Interviewing Dai Zhizhen in Front of the Liberty Bell (Part 2)

Part 1 of this article is available at http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200410/22387.html

Li: It is not easy for you to travel all over the world with a child. What is the greatest difficulty for you?

Dai: The greatest difficulty I have faced is that the notorious Chinese spies used every conceivable means to stop me [from telling people about her husbands death]. My mother passed away at the end of last March. She suffered a lot. Her phone line was wired. The Chinese special agents from the "6-10 Office" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.
] constantly harassed her and tried to use her to stop me from speaking about my experience. There is a Chinese saying, “One of life’s greatest sorrows is for a grey-haired person to see her own child die before her.” My husband died; I loved him very much, and now I have to take care of a little child on my own. As a mother, she understood and felt my pain. I could not fulfil her last wish to see me and my daughter. She only met my daughter once. The Chinese government confiscated all my letters to her, and so she didn’t see any of our photos. She missed my daughter and me very much; she wanted me to bring my daughter home [to China] to see her one last time. But I couldn’t get a visa to China to say goodbye to her, and I was heartbroken. They used this method to punish me for speaking up. My daughter asked me, “Why can’t we go back to China to see Grandma?” I replied, “Because we cannot get a visa.” She asked, “Why can’t we get a visa?” I said, “Because we practise Falun Gong.” She said, “Why is that we can’t get a visa because we practise Falun Gong?” I wept. I didn’t know how to explain it to her. This was the most painful thing for me. I don’t know how this horrible experience will affect her whole life. She is still so young. There are thousands upon thousands of children in China; many of them like my daughter have to bear the pain of losing their families and loved ones.

Li: Recently in China, rumours have been fabricated to slander Falun Gong among elementary and middle school students. Would you please say something to those children?

Dai: I want to tell them that I love China; I love China’s culture, her people, her land and waters. I hope you don’t believe those lies. There are Falun Gong practitioners in more than 60 countries, and they have the freedom to practise [Falun Gong]. The beauty of Falun Dafa has spread to every corner of the world. Sooner or later, we will be back.

Li: You have travelled to so many countries and faced a lot of pressure and difficulties. What makes you so unwavering?

Dai: It is Falun Dafa. I have travelled all over the world to find it. I grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I saw how miserable my mother was. She used to cry bitterly at home. So, from my childhood, I determined that I would never go through what my mother went through. I studied and worked hard. I obtained almost everything I strove for. At seventeen, I enrolled in a university in the city of Hangzhou and majored in tourism. After I graduated and got my bachelor’s degree, I returned to Guangzhou and worked in a luxury hotel. In 1987, I went to Australia. During the four years of my college, I read a lot of books to find the meaning of life, but I couldn’t find an answer. After I arrived in Australia, I decided to find an answer in western culture and attended church for six years there. In 1992, I began to travel around the world with my Australian passport. I visited almost all museums and art galleries. I stayed for five months in the United States and Canada and for seven months in Europe. I was very sad because I could not find the answer. My last stop was in Hawaii. Facing the beautiful beach, I cried. I felt that there was nothing left for me to experience in the western world and so I decided to go back to China. My mother and I went to visit a relative on April 18th, 1997. I accidentally found Zhuan Falun, the core text of Falun Gong there, and the answer to my whole life lay in that book. It has changed my life ever since. I was very selfish before. I only cared about my own dreams and my own career and never thought about others. I never believed in anyone. I never wanted to be a mother. I said: “Why should I bring a life to this hopeless, meaningless place?” After I practised Falun Gong, I have now become a mother, and I want to help all the persecuted children.

Li: What were you searching for [then]?

Dai: Why we are here - the meaning of lives.

Li: Did you find what you were looking for after you began to practise Falun Gong?

Dai: Yes, I did.

Li: What is the biggest change in you after you began to cultivate Falun Gong?

Dai: My biggest change is that I have followed the teaching of considering others first. It is just amazing. If I had locked myself in my room after I found out that my husband had been killed, I would have had a mental breakdown. I dared not think about what kind of person my daughter would grow up into. She could have become uncommunicative, eccentric and anti-social. [But] look at my daughter today; she is taller than most 4-year-olds, she loves to sing and dance, and she is happy. She is not at all like those children who are brought up by single mothers under difficult circumstances. This is the beauty of Falun Dafa. In every country we went to, we stayed in practitioners’ houses. In Europe, we stayed most of the time at Caucasian practitioners’ houses. We were always welcomed with open arms. After my husband died, I continued to follow the teaching of Falun Dafa. In a little over a year, I was able to gradually recover from my grief and extricated myself from the sorrow that had piled on me. If I only thought of myself during that time, my life would have taken a different path. Now I always consider others first, and I feel that the road ahead of me is wide open. Many people have commented that I now look very different from the earlier photos that they had seen of me. They said that I’ve become younger and my daughter looks very happy. I am very grateful for the teachings of Falun Gong.

Li: Does your child cultivate, too?

Dai: Yes. She can do the sitting meditation. When we were in South Africa, she even taught the children there to practise the 5th exercise, the sitting meditation. She was adorable.

Li: It is not easy for you to travel all over the world with a child. How do you do that?

Dai: I was in the hotel business. I have met a lot of people and lived in many different environments. I feel that Falun Gong is really a pure land. This is beyond description. The Chinese say that it takes “right timing, favourable geographical conditions and unity of the people” to achieve perfect harmony. It takes not just one thing, but all three things to make things happen in perfect harmony. My daughter is growing up in such an environment. She speaks fluent English, which was taught to her by western Falun Gong practitioners. I am fortunate enough to be exposed to this environment and to have step by step become who I am today. I hope you will read Zhuan Falun when you get a chance and talk to some Falun Gong practitioners. You will find that they are extraordinary people.