(Minghui.org) I am a retired teacher and a Falun Dafa practitioner. Falun Dafa teaches me to treat everyone with compassion and kindness. I have clarified the truth to my co-workers, and they have learned the facts about Falun Dafa, despite the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) propaganda and slander targeting the practice.
I would like to share how my two school principals and other acquaintances protected and rescued me when I was detained after the persecution of Falun Dafa began in 1999. To protect their identities, I will call them Principal A and Principal B.
Principal A
My husband was arrested for appealing for Falun Dafa in Beijing on December 25, 1999. I was also arrested that same day and held in a detention center over 300 miles away.
Principal A brought the principal of the village school (branch school) along with my two brothers to the detention center to take me home on the day I was scheduled to be released from my 15 days of detention. However, the detention center decided to detain me for 15 additional days without notifying my school or my family. They had traveled over 300 miles on icy roads to the detention center, only to have to drive all the way home empty-handed.
When they returned to the detention center on the 30th day, they were told that I would be released the following day. They came back the next day, but the guards kept them waiting outside in the freezing cold for several hours before letting me go.
We stopped to eat lunch in a restaurant on our way home. Principal A gave me a shrimp and said, “Let me peel this for you. You know, I became a principal when I was 28 years old and have never been hollered at by anyone like those guards hollered at me.” Tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke.
During the month I was detained, despite mounting pressure from the government, Principal A went to the Education Bureau multiple times and sweet-talked the officials there to persuade them to have me released and not fire me.
When he visited me several times in the detention center, the guards yelled at him. When asked how we were related, he replied, “She's my sister!” He had no fear and specifically said the word “sister” loudly.
Besides my family, Principal A and the village school principal were also implicated because they supported me—their annual bonuses were withheld. A number of years later, when I was arrested again, the city 610 Office director, Wang, wanted to have me sentenced to a three-year sentence. Principal A called his friend who worked at the local police station and asked his friend to get me out. He did not tell me about this until many years later.
Principal B
Due to the schools being reorganized, there was a shortage of first grade teachers in the village school at the beginning of a new school year. Parents went to the Township Education Bureau to appeal, which put intense pressure on the new principal, Principal B.
Principal B’s predecessor had recommended me to him and told him that I would be the best candidate as a short-term substitute for the vacancy. The former principal had learned the facts about Dafa from me, and several times resisted collaborating with the authorities to persecute me. She often told people that I was very kind and trustworthy.
Principal B was in desperate need of a substitute teacher to cover the first grade. I could see that he was very anxious and needed my help.
He was so relieved when I agreed to take the position. “Thank you! Thank you so much!” he kept saying.
The first month of a new school year is the busiest and most exhausting for an elementary school teacher. I was approaching retirement and normally should have had an easier assignment. However, I agreed to Principal B's request because Dafa teaches me to be a good person who always thinks of others first.
After I took this assignment, Principal B stopped in my classroom to see me every time he came to the village school. He told me not to work too hard and that I should remember to take breaks and watch my health.
Before cultivating in Dafa, I suffered from various ailments, including heart disease, cranial neuropathy, breast hyperplasia, lumbar disc herniation, and dry eyes. I would not have lived this long or been able to handle a tough job like that had I not learned Dafa.
After the temporary assignment was over, I returned to teaching preschool. It was time for preschool evaluations, as well as new student registration. The workload was several times heavier than normal.
Some coworkers saw that I was stressed, and encouraged me to take sick leave, but I carried out all my responsibilities. During the school inspection time, Principal B told me, “Please take breaks if you're tired. It'll be fine if we don't get the award.”
Our preschool passed inspection—and was given a star rating. Before I retired, the preschool director told me, “Our preschool won't be as successful without you, and we probably won't find such a good person like you.”
We were greeting students on the rainy morning of April 24, 2017, when Principal B came over with a plainclothes officer. Without showing me his badge, the officer told me I had to go to the police station with him.
I refused to go because they had used the same tactic in 1999 to lure me to the police station and then illegally detain me for 31 days.
Principal B said, “I'll go with her, but you must let her come back.” The officer agreed.
When we arrived at the police station, the chief yelled at and insulted me, then ordered the officers to restrain me on the tiger bench with handcuffs and shackles.
It turned out that they had tapped my husband's phone and heard his conversations with his friend on their business trip to Beijing. They thought that I planned to go to Beijing with them to appeal for Falun Gong, so they decided to arrest me to prevent me from going.
Principal B stayed with me and witnessed my six-hour long ordeal. At 1:30 p.m., we were escorted back to the school. It was already past lunch time when we returned, so Principal B called the person in charge of the cafeteria to prepare some hot meals for us, and paid for my lunch. He ate very little, and I realized that he was trying to comfort me. I usually didn’t eat much, but I deliberately ate more to make him feel better.
When I officially retired in August, he called me to his office, and putting his hands together, said, “A teacher has successfully accomplished her good deeds!”
When I expressed my gratitude to him again, he calmly said that I would have done the same had I been in his position. I left a copy of Zhuan Falun with him, and he seemed pleased to have it.
More and More People Resist the Persecution
I wrote a letter to the chief of the police station and personally delivered it to him. Dafa practitioners have no enemies; the police officers are the real victims of the CCP's ruthless persecution.
The CCP spreads lies to deceive the world and make people hate Dafa practitioners. But the lies are being debunked one by one, and more and more people are using their kindness and positive power to resist this persecution.
When I was taken to the police station, an officer invited me to eat with him and asked me to eat more. Another police officer gave me his mobile phone to call my principal.
When these officers received phone calls from people to report on Dafa practitioners, they would dismiss them and say, “We don't have time to go.” They told me that they were always kind to Dafa practitioners. When they were summoned to check on our homes, they waited until after we had finished studying the teachings.
On special occasions, the deputy township director called to tell me to “clean up my house,” and my coworkers helped me to hide Dafa materials.
Despite the CCP suppression, many everyday people I know have fearlessly offered to help protect me. I wish that more Chinese would stand up for innocent people and uphold justice.