Turkey: Stories of New Practitioners

On May the 1st 2005, the largest Turkish TV station SHOW TV interviewed practitioners who were doing the Falun Gong exercises in an Ankara park and videotaped the group practice. On the same night, the station broadcasted the interview nationwide in its news hour.

Group practice at a park in Ankara

Through practitioners’ persistent efforts in the last several years, the Turkish people are gradually learning about Falun Gong. Today, some Turks have already started to learn the practice and cultivate seriously. While they all know about the persecution, they are not scared by it. On the contrary, they cherish Falun Gong even more after they realised that the persecution is so evil. Having experienced the greatness of Falun Gong, the Turkish practitioners are now taking the initiative to spread the practice to their relatives, friends and co-workers.

Below are a few stories about these new practitioners:

Little Lila’s father is a car dealer. When practitioners went to a shopping mall to spread Falun Gong last year, the manager of the mall introduced her father to the practitioners. He knew that China has some ancient cultivation methods. After hearing a brief introduction to Falun Gong, he took some leaflets and said, “Let me give it a try first, then I will introduce this practice to the school which I fund so that all children in the school will be healthy.”

He and his daughter Lila both watched and learned the exercises from a Falun Gong Exercise Instruction Video-CD at home. Last month, Lila played the VCD in her class. Her teacher and all her classmates watched the VCD and learned the exercises together. Several days ago, Lila came to me to work some more on learning the practice. She watched every movement of mine with great attention.

An annual Turkish health expo was held in Ankara from April the 24th to the 26th. Practitioners participated in this event to spread Falun Gong. A western practitioner got permission to give a five-minute introduction to the practice on a stage. More than three hundred visitors and expo vendors thus heard about Falun Gong. The introduction met with warm applause and many people came to ask for more information about the local practice sites. Practitioners distributed flyers and answered questions, such as how to start to practise Falun Gong. One after another, people accepted the flyers and asked for more details about the practice.

Alicia started to practise Falun Gong about six months ago. She was very arrogant in the past but she is now a new person: Healthy and feeling young. She cherishes Falun Gong and talked about the practice to her friends who work at a TV station. She said, “I hope all Turkish people will learn the practice. Please spread the news of Falun Gong to the whole nation through TV shows. I was fifty five when I just started to practise, now I look like forty five and I feel so energetic.”

Ayisha has started a new life since her practice of Falun Gong

In the morning of April 30th a practitioner who has been practising for about six months told us a miracle had happened to her: She was cooking in the morning and she was accidentally scalded by boiling water. However, her hand just turned a little reddish for a while with no scald marks. It is impossible based on common sense. She also told us that she just finished reading Falun Dafa’s main text Zhuan Falun for the first time that week. She asked me why her hands were not scalded and if that relates to Falun Gong? I said, “You just need to read Zhuan Falun more. Falun Gong is supernormal.”

This practitioner was accidentally scalded by boiling water but her hands were not hurt at all.

We are now translating a collection of articles from Falun Dafa websites into Turkish and some articles are already available to interested people. These are collected archive stories about practitioners who experienced health miracles from practising Falun Gong. We think it is also a good way to spread Falun Gong. Most recently, more elderly ladies and people with illnesses showed interest in learning Falun Gong after having read this set of articles.

On May the 2nd, I went to a few places on business and talked with people about Falun Gong. Some recognised me as I was in the TV interview the night before. They said that the practice shown on TV was really good and the music and the practice brought people inner peace. They also said that they would come to learn when they have the time. Now, all Turkish people know that there is a Falun Gong practice site in Ankara offering free teaching.