United States: Falun Gong Brings Truth to Wall Street in New York

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is a busy place and has great influence on the world economy. Due to the threat of terrorism, the NYSE has also become one of the most tightly guarded places in the world and the atmosphere there is never relaxed. However, across the street, a serene scene was being staged. Some Falun Gong practitioners from the west coast were demonstrating the exercises and telling every passerby that innocent practitioners are being persecuted in China.

Several Interesting Stories

By a Washington DC practitioner

This weekend, we went to the same spot to clarify the truth as we did last week. It was the same place, yet we saw a lot of new faces. As soon as we started our anti-torture exhibition, many people stopped to watch and a lot took the initiative to sign our petition. Sometimes 4 or 5 people were waiting in line to sign. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera and weren't able to record these precious moments. A lot of touching stories happened during this weekend's events, and we would like to share a few of them with readers here.

A Three-time Visitor

On Saturday, Frank came to sign his name to show his support for Falun Gong. I asked him whether or not he had read Falun Gong materials. He said that he had, and even downloaded Falun Dafa music. He said that he was moved to tears by the music and the pain in his shoulder then surprisingly disappeared. He said that he worked in a company and his job was to conduct training. Sometime he was not patient when people didn't follow his instructions. He said, however, that he could calm down as soon as he thought about Falun Dafa. Therefore, he wanted to learn the exercises. I gave him phone numbers for some New York contacts and recommended he take some materials for his coworkers. He said "OK."

In the afternoon, as someone was walking away from our petition table, I raised up my head and saw Frank again. His expression was quite different from others and he seemed to exude a kind of calmness similar to practitioners. We both smiled. He told me that he had run out of materials and came back for more. I asked him whether he had called the contact persons in New York. He said that he did, but no one had been available to answer his calls. I recommended that he buy a copy of Falun Gong as that book explains how to practice. He said "OK." again.

The next day, I called him to ask him a few questions, however, he didn't answer and I soon forgot about it. Around 6pm when we were just about to leave for Washington DC, he suddenly showed up. I was very happy to see him again. He said that he received my message. I asked him how he learned about Falun Gong, and I quickly realised that his story may be very helpful for us to understand Manhattan residents. Here is his story:

He is an African American and comes from a very poor family. Compared to his brother and sisters, he was very lucky as he was the only one who finished high school and college. He started to work to support his family when he was 11. He is now 20. Though still very young, he is very stressed and his shoulder aches every day. One day he got a break and surfed the Internet looking for a good meditation method for relaxation. He found Falun Gong. He actually had received a Falun Gong flier previously though he had only glimpsed at it and then set it aside. He then thought of the flier; however, he wasn't able to finish it at that time. After a few days, he was presented with Falun Gong materials again and this time he decided to read them carefully. Then the story I wrote above happened to him. He told me that the music Pudu had moved him to tears and cured his shoulder problem. Last night, he watched our truth-clarifying VCD and also found out how to buy Falun Gong books. He was very calm all the time when he told me his story. Several fellow practitioners all heard his story, one of them then gave Frank his copy of Falun Gong as a gift. In the end, I told him not to mark up the book and that it was best to read it straight through. He said that he reads very fast, so I asked him to call me when he finished the book. Seeing I was so serious about the book, he asked me if he could lend the book to his friends. I said, "Of course." I told him that my husband would come to NYC next weekend and he could call me to arrange on-site exercise instruction.

A Teacher Says She'll Tell Her Chinese Students About Falun Gong

An elderly lady asked me what was going on, pointing to the photos, I told her about the persecution. She seriously held me by hand and said, "Look into my eyes and tell me. I realised that she was afraid of missing some points as my English wasn't so good. I then slowed down and told her word by word about how people in China were being persecuted for trying to follow "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance'. After she got it, she said that the persecution was terrible and she asked for 4 fliers. She told me that she was an English teacher and taught Chinese people English. She said that she would discuss Falun Gong with her Chinese students.

Buying a PC Today

We met a gentleman in his fourties who was very supportive after he listened to us explain the facts. He told us that he had been given a VCD before and could not play it with his DVD player. A fellow practitioner asked him if he had tried with a computer, and he said that he was buying a computer that day and showed the practitioner the cheque which was going to be used to buy it. When he was told that that practitioner regained health by practising Falun Gong, he was even more eager to learn the Falun Gong exercises.

Dissolve Misunderstandings

Several young fellows passed by our exhibition site and said that they were not happy with our presence. A practitioner then talked with them and told them that we were there to tell people about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. They then came to understand us and told the practitioner that they would help us to get the word out. One of them asked a practitioner to teach him how to pronounce "Falun Gong" and "Jiang". He said that he would tell others about the truth of Falun Gong and the persecution.

Indeed, we have met some people who didn't understand us. For example, some thought we had been in Manhattan for too long and had brought trouble to their life. Of course, Manhattan has all kinds of people. We can certainly do our best to change any misunderstanding into a good thing if we do better. We can take the opportunity to clarify the truth when someone complains to us. We can try to occupy less space when we do our exhibitions, as we should try not to block other pedestrians even when we are talking with someone. We can let taller practitioners hold up the posters so that they won't bring inconvenience to pedestrians. If we think about others every moment, our compassion will dissolve people's misunderstanding for sure.