My Story

My name is Stanley, and I’d like to share one story behind my decision to enroll at Fei Tian College. It starts five years before my birth, when my mother was a victim of a gas explosion in 1994. This incident changed the course of her life.

The accident left painful burn scars all over my mother’s body. It also severely exacerbated her existing health issues. While her peers enjoyed their adult lives, my mother faced a grim future of discomfort and ill health. It was then that my aunt introduced her to a qigong meditation discipline called Falun Dafa. With the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, the practice focuses on improving one’s mental and physical health through meditative exercises and moral improvement.

After learning Falun Dafa, my mother was shocked to see that her burn scars started to heal; many of her other health problems also eased up. Before, she suffered from severe allergic reactions, stomach problems, and rheumatoid arthritis. After doing the exercises for a few weeks, all her health problems started to go away. It was the first time my mother felt what it was like to be without any ailments.

From there, my mother met my father, and I was born in the summer of 1999. My family settled in Shenzhen, China, and everything seemed to go well. That is, until I turned 14 months old.

In October of 2000, a mob of policemen swarmed my mother's apartment. She could only watch in confusion as they barged in and totally ransacked the place. They seemed to be searching for something but refused to answer any questions. Next, my mother and I were shoved out of our home. They wanted to take us to the local police station for questioning.

On the way, my mother found out why the men invaded our home. They were looking for Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Dafa. Reading Zhuan Falun had changed my mother’s perspective on life; she became more optimistic and willing to resolve conflicts. Was it now a crime to own that book? Although my mother had heard that there was a crackdown on people who read it, she thought those were just rumors, or there must have been some misunderstanding. She didn't understand the severity of the situation.

Once we got to the station, the officers led us to a room for interrogation: where did my mother get the book, how did she get involved with Falun Dafa, didn’t she know how dangerous that book was? She was all too happy to share how reading Zhuan Falun had improved her life. She told them how doing the exercises had miraculously healed her body and made it so much better than before. She explained her profound changes as a person and how she found meaning in her life. The men seemed to grow sympathetic, but they refused to let my mother leave unless she signed a repentance statement. In the statement, or huiguoshu, she must slander Zhuan Falun, repent her past with Falun Dafa, and renounce her belief. She refused.

Hours later, the men finally finished their questions. The day had grown dark, but we were still stuck at the station. My father was on a trip to Hong Kong so he could not help us. Whenever my mother tried to leave, the officers wouldn't let her out. Although we weren’t under arrest, government agents were stationed in the room to keep an eye on us.

There was a commotion in the hallway around one in the morning. A group of police led a drunk person into the room opposite ours. Through a crack in the door, my mother watched as the police put the man on a chair, kicked him to the ground, and beat him up. Though she couldn’t see too clearly, she could tell from the screams that the man was beaten quite badly, and that it was entirely one-sided, with no retaliation whatsoever.

That was what stunned my mother the most. She knew from her work as a civil servant that no one had a legal right to beat anyone up like that. Mother had worked in courthouses before; she had seen the power of the law and truly believed that it protected its citizens, that the country’s policemen worked to uphold that law. However, witnessing that brutality in front of her eyes shook her to the core. That was when she started to be afraid. What was going on?

Later, my mother would learn that the ‘crackdown’ she’d only heard rumors of began on July 20th, 1999. That day, police all over China rounded up Falun Dafa practitioners and locked them in prisons and labor camps. Chinese newspapers published reports defaming Falun Dafa; TV stations that had previously celebrated Falun Dafa now aired programs claiming that practitioners were criminals and liars. Millions of people were forced into hiding or fled the country through various means.

Some who were captured indeed signed the huiguoshu statements so they could go home. Many others were subject to brainwashing, torture, or even beaten to death because they refused to sign. In later years, there would be reports of forced organ harvesting of live Falun Dafa practitioners. Those who escaped China brought evidence and accounts of a systematic, relentless crackdown on people of faith, perpetrated by one of the most powerful governments in the world. This persecution continues to this day.

Back at the police station, my mother didn’t know anything about organ harvesting, torture, or death. All she knew was that she was being held against her will for a reason that made no sense to her. The people who had ransacked her home earlier had then been sympathetic to the story of how Falun Dafa had changed my mother's life. Those same men were now beating a man in front of her eyes. What’s to say that they’d stop there? What would keep those men from hurting her? What would keep them from hurting her family?

Long story short, my mother escaped detention and eventually left China with help from friends. She tried to take me with her but couldn’t. My grandparents then stepped in and kept me safe. The government officials wanted me as a hostage to lure her back for arrest, but my relatives found a way to bring me to my father in Hong Kong.

For sure, that was the most dramatic week of my life. In the end, my escape turned out to be as simple as sleeping in my grandfather's arms as he walked over the border. My father and I flew out of Hong Kong and reunited with my mother. It took me a while to recognize her, but once I did, I hugged her very tightly and refused to let go. From there, we flew to the United States—the land of the free.

This is the story that I grew up with. Sometimes, I feel like that part of my youth came straight out of a movie. Other times, I feel so fortunate to be alive. How many children in China aren’t as lucky and must live without their parents? How many parents have been separated from their children because of persecution? How many people have lost their families to oppression, one way or another? For all those and more, I’ve dedicated my life to raising awareness of the atrocities that are still taking place in China.

And that’s where my mission overlaps with that of Fei Tian. I believe that violence and lies have no place in China’s past, present, or future. Fei Tian College has given me an opportunity to share that truth with the world, and I’ll hold on to that as tightly as I can.