(Minghui.org) My wife began practicing Falun Gong in the Spring of 1997. I was very supportive of her practice, because she became very healthy and lived by Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This helped our family live harmoniously.
When Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, I worried about my wife and no longer supported her practicing, out of fear.
She was detained by the authorities, and when she came home after each of the first two detentions, I hit her. “You left, but you don't know what you left behind for me,” I told her with tears in my eyes. “The police came to talk to me, the village committee came to talk to me, and the neighbors were talking behind my back. I may be a nobody, but my ancestors have never been detained.”
I knew my wife was a good person. I cared for her, but as soon as she went to petition for the right to practice Falun Gong, the authorities came to our house, be it the police, the 610 Office, or village committee members, to ransack my home or intimidate me. My life was severely disrupted, too, in that I had to take care of our child and work in the field. In addition, I had to cook dinner after coming home.
The village committee people, as well as some villagers, offered me some ideas about how to constrain my wife. They said that I should tie my wife to a bed for a few days without giving her food so she would be too worn out to go out. I didn't do it, because I knew she was trying to be a good person. Yet, at the time I did not dare think that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Jiang Zemin were wrong.
My wife was taken to a brainwashing center in June 2001. I was desperate. She was arrested again at the end of July 2001 and sent to a year-and-a-half term of forced labor.
The endless ransacking and fines got to me. Our child was of elementary school age and needed care. The work in the field needed to be done, and the visiting relatives and friends needed to be taken care of. The villagers constantly made negative remarks. I was under so much pressure that I almost suffered a mental collapse. I thought of divorcing her as soon as she was released from the labor camp.
Yet, I could not divorce her, because I knew she had done nothing wrong. All she was doing was to let the authorities know that “Falun Gong is righteous and teaches people to become good people!”
Still, I asked her to stop practicing Falun Gong, but she refused.
“Falun Gong is not wrong,” she said. “It is the government and Jiang Zemin who are wrong. You should not hate Falun Gong; you should hate Jiang. Jiang is persecuting so many good people. If everyone would practice Falun Gong, the morality of society would not have declined so badly.”
There was a lot of pressure, so I lived in fear. Every day when I returned from work, if I saw my wife cooking in the kitchen or saw the food she had made, I felt safe. If not, I would immediately ride my bicycle to the field, and would not feel settled until I saw her. This went on for years.
I listened to and understood all the facts about Falun Gong. But the shadow of fear caused by Jiang's persecution has lingered within me, and I just could not stop worrying that she would be arrested again.
On my way to a wholesale produce market at 2 a.m., I was hit by a 10-wheeler truck and flew off of my tricycle flatbed. The tricycle was turned 180 degrees and all the produce was smashed. My head was bleeding. I called my wife on the truck driver's cell phone, and she quickly found help and came to the site. They took me to the hospital for a checkup and found nothing major, so I went home.
Since then, I learned that at the exact same section of the road, a similar accident occurred two weeks prior, and the tricycle driver had died on the spot. Everybody said I was lucky.
“It is Falun Gong's Master who has saved you,” my wife told me. I wasn't convinced at the beginning, so she asked, “So, is your head stronger than the tricycle wheels?” It occurred to me that one of the tricycle wheels was totally destroyed, whereas the CT scan of my head showed nothing major.
From then on I no longer objected that she practice Falun Gong, but I still got upset as soon as I saw her in contact with practitioners outside our village. I was so afraid of her being persecuted again.
My wife asked me at the end of 2011 if we could install a New Tang Dynasty television satellite dish, as it only cost 200 yuan (USD$ 30). At first I had no objections, but when the person came to install it, I changed my mind. My wife said that since he'd brought everything already, we should just let him install it. I became upset and went out to the field. My wife and our child helped get it installed.
When I came back at night, I refused to watch TV. “You are so selfish and keep doing what you want to do,” I told her. “If others report us, you will be taken away again. You never think about me and our kid.”
“You're wrong,” she said. “It is exactly because I think about you and our kid that I decided to have NTD installed. In fact, I had it installed for you. If I were selfish, I would have minded my own business and not have cared about you. I've told you many facts with so much kindness, but you wouldn't listen. If something happens in the future, why should I care about you? Isn't it because you are my family that I want you to understand it completely?”
I didn't say anything and just started watching the NTD programs with her. She watched them with me for a week. We watched China Forbidden News, the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, China News Interpretation, and Falun Gong practitioners' parades overseas.
“Without knowing the international situation, you would never understand what the CCP is,” my wife said.
The next day after dinner, I turned on the TV and started watching the NTD programs by myself.
China Forbidden News included things I'd never heard of before. My wife had mentioned the Nine Commentaries to me in bits and pieces before, but now it was available on TV all day long. I finally understood that it is not Falun Gong being confrontational with the CCP, but instead that the CCP is just so evil—to the point that it is the root cause of all the suffering of the Chinese people.
Now, I want to draw a clear line between me and the evil CCP. I recite, “Falun Gong is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” every day. After I started doing this, the fungus on my feet healed. It was a very stubborn fungus and had haunted me since childhood.
If Jiang had not launched the brutal persecution of Falun Gong, I may have even stepped onto this cultivation path a long time ago myself.
It is Jiang who has caused so much pain in our family, caused my wife to suffer brutal torture, and brought such hardships to my sweet home. Today, Falun Gong disciples and people who have understood the truth are all filing criminal charges against Jiang, and my wife is one of them. This time I support her completely, and I want to be part of it too.
I believe that good is rewarded with good and evil will meet with karmic retribution.