred dollars extra, but she would not accept.

During my contact with Falun Gong practitioners, I have heard and seen many touching stories. Almost every practitioner has his only story to tell. I will talk about it in the future.

Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/200308/23682.html