Germany: Our Hearts were Connected at that Moment

“Hey, wait for me!” I exclaimed in Chinese when I was breathlessly chasing my son, who was gliding down a slope swiftly on his skateboard. Reaching the base of the slope, he finally stopped to wait for me. We were paying a visit to Rothenburg, a German city famous for tourism.

Beside my son stood a group of Japanese tourists. Among them was an elderly lady in her seventies. With a smile on her face, she told my son in faltering Chinese, “You have to wait for Mom!” I was surprised to hear Chinese and, in return, I thought hard and came up with some Japanese to say hello to her. The lady continued to converse with me in Chinese even though her Chinese was not very fluent.

She said she used to live in Manchuria in her childhood. World War II made her an orphan. After the war, she stayed in Manchuria for a period of time before returning to Japan. Because of the lapse of time she had almost forgotten Chinese completely. I pondered how to take advantage of this precious opportunity to tell her the truth of the persecution against Falun Gong in China. Without any Japanese or English leaflets to hand, all that I could resort to was using simple dialogue and writing on paper, hoping that she could understand. I told her the Chinese communist regime has been doing evil things and persecuting Falun Gong and that Falun Gong asks practitioners to cultivate themselves based on the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance” and become good people. She nodded her head continuously, acknowledging she understood what I was trying to say. When I said “Falun Gong is good,” she repeated the words after me.

All at once, she embraced me and repeated after me excitedly, “Falun Gong is good! Falun Gong is good!” Right at that moment, I felt our hearts were connected so closely that no language barrier could hinder our communication. It was as though we had been waiting for this moment for a long time. After saying good-bye to each other, I saw her describing to her friends what she had encountered a while ago and she did so in a happy manner.