Plums in Winter Snow

Ever since July 20, 1999, the Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison has severely persecuted practitioners of Falun Gong. Horrendous crimes are being carried out by prison guards and prisoners without fear of repercussion for their actions. In the face of these ordeals, Falun Gong practitioners continue to display kindness, tolerance, and selflessness as a result of their practice, similar to the way in which plums resist frost and fight the winter's snow.

1. If You Don't Believe It, Just Ask Falun Gong
In 2002, a minor incident occurred in Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison that displayed the Falun Gong practitioners' reputation for integrity. Someone had thrown paper out of one of the prison windows. When the guards in charge of sanitation and hygiene found out, they went to the different floors of the prison building to try to find out who was responsible. When the guard questioned a prisoner they thought was responsible, the prisoner denied it and was unwilling to own up to it. When a prison guard with the surname He, member of the training team and one of the guards responsible for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, heard that the other guard did not believe the prisoner, he was quick to say to the other guard, "If you don't believe her story, just ask Falun Gong; they won't lie."
"If you don't believe it, just ask Falun Gong" was a saying used not only by He, but also by many prison guards and prisoners. If something happened and they wanted a reliable and honest witness, they would say, "If you don't believe it, just ask Falun Gong," a testament to practitioners' moral standards.

2. Falun Gong Is Fair
It is common practice within this women's prison for the guards to extort and seize anything they want from prisoners, and some prisoners do the same to other prisoners. For instance, the prisoners are allowed a certain amount of boiled water once a day, but some prisoners responsible for fetching and distributing the water stole the water that should have gone to others. This happened everyday. In time, the prisoners elected Falun Gong practitioners to collect and distribute the water equally among them, because they knew that practitioners were not corrupt and did not take advantage of others. They said, "Don't worry, Falun Gong is fair."

3. Spread Dafa Practitioners' Kindness and Tolerance in the Human World
From 2003 to early 2004, the prison guards forced prisoners, including practitioners, to work extra hours of hard labour, sometimes not finishing work until midnight. Practitioners refused to do this extra work, so the head of the prison section then cut the practitioners' meals by half. This ill treatment lasted for six months. At that time the former packing section and the No. 7 section shared one toilet, which was located outside the building, and both sections took turns cleaning it. When it was a practitioner's turn to clean the toilet, they were always hardworking and did a good job.
When it was time for the No. 7 section to clean the toilet, former section head Kang Yazhen, who brutally tortured Falun Gong practitioners many times, would find practitioner Chen Weijun to do the work. Before Chen Weijun practiced Falun Gong, she was the owner of a beauty salon, and had people to cook for her and clean her shoes. When she became a Falun Gong practitioner, she held herself in accordance with the principals of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and became a kind and honest person. She was then illegally sentenced. When Kang Yazhen told Chen Weijun to clean the toilet, she would just smile and do the work without any fuss, as she knew that the dirtiest thing in this world was not human excrement but a selfish, corrupted human heart. When she had finished cleaning the toilet, some prisoners were very touched and saw a Falun Gong practitioner's selflessness and kindness.
In the prison, Ms. Chen clarified the truth about the persecution and spoke of the beauty of Falun Gong to whomever she met. After listening to her, some prisoners no longer assisted the guards to commit crimes against practitioners. Unfortunately, others still did bad deeds, even though they knew practitioners were kind and good people. Ms. Chen was tortured many times in various ways after being transferred to the No. 1 section of the prison, but she did not waver in her belief of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. In October 2006, she became critically ill due to the torture and was sent home. She died not long after. Chen Weijun has gone, but she left kindness, forgiveness, and tolerance to the human world.