Sweden: Thoughts on Malmo Festival

Malmo is the third biggest city in the south of Sweden, elegant and beautiful. The grand Malmo Festival was held from the 20th to the 27th of August in the city. I was told that activities to promote Falun Gong would take place over two days during the Festival. With the benevolent thought of letting more people know the truth about Falun Gong and having made two hundred Lotus Flowers with paper, I cheerfully participated in the grand festival.

The streets of Malmo were decorated especially colourful. With smiles on their faces, people, together with their families, made for the streets and parks one after another.

A point in the busiest street in the city centre and a point in the park were arranged for Falun Gong programmes such as waist-drumming, dancing, a demonstration of Falun Gong exercises, demonstrations of how to make Lotus Flowers of all kinds (as a means of telling people Falun Gong practitioners’ orphaned children), banners reading, “ Falun Gong is Good” and “The World needs Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance” in both Chinese and Swedish etc. All these activities took place in the park and drew the applause of people who stopped to watch. Some people learned the Falun Gong exercises on the spot.

A table with Lotus Flowers of all kinds on it was crowded with people. Not only children were learning how to make Lotus Flowers, but some elderly and young people were interested in making them as well. While teaching these children and adults how to fold Lotus Flowers, Falun Gong disciples who took charge of the activity were telling them what persecution Falun Gong practitioners in China were suffering from and in what a rough situation those Falun Gong practitioners’ orphans are. When leaving with leaflets and Lotus Flowers they had made themselves, people had learned about the brutal nature of the persecution in China.

In the parade, we played waist-drums punctuated by a loud chorus of: “Falun Gong is good.” All sorts of feelings welled up in my mind on seeing the faces of people who stopped to watch, on seeing and hearing people of different colour shouting together with us “Falun Gong is good”, on seeing people holding their cameras taking pictures and videotaping , seeing people reaching their hands out for Lotus Flowers and leaflets and also seeing the goodness still existing in hearts of the people living in Sweden. I couldn’t help thinking of my own country, my family members, friends and fellowmen and thinking of those practitioners who are cultivating Falun Gong. Although we are all living under the same blue sky, we are treated as far apart as heaven and earth. On thinking of these , I couldn’t stop the tears running down my face.

In China, if you go to Tiananmen Square and shout, “Falun Gong is Good”, you will be put into prison; if you give your fellowmen a leaflet telling him or her that practitioners are being cruelly persecuted in China, if he or she doesn’t know the fact of the persecution, he or she will report you or if you are discovered by a policeman, you will be given the label of “disturbing society and the peace” and will be fined, sentenced, forced to do hard labour or discharged from public employment, some will be even tortured to death by excruciating means and their families will be broken up.

My two colleagues who are cultivating Falun Gong and I have been put into prison many times and suffered all kinds of humiliation and torture just because we told people “Falun Gong is good”, because we are firm in our belief and because we told our fellow countrymen the facts of the persecution. Later on, I was forced to go into exile overseas and those two colleagues of mine all have been discharged from public employment, one of whom is still now being detained in a forced labour Camp. In the six years of being illegally suppressed, he has been forced into hard labour four times. The longest time he has spent doing hard labour is two years and the shortest time is one year. He has spent most of his time in forced labour camps in the past six years.

I feel fortunate though, when I think that practitioners in China are still suffering from the cruel persecution now. When I was facing danger that I would be again put into prison by the local 610 office, the UN Organisation of Human Rights reached out their hands to rescue me and I received the care and assistance from the Swedish Government. Today, I can, in the land of Sweden, shout from the bottom of my heart: “Falun Gong is good.” After the activities, I couldn’t help crying on my way home.

I am grateful to have the chance to give the Swedish people my cherished Lotus Flowers with words “The world needs Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance." I hope that my countrymen in China can listen to the words of truth spread by practitioners all over the world. For your own future, please consider what practitioners told you calmly and disengage yourselves from the thinking forced on you for long time by the Chinese Communist Party , cherish and respect the sunshine and favour the Gods have given us, take good care of the mother earth which has brought up our lives and end the thinking and actions of opposing the universe, opposing nature and opposing humanity, that is “fighting against heaven, fighting against Earth, and fighting against humanity”. Let our earth have less violence and more peace. Let us have less hatred and more sincerity, kindness and forbearance in our hearts. Let the earth which bears the weight of us and let that existent soil under our own feet safely run in the vast expanse of the universe and not be weeded out by the cosmos. Let everything on mother earth in China be prosperous, and let descendants of Yan Di and Huang Di and the Chinese people lead a life with freedom as the Swedish people do.

I am still going to make more paper Lotus Flowers with which I can spread the truth about Falun Gong to more people so that people all can take a firm hold of the benevolent and saving hands the Gods have reached out to the human world.