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My Experiences in Collecting Signatures Against Legislation of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law

Dec. 19, 2002 |   By a UK practitioner

(Clearwisdom.net) Upon hearing about the serious harm and potential consequences of the legislation of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law mentioned by some practitioners, we decided to grasp the remaining limited time to collect signatures at every major Chinese supermarket and restaurant to protest against the legislation of Article 23. In the meantime, we also launched the campaign of collecting signatures on university campuses and the streets. From Monday to Friday, we went to Chinese supermarkets every afternoon. We first introduced our purpose and the hazardous nature of legislation of Article 23 to the proprietors and their staff. After hearing our explanation, they all signed their names. With the proprietors' consent, we stood in front of the supermarkets' entrances to collect signatures from passers-by, especially the Chinese who came there to shop. The overwhelming majority of Chinese were very supportive. In particular, the immigrants from Hong Kong were very concerned about this incident, and almost every westerner also signed their names.

On weekends, we went to downtown to spread the Fa. After that, we walked along the streets to visit the Chinese restaurants one after another, and solicited signatures from people there until we walked through all the streets in that area. In our daily lives, we also collected signatures from people around us. For instance, student practitioners solicited signatures from their teachers and other students on university campuses during breaks or after school; practitioners with jobs collected signatures from their colleagues in their workplaces; still others collected signatures from those who came to the exercise sites to learn the exercises. As we persevered everyday, the effect is very good. On one hand, we collected signatures; on the other, we also mailed the signatures we had collected to Hong Kong gradually.

The following are parts of my understanding to share with fellow practitioners:

1. Use our righteous thoughts and actions to eliminate evil interference:

There was often quite a lot of interference at our activities. The most common situations we ran into were bad weather and wasting a lot of time waiting for buses. Once upon a time, a practitioner wanted to carry a table to the street to facilitate collecting signatures. Right before his departure from home, it rained suddenly. He perceived that it must be interference, and thus immediately intensified his righteous thoughts so that he was able to take the table to the street without being restricted by the superficial phenomenon. At another time, when we were collecting signatures on the street, we noticed that the sky was clear, but some dark clouds were just above us with occasional raindrops. We thus started to send forth righteous thoughts to eradicate the interference. Therefore, it didn't rain until we wrapped up our activities there. In the first two days, we didn't see many Chinese shopping at the Chinese supermarket. The proprietor was also surprised by the sudden decrease of customers. We perceived that it must be the evil that made the illusion to destroy our determination of doing it continuously. As a result, we sent forth righteous thoughts while soliciting signatures. In no time, we saw more and more customers shopping there. As to the internal interferences, they were being physically uncomfortable, a feeling of inertia and doubts about whether others would sign their names. These are all barriers we practitioners have to overcome.

2. It is exceptionally important to coordinate as a complete body and improve holistically:

Almost all of the practitioners in this area actively participated in the campaign. Every practitioner took advantage of his own strengths to collect signatures from the people around him. The practitioners who just started to learn Falun Gong also gave us a hand proactively. They took some blank signature forms back home, and the forms were full of signatures a week later. Even some of the Chinese we came across on the streets would also take a copy of the form, saying that they wanted to ask their schoolmates pay attention to this incident, and promised to mail the signature form to Hong Kong by themselves. Through this campaign, I realized that Dafa practitioners' participation and cooperation are very important. As a matter of fact, Dafa work sometimes should not only be done by one or just a few practitioners. With more practitioners' participation, the evil will thus collapse accordingly.

As Teacher Li mentioned in the poem entitled "Just a Play": "Everything through the ages has happened for the Fa," let's treasure this period of time and cherish every opportunity to do our Dafa work even better.