(Clearwisdom.net) This must be the second snow of 2007. We had the first one on the afternoon of New Year's Day, and as far as I remember it was only a drift of scattered snowflakes, a nice touch of heaven. I'm not sure what time it started snowing last night. It started without the usual prelude of a strong hauling wind. Instead, it just snowed quietly throughout the night, it was so quiet that I did not even know it had snowed until I got up this morning and found that the ground and rooftops were covered with a thick layer of white snow. The evergreen trees were decorated like jade trees with white jade flowers in blossom. Big snowflakes are still falling from the sky, and the landscape in the distance has become blurry.
While standing in front of the window, I remembered someone. It was not just one person, in fact, but a group of people. Their images were flashing across my eyes.
My mind is traveling across thousands of mountains and rivers, arriving in the vast land of Inner Mongolia. The snow scene in northern China must be very different from what I'm seeing now. It must be rather similar to what was described by Gao Shi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, "With thousands of miles of yellow clouds, the setting sun gives its last glow; the northern wind blowing wild geese, while snowflakes are falling down in heaps."
Some time ago, I became acquainted with a Master's level graduate on the Internet. I read some of her articles, which were written in a very fresh and pure manner. Without exaggeration, I can say that they really play a role in inspiring people's souls. She is a Falun Gong practitioner and a very kind female student. If she sees someone begging on the street, she always offers some help, even if she has only one yuan.
In early 2006, she was working at a company in Southern China at a starting salary of 50,000 yuan per year (Editors' Note: a very good salary in China). However, when she heard that there was a shortage of skills and manpower in Inner Mongolia to distribute the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and produce truth-clarification materials, she resigned from her job without hesitation, took her simple luggage and all her savings and went across China. She arrived in a remote region where even water and food had to be transferred from elsewhere. She bought a computer and a printer with her own money and established a materials production site there. Before that, only single-page fliers were available in the area. After she arrived, they printed the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and sent the materials out to other places. A few months later, together with several other local practitioners, she established a base for making truth-clarification materials.
It is a very backward place, without any paved roads or paved pathways. She is a young female student from a big metropolitan city, so when she saw the adverse conditions, she felt like crying for days. However, she thought to herself that she is a Falun Gong practitioner and she should be unselfish and selfless. How could she worry about such temporary difficulties this way? She quickly adjusted her state of mind and got used to the living conditions there. In winter, the temperature there gets very low; it often drops down to 40-50 degrees Celsius below zero (-40oF to -58oF). One day in October, she went out on her bike to get some daily necessities. The wind was so fierce that it felt like a knife cutting at her face. The wheels of her bike were swaying unsteadily on the frozen dirt road, and her wheels slipped. She fell abruptly to the ground. It hurt so much that she wanted to cry, but she held back the tears and just said to her friend who went with her, "It's nothing." She helped herself up, brushed the ice off her clothes and continued pushing the bike forward. During the past few months, she has delivered half of the truth-clarification materials to other places on her bike in such adverse conditions, one trip after another.
Later, the police started to take notice of her and her fellow practitioners and tried to track them down and arrest them. The practitioners had to escape by passing many places amidst heavy snow and fierce wind. During their escape, a fellow Dafa practitioner gave her 1,500 yuan, a sum equal to that fellow practitioner's salary for several months. If it had not been for this money, they would have died from hunger and cold. She used to tell me through a secure channel about her fellow practitioners and their touching deeds. The place she moved to is very poor and there are only a few local practitioners. Their monthly salary is as little as 150 yuan. In order to make truth-clarification materials, they live simply and try to save money on their food and daily expenses. They put their saved money together to make truth-clarification materials. During the winter, they went out to distribute truth-clarification materials from village to village against strong winds and heavy snow in temperatures more than 40 degrees Celsius below zero (-40oF). Their hands and feet felt frozen, and even the warm air coming out of their nostrils instantly turned to ice.
In today's society where morality is going downhill daily and people are solely bent on profit to the neglect of everything else with confused minds, I see hope for China and for the whole of humanity, due to the selfless devotion and unyielding determination demonstrated by Falun Gong practitioners. They are examples for our national morality.
The Chinese Communist Party often makes great fanfare over small things that are their responsibilities to the people as the ruling party, and they shamelessly boast about touching the heart of the China. In my view, what they do cannot even touch themselves. The spirit of Falun Gong practitioners that is unremitting while facing persecution, and is wholeheartedly for the benefit of others has truly touched my heart. Their figures distributing truth-clarification materials in the world of ice and snow keep rising in front of my eyes.
January 25, 2007
