Sunday, Jan 12, 2003

Cheng Wan last talked to his mother two years ago, before, he says, authorities in China sentenced her to three years in a labor camp for "organizing [Falun Gong activities]."

She had been arrested in January 2001, right before Chinese New Year. Police found Falun Gong fliers in her house, which she shared with her husband and, until he went abroad to study at the University of Minnesota, Cheng Wan -- their only child.

Jingjiang Chen, Cheng Wan's mother, is 54. She does indeed practice Falun Gong, Chinese meditation that combines exercise with teachings on how to become a better person. The Chinese government has outlawed it and prosecuted people who practice it. Cheng Wan's father, Shanhua Wan, a longtime high-school art teacher, also practices Falun Gong. Cheng Wan said his dad was demoted and now teaches art to elementary-school children.

In these past few years, Cheng Wan has waged his own political battle to help his parents -- at the very least, to get his mother home. Letters from U.S. senators would let the Chinese government know someone is watching, he reasons. So would letters from everyday people.

Cheng Wan, 26, is a research assistant pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. After graduating from Peking University, he left China for the first time in August 1998 to pursue graduate studies at Minnesota. He already has earned a master's degree at the U in mathematics. In two years, he should have his Ph.D. and is likely to go into a job working with computer chips.

He, too, practices Falun Gong. He has not gone home since he came here. Contact with his parents, he says, has been sporadic, though he last talked to his father just before Christmas.

"I had planned (to visit) in December 1999," said Cheng Wan, whose oversized, squarish brown glasses frame a thoughtful face. He doesn't fidget and talks softly, sometimes correcting himself in his English.

"I had already ordered plane tickets, but my parents said, 'Don't come.' " His parents also told him police had begun to monitor their phone conversations.

"When I was a little kid, my dream was to just become a very good scientist," Cheng Wan says. "As time goes on, you will find something you think unreachable will come true."

Two weeks ago, he finally got a letter from his mother -- the first he has directly heard from her since her incarceration. He is relieved, but there is so much to catch up on.

"It is Chinese tradition to have both sides of parents to be together at the wedding," said Xiao Dan Wang, 21, to whom Cheng Wan became engaged last year. The two met four years ago on the way to a Falun Gong conference in New York, and what started as a friendship eventually blossomed into love.

The two will get married this year, but without a wedding ceremony. Cheng Wan misses his parents most around holidays, and his wedding ceremony is one celebration he won't have without them.

CHENG WAN

School: University of Minnesota, pursuing a Ph.D in electrical engineering.

Age: 26

Family: Shanhua Wan, father; Jingjiang Chen, mother; and Xiao Dan Wang, fiancee.

Birthplace: China

About: Cheng Wan is trying to free his mother, Jingjiang Chen, from a labor camp in China, where she has served two years of a three-year sentence for "organizing [Falun Gong activities]." She was arrested when police found Falun Gong fliers in her house. Falun Gong is Chinese meditation that combines exercise with teachings on how to become a better person. The Chinese government has outlawed it and prosecuted people who practice it.

ONLINE

For more information about Falun Gong and family efforts like Cheng Wan's, go to www.rescueourfamilies.org.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/living/education/4920698.htm