(Minghui.org) Ms. Shao Jingmei, Associate Professor of English at Taizhou Teacher's College, passed away on April 29, 2014, at the age of forty-nine. Before her death, she was forced to lead a vagrant lifestyle in order to escape the harassment and persecution of the Chinese government for her faith in the spiritual practice Falun Gong.
Details of her story follow:
Early Life
Ms. Shao was born in Zhaozhou County, Heilongjiang Province, to two accomplished teachers. At an early age, she had developed both an aptitude and an enthusiasm for learning which would accompany her throughout her life.
Academically, she was always at the top of her class – her physical condition, however, was a different story. After her college entrance exams, Ms. Shao's health declined rapidly. She missed many days during college due to her poor health.
Shao Jingmei
It seemed that school was where Ms. Shao felt the most at home, as she would never be far from a school campus. She found a job at Acheng Teacher's College in Heilongjiang as an English teacher after graduation, and quickly became a workplace favorite.
Her dependable and responsible work ethics earned her respect from her colleagues, while her affable nature endeared her to students. On top of her dream workplace life, she also married her childhood sweetheart and began a picturesque family.
However, her frailty did not leave her – her health was still poor, and she often had to cancel class or take breaks to rest.
Encountering Falun Dafa
Ms. Shao began practicing Falun Gong in 1996; to her surprise, her health improved dramatically. Being an independent thinker like her, she did have her doubts about the practice at first, since she did not want to blindly worship something. But the change that she personally underwent only cemented her faith in Falun Gong.
She was delighted with her improved health and set up a group Fa study site at her home for colleagues and students. They shared their cultivation experiences in following Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and their joy of advancing in cultivation.
These peaceful and wonderful times would be forever remembered by her colleagues and students, even after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began persecuting Falun Gong.
Forced to Renounce Her Beliefs
In July 1999, the CCP, under the direction of then-president Jiang Zemin, began illegally arresting Falun Gong practitioners and torturing them in forced labor camps.
Armed with her personal story and her trust in her government, Ms. Shao went to the provincial government to appeal for justice for Falun Gong on July 22, but she was arrested and detained in the police station instead.
When the police found out that she led a Fa study group, they made her a main target for persecution. Authorities coerced her to write statements of repentance, renouncing her belief in the practice against her will.
Clipped of her beliefs, Ms. Shao became greatly conflicted – what had happened to her supposed rights as a Chinese citizen? Her freedom of thought, her independent mindset – all of that disappeared in an instant.
The statement she wrote against her will still tugged at her conscience. Her fellow practitioners were either arrested, appealing, or on the run; she had no one to turn to for help. Where should she go from here? And how?
A year later in 2000, Ms. Shao moved with her husband to southern China for a change of pace. As they were both distinguished teachers, they were both hired immediately by Taizhou Teacher's College in Zhejiang Province.
While their living conditions became better, Ms. Shao was not consoled by her new standard of living or her higher wages.
She gradually noticed that despite China's rapid economic development, Chinese people were still woefully behind on information. They were blissfully unaware of the genocide that was happening in the same country that they lived in.
And those that knew of the persecution were still deceived by the propaganda – they believed that the Party's actions were a “cleansing,” just as the Party had wanted them to believe. They were brainwashed into turning a blind eye at the suffering of innocent people.
Returning to Falun Gong
Ms. Shao couldn't bear to see the minds of these innocent citizens tainted by misinformation. She took it upon herself to spread the facts about the persecution, and discreetly distributed materials about Falun Gong in her spare time.
However, her actions would catch the interest of the local authorities in Taizhou. They would keep Ms. Shao under close surveillance, and would finally arrest in her July of 2004.
She was charged with the distribution of Falun Gong materials and held in the Taizhou Detention Center. Her health began to decline exponentially, and the police department had to release her after a month so that she could seek medical treatment.
But they continued to pressure her workplace for hiring her, and would try to coerce her husband into divorcing her. Not wanting to get her friends and family involved in her affairs, Ms. Shao ran away from home after the police department tried to detain her a second time.
Her disappearance infuriated the Taizhou Police Department; they immediately issued a nationwide “arrest warrant” for her, describing her as a fugitive of a major case.
Family Members Implicated
Her husband was forced to step down as a department head at the college and blackmailed into announcing his divorce. And like this, an innocent and harmonious family was torn apart by a ruthless government.
In order to find Ms. Shao, the Party harassed her relatives constantly for her location. They would resort to all kinds of methods – tapping into her family's phones, and even tailing her ex-husband.
Her parents passed away not knowing their dearest daughter's whereabouts, or whether she was alive or dead. In their last days, they had constantly talked about her and their fear for her life.
Ms. Shao's then-fourteen-year-old daughter began rotating among her relatives. Once the apple of her parents' eye, she was now left alone to face the world. She quickly developed a cautious and cynical attitude in order to protect herself and her broken heart – for who could possibly understand her family's suffering?
However, the authorities would not even leave a child alone. When Ms. Shao's daughter enrolled in college, they sent agents to threaten her for her mother's whereabouts. Fortunately, the teachers at her school saw this and blocked the police from taking any action. They also took extra measures to protect the young woman.
Ms. Shao had to endure these blows one after another in close succession, and not even in the comfort of her own home. To protect her parents and relatives, she was constantly on the move.
She had to work odd jobs since she could not produce identification for fear of getting caught. Even though life was hard, she still saved up what little she could in order to make truth-clarification materials and help her fellow practitioners.
A gentle, kind, and patient person, she got along well with many of her fellow practitioners and became a confidante to many of them. Her sudden departure shocked and saddened her fellow practitioners.
Even under violent persecution at the hands of a repressive regime, Falun Gong practitioners like Ms. Shao still firmly uphold their beliefs and speak the truth.
Ms. Shao's biggest regret was that she was not able to fully explain Falun Gong to the policemen that have once persecuted her – their deeds would bring them enormous tribulations in the future, she said. In January of 2014, she had still written New Year's cards to them, telling them about the persecution and wishing them well.
