Some Western practitioners have been working very hard to clarify the truth to Chinese people in Chinatown. It was very good for me to see them do this.

My family and I have been very active in this as well. We all felt that at this time, it is very important to help out in any way that we can, so we have been going to Chinatown every week for the last few months. I could clearly see my view of Chinese people changing week by week, but the most dramatic change in my perception came a few weeks ago when we spent several hours in Fa study and sending forth righteous thoughts. Afterwards, we divided up into groups and went to various parts of Chinatown.

I always had the idea that Chinese people were just too contaminated by the Chinese propaganda machine and that there was only a slim chance for them to change their hearts about Falun Dafa. I could not stop thinking this way, as I had seen so many Chinese people refuse to accept Dafa flyers and give me very cold looks when we were handing out Dafa materials.

That morning, I felt a certain dread at the prospect of facing these people again, and I thought that I would just pass out some flyers, come back in a few hours, and that would be the end of my duty. I knew those thoughts were not good, yet I could not repel them very well either.

I went to Chinatown with a steadfast Chinese practitioner. He would stand on the corner of the street and hand out flyers with a very serious and solemn demeanor. Normally, he always smiles and jokes a lot, but when we were there and he suddenly became solemn and serious, I was a bit taken aback. At the same time, I felt the seriousness of my work and felt I could not just treat it like something to be over and done with.

So I followed him closely and watched every move he made. He touched something in me. Still, I could not overcome my fear of facing these people, so I asked him, "What shall I do?" He said, "Just have righteous thoughts. We are here to tell them the truth. If they can accept it, that's good; if they don't want to, that's up to them, but we have to do our work." The words he said sounded very simple and I'd heard things like this all the time--yet in his words, I felt the power and the righteous elements that cannot be bent by any external force. I felt the strength of the righteous thoughts from his words and said, "I will do it. That is right, the righteous thoughts are everything." From that moment on, I was able to smile at all the people in Chinatown. The funny thing was, just the fact that I was facing so many Chinese people made me happy. I'm not sure why, but all I can say is that I was just happy to be there to tell these people the truth. Before giving flyers to them, I would make eye contact first and then give them my warmest smile from the bottom of my heart.

When they saw the friendliness in my smile, they were very curious, with "Why is this person smiling at me?" looks on their faces. I remember a few days before this Chinatown event, I was going to attend a press conference in Brooklyn. At the subway entrance, a shoeshine man suddenly lifted his face up and gave me a very warm smile, and I was very surprised by it. "Why is this man smiling at me? Why is he being so kind to me?" His smile made me very happy, and I gave him a flyer. From that incident, I realized that giving a smile to anyone is just a beautiful thing to do. It is just so nice to give smiles to each other.

In Korea, we have a saying: "You can't spit in someone's face who is smiling at you, no matter how terrible a thing he did to you."

Well, in a few hours, I gave out all the flyers. I was very happy, and the people receiving the flyers seemed to be happy as well. I always wondered why, when my 16-year-old niece hands out flyers, everyone seems to take them. Is it because she is young and cute, or is it because she has lots of virtue and not so many notions about people?

I thought she was so good at giving out flyers and I was so bad. But that day, I learned a good lesson. The issue is not so much how badly people have been contaminated by the propaganda; rather, it is about how well we have cultivated and whether or not we can truly improve our xinxing. The outcome is determined by how much compassion we have--so, it is all actually within ourselves.

From that day on, my perception of Chinese people in Chinatown has changed dramatically. It is up to my heart if I can help them or not. We need to open our hearts to people and reach out. I think that is helping our Master offer salvation to all sentient beings.