Pagoda of Light: A Falun Gong Story from Today's China
Yuan Meng
Language: English
Pages: 250
ISBN: 0978498232
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This true story of the Bai Family in China traces how their devotion to truth placed them on a collision course with the Communist Party. When they became practitioners of Falun Gong, it paved the way for a painful and torturous, yet enlightening, path in life, especially for the two brilliant brothers Xiaojun and Shaohua. After the Chinese Communist regime began its systematic repression of Falun Gong practitioners in 1999, Bai Xiaojun was tortured to death in one of the laogai or "re-education through labour" camps. His brother Bai Shaohua also disappeared in another such prison for three years. Through blood and sweat, Shaohua made it alive out of prison but was once again abducted in early February, 2008.
The details in this gripping account of how Falun Gong practitioners are being repressed reveal the larger pattern of life, and death, under a totalitarian regime.
Authors Long Tu and Yuan Meng, now living in Canada, compiled this account through personal contact with members of the Bai Family. They also write from personal experience. Long Tu is a computer program designer and Yuan Meng an architect and urban designer. Yuan Meng was herself imprisoned for 16 months in a laogai camp before leaving China, where unusual "meals" caused her body to swell and her back bones were broken during the persecution. They now live in Toronto and wrote Pagoda of Light to honour their imprisoned friends, noting that "the experience of the Bai family is but one of thousands of examples."
Bai couple decided to use a portion of their income to promote the Fa and guide people towards obtaining the Fa. Their life was fulfilling and harmonious. Even though they were far from wealthy, they would often donate money and goods to the needy. They even used their savings to support four students who had dropped out of school. Shaohua’s mother was similarly generous. She donated an entire month’s salary to aid rescue work in disaster areas. In 1998, flooding on the Yangtze River was
guiltily that his actions had been revealed, and that, “Of course, I will listen to the doctor.” As a result of this incident, the team leaders stopped using this form of torture and turned to other forms. Shaohua persisted in his hunger strike for approximately a hundred days, until the team leader Kou Chenghui was removed from his duties. Once clandestine persecution failed, outright brutality followed. Another leader, surnamed Wu, was assigned to break Shaohua. When Wu came, Shaohua was on a
forms of public trial, debate, and due process are bypassed, and an individual is directly “decided” by the public security system to be sent into labour camps. The individual then falls under the power of the labour camp police system. In the camps, an individual’s “protection” against cruel or arbitrary treatment evaporates, since all clauses and terms of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, and the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, are suspended in the camps.
backing of the police. Whenever the practitioners made a small mistake they would be tortured. It was a tragic situation. Things were particularly difficult for Shaohua. A week before Shaohua was transferred to the Third Team, the leader of the management section of the Tuanhe Labour Camp, Li Changhe, approached the division leader of the sixth division to tell him that he should give Shaohua’s “stubborn bones” a big scare the moment he was transferred there. One morning, a few days after being
muster to shout, “A law enforcer breaking the law! You’re not allowed to beat people!” Fat Chen was a little surprised. He never imagined that this emaciated person under his feet could have such strong willpower. While bullying someone and showing off a little was all right in a public place, it would really be big trouble if he killed someone. With resentment, he raised his foot and sent Shaohua in. By this point, the CCP had become more and more dictatorial in its persecution of Falun Gong