Treating Human Life with Indifference - Twisted Spirit of the Party Culture

Perhaps in my last life, I met a horrible death. It must have been a miserable life because, in my earliest memory, I was five years old and I used to hide under the quilt blanket crying secretly out of fear of dying. At that time, I had never seen a dead body and had never heard of people dying, yet I was afraid of dying. I was afraid that when I died, I would lie in a cold dark place and would be unable to move. I dared not tell the other members of the family of my fear, and had to bear it quietly by myself. When I think about it now, my fear of death actually has helped me a lot in my later life. Otherwise, as I learnt to treat life with indifference in my later years, and developed an overzealousness to do whatever the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) required of me, I do not know how many times I could have been killed.

(1) Treating "Heroes" as Models and Always Being Prepared to Sacrifice My Life

When I was in primary school, the CCP encouraged everyone to learn from the good Samaritan Lei Feng. At that time I believed all the propaganda of the CCP and did my best to emulate Lei Feng. I told myself that I would not seek benefit for myself in any way, but to benefit others, while treating an enemy coldly like a severe winter, callously and mercilessly. Being able to live in the City of Beijing, the heart of the "World Revolution," even though most people were living in hardship at that time, I felt that I was incomparably fortunate. In my heart of hearts, I was always thinking that two-thirds of the people in the world were in the abyss of suffering (those who lived outside of the Communist Bloc, as we were taught by the CCP). The CCP preached that we must live for others, sacrifice ourselves for the nation, and only that was being "Great and Honourable". Since everyone must die, one must die a worthy death, otherwise life would have the value of a goose feather. In the event of a war after I grew up, I was to become a solider and, in order to avoid being captured by the enemy, the last bullet must be reserved for me. The last hand grenade would be for taking the enemy with me, otherwise I would be a worthless coward. As a result, I always held onto the thought that I must "Be prepared to sacrifice myself for the CCP and always in readiness to struggle for life or death with the class enemies that are damaging socialism." At one stage, my intention of sacrificing myself for others and to vigorously exert myself to save the national wealth from being damaged became quite developed. As I walked along the street, I would look around to see if there was any opportunity to save others, and at every moment be on my guard to seek out those class enemies and stop them from taking part in destructive activities.

Gradually, as I was taught not to treasure my own life, I began to treat other people's lives with indifference as well. If I reckoned someone should have sacrificed his life for the "greater good" but did not do so, I would despise that person, and cannot understand why that person, at the crucial moment, did not sacrifice himself for others? Later, I saw in some foreign films that the hero did not use the last bullet to take his own life, but would meekly surrender, or be taken prisoner by the enemy. I thought those were the most despicable acts. It took a long time for me to realise that what they did was yet another way to exist.

2) Growing to Suspect the Party and Later to Detest the Party

Later, I began to have doubts about the party and eventually grew to detest it. Initially, because I was naive and simple in nature, I was easily hoodwinked by the Party. When I was growing up, I often heard that the Chinese Nationalist Government that the CCP had overthrown to take over power in China was incompetent, corrupt and could not provide the citizens with a proper livelihood and hence must be overthrown. On the other hand, I was told that the CCP should be in power because it was great and wise and the CCP officials worked for the well-being of the people.

Subsequently, I observed that the Chinese peasants were living in severe hardship. Even my elder brother from Beijing who went to settle in the countryside was also very poor. My brother worked exceedingly hard for three years and only earned a total of a bit more than five hundred yuan (Chinese currency). The peasants looked towards the people living in the cities as if they were living in paradise. But in public the peasants still had to shout out slogans like "Our lives are sweeter than honey!" that the CCP had taught them. In fact, at that moment, the people who lived in Beijing were not so well to do either. Actually they were also very poor. When watching films from overseas, I noticed that people there were living better lives than the people in Chinese cities. I was astonished. They were living in the abyss of suffering and in poverty like we were taught by the CCP. I thought their lifestyle was much better than ours. To me, it indicated that the Communist Party hadn't been leading China well.

At that time, I often thought to myself, "The CCP hasn't been administering the country well. That was because they did not have the capacity to do so. It was just the same as when the Nationalist Government was overthrown. The XX Party should therefore relinquish the power honestly and allow others to take over." Hence I patiently waited for them to step down. But as they continued to do everything to stay in power, I became very disgusted with them. In those years, one statement was often heard on the radio, "XXX encountered the objections of the whole of China" or XXX was embraced by the whole of China." I kept thinking, "How could they say that? How could that statement represent my opinion? How would they know if I was in favour or against something?"

After the Cultural Revolution, I returned to the work unit from the Cadet School. It was at the period when the whole country was acting against the "Gang of Four" (translator's note: to shirk responsibility for holding the decade-long Cultural Revolution, the CCP singled out four individuals for persecution and claimed that those four people alone were responsible for the Cultural Revolution). I felt very disgusted when the CCP officials at my work place organised everyone to attend a public gathering to condemn the "Gang of Four," just like how they organised everyone to listen to the public lectures by the "Gang of Four" during the Cultural Revolution. On one occasion when I was asked to attend an activity that was related to applying to join the CCP, I refused to do so. I could not comprehend why those people were always doing the same things. In the old days, they were promoting certain things. Then they turned around and criticised what they had taught without missing a single step! How would I know if they wouldn't do another about-face tomorrow? Later, the Party Committee sent someone to inform me: if I did not take part in the activity for the application to join the Party, my application would not be considered again. A chill ran down my spine when I heard that. But then I thought, "If I continue to participate in such activities, I will be used by them to do what is against my conscience." Hence I timidly said: "If they do not want to consider my application, so be it!" Even though I was very frightened of the CCP, I felt much better after I made my decision not to join.

(3) Though Not a Party Member, My Thoughts were Still Influenced by the Party Culture

Under the education of the Communist Party, life is treated with indifference and violence. I didn't cherish other people's lives or my own. For a long period of time, when I encountered an aggravating incident that I found difficult to bear or even at the slightest provocation, I would think of killing myself. To me, committing suicide was one of the avenues to escape or seek revenge. Of course I had never contemplated how to commit suicide because my fear of dying from an early age was always before my eyes and I dared not think about it any further. Before I took up cultivation, when I encountered suffering that I couldn't deal with but didn't dare to kill myself over, I would console myself by thinking, "When the children grow up and become independent, I will no longer see a doctor or take any medicine. That will quickly terminate my life and I can leave this world early." This thought became my spiritual sustenance, and my life seemed to be tolerable.

More than ten years after I left China, I was still under the influence of the Party culture. For example, no matter who pressed my door bell, I dared not refuse to open the door. Deep down in my heart I was thinking that I had nothing to hide. But no matter what I did, I was afraid that others might misunderstand me, and would always try to explain my views over and over again to other people. The normal and simple life thus became very complicated and trying.

After I started to cultivate, I encountered some tribulations that I could not overcome. The most difficult for me was that in the past I could use ending my life early as a way to comfort myself. To me, at least there was the way out left for me. But after I started to cultivate, I knew I shouldn't commit suicide and I shouldn't even think of committing suicide. I could not elevate my charachter and hence tribulations became extremely difficult to overcome.

Reflecting upon it, under the nurture of the Party culture, my approach to life almost became absurd. The Party had made ordinary Chinese people become abnormal, strange creatures foreign to the normal ways of life.

(4) One Thought that Has Always Stayed with Me

Even though the Party culture was all pervasive, there was one thing about which the Party culture could never influence me. That has been in my thought all my life and something that I have always reminded myself, which is "I will never isolate myself, never resist anything new, and never bypass anything that is good and genuine." Therefore, after coming into contact with Falun Dafa, I very quickly decided to cultivate, and have never wavered.

Recently, when I heard that the CCP had removed body organs from Falun Gong practitioners' bodies while they were still alive for organ harvesting, I wasn't shocked. It is because I already knew that is a reflection of the real, evil nature of the CCP. The CCP has been carrying out the policy of "Cripple them economically, annihilate them physically' against Falun Gong practitioners. I know that many fellow practitioners still refuse to believe the live organ harvesting really happened. I reckon it is because they are actually still being influenced by the Party culture and still having hope for the evil CCP, hoping that they will correct themselves and become good. Such thoughts originated from the Party culture and are the filthy ideologies that people must eliminate from their thinking.

The above are personal realisations. Please kindly point out anything that may be wrong.