An Irish Practitioner Commemorates Mrs. Taylor

Suzy Taylor is her full name, but she allowed us to call her Sue.

Meeting Sue for the first time was in the summer of 1999. At that time we were performing the Falun Gong exercises and informing people about the persecution in Merrion Square in Dublin city centre. She probably had read our flyer and joined us. Sue looked about fifty years old with her hair almost all white. She looked elegant, neat and very experienced. Afterwards I heard she was a model when she was young so she must have been very pretty. Despite her age she was still charming and graceful, and one could see the silhouette of her beauty from the time when she was young. She loved practising Falun Gong’s exercises very much and often practised by herself. She also liked the principles detailed in the book. There was only one thing: she didn’t like reading, so she enjoyed listening to other people explaining. She said, Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance are simply brilliant.

We invited her to come round to our house. She was very casual and didn’t have the mannerisms a westerner of her age usually has, but was more child-like. She was fond of the dishes and instant noodles we cooked for her. Nevertheless there was one thing that puzzled me: she insisted on adding a few drops of Soy sauce to her Chinese green tea, and said that a Japanese friend of hers taught her this. I was curious, and didn’t know whether Japan really had this custom or it was just some humorous Japanese guy joking with her.

Sue was British. When we met her she and her family lived in a village outside Dublin. Around the end of 1999 or the start of 2000 they moved back to the UK and lived in a little seaside town in Wales. Several times she invited me to go horse riding with her there, but I couldn’t because I was too busy.

She yearned for and enjoyed doing the exercises all along, but she didn’t continue to the end, although afterwards she came to do the exercises with us from time to time.

In April 2000, Li Lanqing paid a visit to Ireland. We decided to do the exercises outside his hotel and the place where he would hold conferences, to protest against the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong, demanding them to stop the persecution and release all arrested Falun Gong practitioners, including students who once studied in Ireland and were detained when they returned to China. At that time there weren’t a lot of Irish practitioners in Ireland. There were only two Chinese practitioners and a couple of new Irish people. Therefore when UK Falun Gong practitioners heard about this they came and supported us. Sue came as well. Four people came altogether. This way there seemed more of us.

This was our first time to do the exercises and demonstrate when a high-ranking Chinese official visited. Back then Amnesty International, students, Tibetan human rights supporters and so on were all protesting. Of course we just did the exercises while other people shouted slogans, protesting against the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights violations.

Some time later in the autumn of 2000, Sue rang me a few times. I couldn’t remember the details, but the general idea was that she contacted the chairman of Trinity College’s Graduate Student Committee and they are willing to hold a gathering to call for the release of students who studied at Trinity College and were now jailed in China’s labour camps.

Just for this Sue came to Dublin and lived in my home. She said to me, while gesturing: I have an image in my head. A few hundred students standing outside the Chinese embassy and shouting for the release of someone, the effect must be good. At first I took no notice, then I realised she kept on describing scenes from her head. From the perspective of a cultivator, I thought maybe she had some supernatural abilities, and could see and feel things that were going to happen.

We, a few local practitioners with the collective efforts of Sue, UK Falun Gong practitioners, Trinity College’s Graduate Student Committee and Amnesty International, finally held this assembly successfully in early winter in 2000. At first we gathered in the university square. Teachers from the school, Amnesty International, UK practitioners and a very special guest who was Lord Moyne from the UK House of Lords all made speeches. After that we went to the Chinese Embassy in Dublin. Lord Moyne was already over seventy and he, like a young student, stood for several hours in the freezing weather outside the embassy.

Lord Moyne and Sue were a couple. We called Lord Moyne by the name of Johnson, which is his real name, Moyne being the title conferred on him or possibly inherited. When they came to Dublin, they would often stay at where we lived and eat what we ate, and were very easy-going. Lord Moyne practised Yoga. As a man of over 70 years old he could still do a handstand. He mastered four languages, both spoken and written; his other languages were also very good.

After Sue, UK practitioners and us telling him about the atrocious persecution that Falun Gong practitioners have been suffering in China, Lord Moyne was very willing to help us do something to stop this inhumane persecution and torture. He wrote to other members of the House of Lords, calling for them to help as well, which caused the issue of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners to be brought forward in the House of Lords, hoping that the government would pay attention to it. That was in October 2000, when six of us Falun Gong representatives listened to the questions and answers of the House of Lords. One member of the House put forward the issue concerning the persecution of Falun Gong. After the conference, Lord Moyne treated us to coffee and refreshments in the House of Lords restaurant.

Once Sue told me excitedly there are lots of people at the Edinburgh Arts Festival. You should go. People come from all over the world and it’s a good opportunity to get them to know about Falun Gong and the persecution. At that time because I disagreed with the Chinese Communist Party’s terms about Falun Gong, which were suggested to me by the Embassy, my passport renewal was refused by the Embassy. I didn’t have a passport and couldn’t travel, so I didn’t make it to Edinburgh. Afterwards a UK practitioner told me that Sue was very enthusiastic. She would often go after people to ask them if they wanted a Falun Gong leaflet. It was very touching.

The first Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference in Ireland was held in 2001. Sue and Lord Moyne came especially from the UK and also attended our parade and gathering after the conference to rescue Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China. After a while, with help from different circles, Zhao Ming, the persecuted student from Trinity College finally returned to Dublin in March 2002. Sue seemed happier than everyone else.

Sue took part in all kinds of activities in the UK with practitioners, doing the exercises, gatherings, parades and cultural activities.

Because we have, after all, only lived here for a very short time and the people we knew were limited, so Sue energetically helped to contact persons from all walks of life to make it easier for us to reveal the facts of and stop the persecution. She helped to introduce us to painters, musicians, staff from the American Embassy, librarians from other parts of the country and so on. As someone who doesn't practise Falun Gong (because later she almost stopped), Sue’s enthusiasm was extraordinary, and even more precious. She is the most difficult to forget out of all the people I’ve met in Ireland, not only because of her efforts, but also because she was also an interesting and special person.

Unfortunately she was suffering from breast cancer in 2002 and underwent surgery. Afterwards when she came to Dublin, she wanted to show me the place where she had the operation done, but I was quite a coward and didn’t dare to look. I originally thought that with her optimistic personality, she would defeat the disease. However what was very sorrowful was that she didn’t survive it and left the world in August 2003.

Upon receiving this news, I was heartbroken. I have not hitherto contacted Lord Moyne, not because I am ignorant of etiquette or heartless, but because I really don’t know what to say to him. I am not a very social person. I don’t know what to say to reduce his bitterness and grief, the pain of losing a loved one. My gratitude, missing and misery for Sue are all in my heart, and have not faded even after so long. At the same time I feel ashamed. I was always excusing myself with being too busy or other reasons, and my concern for Sue was small, by comparison, most of the time contacting her when I needed her help. Because I thought she was a local, had lots of relatives and friends and shouldn’t have problems. But I as a friend, moreover a friend who has benefited a lot from her, didn’t initially care for her very much, especially in her last days. I didn’t know how she passed these days and with what kind of spirit and courage.

Writing this article is not only to commemorate and thank Lady Suzy’s and Lord Moyne’s support and vigorous help for Falun Gong practitioners suffering the persecution over the years, there is also my apology.

May the heavens endow peace and harmony to Sue and her loved ones.