(Minghui.org) Five members of one extended family in Guangdong Province were arrested within 48 hours in early April 2021 for their shared faith in Falun Gong. At the time of writing, only one of them was released and the other four are incarcerated in two separate detention centers.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The oldest sister, Ms. Zeng Yuefang, 50, was the first to be arrested at her home in Xingning City on April 7.
Two days later, on the morning of April 9, police in Guangzhou City arrested Ms. Zeng’s younger brother, Mr. Zeng Xingyang, at his shop. The police also raided Mr. Zeng’s home that afternoon and arrested his wife Ms. Deng Fang. His younger sister Ms. Zeng Yueling, who happened to be visiting them, was also arrested after the police found Falun Gong pamphlets in her bag. Ms. Deng’s sister, Ms. Deng Yu, was arrested and had her home ransacked as well. The arrests were carried out by officers from the Tianhe District Police Department and the Shipai Police Station.
Ms. Zeng Yuefang was released on April 22 after 15 days of detention. Mr. Zeng, his younger sister, and his sister in-law are currently locked up in the Tianhe District Detention Center. His wife is locked up in the Zhuhai District Detention Center. The couple’s arrest left their 4-year-old son without parental care.
The Zeng siblings’ parents are in their 70s. Their mother had just returned home from the hospital after suffering a heart attack when she learned about her children’s arrests. She was devastated and struggled to recover from her medical condition.
A Well-Respected Math Teacher
Ms. Zeng Yaoling is in her 40s and holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Lingnan Normal University. She was a math tutor for elementary and middle school students. Her students and their parents respected and liked her because she conducted herself based on the teachings of Falun Gong, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Full-time teachers in schools nowadays often teach part of the curriculum and save the other part for their private lessons after school so they can make extra cash. This is a common practice even though the schools forbid it. There are also teachers who hand out massive amounts of homework every day and punish the students who can’t finish it. They do this to enhance their students’ test scores and boost their reputations as good teachers. These students often suffer tremendous mental pressure.
Being a math tutor, Ms. Zeng sympathized with the parents who had to pay for the schools and the after-school curriculum. She charged low fees for her classes and dedicated a lot of effort to her teaching. For the students who had poor academic performances, she offered extra classes without charge. She watched the students finish their homework after classes and upload the homework she marked online so the students could study at home. She worked long hours and often skipped meals and break time. Many of her students improved significantly in their attitudes and academic performances. Her elementary school students still scored the best after they went to middle school.
Ms. Zeng was a role model for her students. Some students may not have made noticeable improvement in their grades, but they learned how to be courteous and respectful from her. As a result, the parents were still willing to pay for her classes. A parent believed in her teaching potential so much that he was willing to let her teach his son’s high school physics and chemistry, the subjects which she had to learn as she taught. The student’s grades steadily improved and he became the top student in his second semester in high school, even though the student had mediocre grades in the first semester.
A Considerate Daughter
Living in a rural area, Ms. Zeng’s parents didn’t have pensions, but only a few hundred yuan of minimum welfare benefits per month. Her siblings weren’t financially well off either. She routinely sent her parents money and treated everyone in the family to a meal on her parent’s birthday.
A Caring Daughter-in-law
Ms. Zeng’s in-laws lived in a rural village and also depended on monthly minimum welfare benefits. Not only did she send them money every month, she and her husband paid for their house renovation to ensure that they lived comfortably. The young couple as a result couldn’t afford their own house. Her husband’s older brother refused to share the expenses because he had his own mortgage to pay.
Her husband died of lymphoma a few years ago, leaving her and their nine-year-old child behind. While raising the child alone, Ms. Zeng continued to take care of her in-laws, financially and physically. Her mother in-law had a severe foot disease and had difficulties moving around. She didn’t have medical insurance and neither did she want to spend the money to treat it. Her son, who lived in a different city, asked his mother to go there and babysit for him, yet refused to take care of her illness.
Believing that it was her duty to take care of her in-laws, Ms. Zeng used her spare time to help her mother-in-law. She called a taxi and took her mother-in-law to a hospital in the city where she worked and got her treated. She then had the taxi take her mother-in-law to her brother-in-law’s place. She did not ask for monetary compensation, and nobody thanked her. Nonetheless she was happy, knowing that it was the right thing to do as a Falun Gong practitioner.
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