The Deciscion to Go

Q- How did you originally decide to go to China?

A- It started as maybe 20 people. I brought it up to a couple of people. I knew I wanted to go but I was still vague about what I wanted to do when I got there. How could I tell the truth to people who didn’t speak English?

Q- Did you have any preconceived notions about what it would be like there?

A- I heard a lot of perceptions about how bad it is, but I wanted to approach it from the perception of doing what I had to do from my own experience. People say, "That’s my understanding”, but that’s their understanding, not necessarily yours. It’s your path- you can’t really make comparisons to other peoples’ experiences. I’ve been inspired by others, but this practice is a self-discipline. Coming to that understanding was a defining moment for me. The sense of fear just kind of went out the window- this set a tone for me, for the trip.

Q- Were you with fellow practitioners in Beijing?

A- There were about 8 of us, mostly New Yorkers, one Brazilian guy. At times it got really tense.

Q- How so?

A- People have different ideas about what they want to do, how they think things should be done. None of us had had this experience before. The atmosphere in Beijing was very oppressive, and there was of course a lot of secrecy. We couldn’t be seen with Falun Gong materials if we were stopped; we had to be careful in the hotel. We knew people would be watched and followed.

Tiananmen-from tourist to prisoner

Q- What happened the day of the appeal?

The day of the appeal, people naturally broke up into little groups. Some walked to the square, some took the train. Three of us decided to walk. It only took about 10 minutes to get there.

We saw a westerner by himself, and we got the sense that he was a practitioner. It turned out that he was. He joined us, and the four of us did a little sightseeing- we went to a Japanese-style tea ceremony, and also played with a giant yo-yo. I happened to have one of these things myself at home, so I knew how to play with it. We just walked around the Forbidden City like tourists.

To get to Tiananmen from the Forbidden City, we had to go through this tunnel, like an underpass. As we came up the staircase, 10 police officers were waiting. They were very suspicious of westerners.

I still had that calm feeling in my heart. I thought, “I’m not doing anything wrong. I came here to speak the truth and that is not wrong.” I walked right by the police officers. I felt that the four of us had that same feeling.

We came up the stairs across the street from Tiananmen. A police officer asked me for my passport. It brought up visions of an all-star movie, like “Guns of Navarrone”- you know. It felt surreal.

I had left my passport in my hotel room, because I didn’t want to identify myself. Another practitioner, who had had his passport on him was immediately sent to the airport and wasn’t even allowed to go back to his hotel room to get his things. He lost about $3500 worth of electronics and personal stuff. So I told the officer, sorry, didn’t bring it, I’m late, have to go.

In order to maintain my sense of calm, I constantly reinforced positive, righteous thoughts in my mind. Whenever I felt my mind waver a little bit, I regained my focus and would bring it right back.

We crossed the street and made it to Tiananmen. I thought that I wouldn’t get arrested- I would run. We had walked about 50 yards when we were exposed by one of our group. He had a book in his bag. We never got to the middle of the square where everyone was supposed to meet.

Of course, you never know what you are going to do until it actually happens. I decided at that time to cooperate with them, and didn’t run. We were put into a police van and taken to the police station across the street. The police grabbed us out of the van and put us in the police station.

Physical Abuse and Musical Ironies

Q- What happened in the police station?

A- We went into a corridor and were searched. Eventually they found little pamphlets we had made up the night before, with some sayings in Chinese. We were going to throw them in the air when we made it to the center of the square. Some of us did manage to toss a few of them before being put into the van, and we saw people pick them up.

We were brought individually into different rooms. Anyone who resisted was met with brutal force. I saw people dragged by their hair, arms, clothes; they were punched, kicked, slapped- even when they had been knocked to the round they were still kicked, slapped in the face. People were screaming.

A group of us confronted the police, saying what they were doing was wrong. “Why are you doing this? You know Falun Dafa is good.” The police could not look us in the eye. They would say ”shut up!” and push away. We continued and did not stop.

They meanwhile tied to interrogate us, asking about our identities and for our passports. I refused to tell them where my passport was.

They asked me to sit. At that point, I did not feel like cooperating with them anymore. I said, “I don’t feel like sitting.” They started to kick my legs, slap me and threw me on the ground. I got into lotus position and sat there for a few minutes. Then I got up, grabbed a chair and sat down of my own accord.

At that point, I was not angry, had no fear, no hatred. I just wanted them to know that what they were doing was wrong and they had to change.

While abusing us, they also laughed at us and taunted us, again, like out of a movie, like “Deer Hunter.” I had never felt that before. I felt shielded- they couldn’t hurt me. At the same time it was sickening and ironically funny and dark. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.

Eventually, they forced about 10 people into a bus, and drove us to what looked like a hotel, about an hour away. Some resisted more than others- the more resistance, the more brutality.

Goose-stepping soldiers, in formation, came into the bus to keep us away from the windows, so we couldn’t open them and yell out. They were kids! They looked so young- some of them were only about 17 or 20 years old.

We reached the “hotel”, which functioned as a holding area. They kicked me, literally, off the bus- they slammed a foot in my back as I stepped off. And I wasn’t resisting.

I got up and walked into the “hotel”. I wondered why I was there. Each of us was assigned one interrogator and two police officers who stayed with us. I kept telling the interrogator that what he was doing was wrong. He ignored me. To me it seemed that they had a total disregard for life.

Anyway, they brought another practitioner in the room, a woman from San Francisco. She was an American citizen, but of Chinese heritage. She did not cooperate with them at all. I saw them really beating her up at the police station. They grabbed her and she screamed at them, “Let me go!”

They dragged her on the ground, and about 3-4 policemen punched and slapped her in the face. They were kicking her and screaming at her. When they stopped, she would get up, and look at them and say, “What you’re doing is wrong!” This happened several times. She was tough. Eventually they dragged her from the room. I went after her but they pushed me back in the room. They continued to interrogate me about my nationality and passport. I did not cooperate and got into full lotus. It was a surreal experience.

Since it was quiet in the room, I guess the interrogator became bored, and he turned on the TV. He channel-surfed until he came to a music station. Unbelievably, Paul McCartney’s song, “Freedom” was playing right then, with Chinese subtitles! I came out of lotus and said, “SEE? Look at that! Read those lyrics!” But he ignored me.

The next song was Alicia Keyes, “A Woman’s Worth,” which was also pretty ironic, since they had just taken the woman practitioner out a few minutes before. None of this seemed to register with him.

Eventually I was forced out of that room and into another room with other practitioners. The room was very smoky. It seemed that they were trying to use various psychological tactics to wear us down, thick clouds of smoke, no windows. It was very uncomfortable. Another interrogator came in the room, who spoke English very well and in a friendly manner. We all talked to him, kept breaking it down for him, with rationality and proof. Each argument he had we had a response for.

You could talk to some of the police very easily, as if they were your friends. If you didn’t discuss Falun Dafa, there was no problem at all. Once you brought that up, and what they were doing, they would just shut down.

You can feel the sense of how people are controlled there and they’re told how to think and the consequences of not thinking like the Communist party. That’s what I got from the police. Anything said against the Communist party line was defying the law. Any kindness at all to a Falun Dafa practitioner could put an officer at great risk.

Q. Did you have any experiences like that yourself?

A- Well, I didn’t, but I spoke to another practitioner who did. All the officers have cell phones, and when things are slow they get on the phone with their girlfriends. After it was all over, one practitioner told me that at one point, they were in a car, two police in the front, two in the back and the practitioner in the middle between the two police in the back. One of the police officers, looked young. The practitioner thought he seemed as though he had some kindness in him and engaged him a little in conversation. The officer said he was 22 years old. Then the officer started pushing buttons on his cell phone. The practitioner didn’t know what he was doing. Then the officer nudged the practitioner to look at the cell phone’s LED. It said, I TRUST YOU.

The practitioner was flabbergasted. The officer continued typing. JIANG ZEMIN IS A BAD MAN. He went on. MY MOTHER IS A PRACTITIONER. DON’T TRUST THE MEN IN FRONT. THEY ARE BAD MEN.

Q- What an awful position to be in. How difficult it must be for him and others like him to have to be a part of this terrible environment.

A- Yes. You could feel that some of them really didn’t want to do what they were doing. There was some goodness in them, but it was dangerous for them to let it be seen, because they would be reported on and then it would be all over for them.

Another practitioner told me that after they had gotten their luggage from the hotel, he realized he had forgotten something. He was desperate to go back to get it and asked his assigned police officer to help him.

Q- What was it?

A- It was the book, Zhuan Falun. He had hidden it behind the toilet and had forgotten it in the rush to leave and did not want it to become ruined by the water. He begged the officer to let him go back and get it.

Q- Did the officer take him back?

A- He really wavered for a while on it. It was very risky for him but he did take the practitioner back.

Q- Did you go back to the hotel to get your things?

A- Yes, I went back. The police had my hotel key and spent 40 minutes looking for my passport. Eventually they found it in the most obvious place- the hotel room safe.

A few practitioners were brought around together, in different cars, getting their things from their rooms one at a time. We went to different hotels. After the last hotel, we thought finally we’d be going to the airport. But they took us back to another room at the detention center. Different shifts of police came in; the group was reading for a couple of hours. Every so often the cops would try to distract us by yelling, “Shut up!” I think that’s all they knew how to say. No one slept much that night.

The next day, they put all the stuff, clothing, through x-rays. The guards continued to try to intimidate us- they’d put us in the police van, then yell at us to “Get out!” They did this a few times.

The San Francisco practitioner who had been beaten up and I watched as the others were forced into the van, dragged and beaten. They took my Palm Pilot, cell phone and house keys. The woman practitioner and I remained in the “hotel” for hours. Finally, they took us to the airport.

It’s good to be back home.