My name is Niu Siye. I am 35 years old, from Xiantao City of Hubei Province, and I am running a small restaurant at the Jiaotong Road of Xiantao City. I used to be a Qigong fan when I was studying at Xiantao Economic Management School in 1995. And I bought a lot of Qigong books because I was curious about all kinds of Qigong schools.
Since practicing Qigong was very popular at that time, some local people with shrewd business sense in Xiantao invited a lot of "Qigong masters" to come and hold training seminars at the city. Of course, Falun Gong couldn't afford to neglect such a golden opportunity, its training seminars or "Fa Conferences" of different scales were frequently held in Xiantao. One day, I was told that an admission-free Fa Conference would be held at the Mianyang Theatre, so I went to the Theatre early in the morning, sitting at the first row.
The Fa Conference was organized by Liu Wenbin (Now already died of disease), head of the Falun Gong Xiantao Assistance Station at that time. Sitting at the first row, I was asked by Liu to take a lot of Falun Gong materials such as books, pamphlets and portraits of Li Hongzhi etc to the stage from behind. I thought all these materials would also be free of charge, so l took a copy of Zhuan Falun after the errant. Liu saw it by chance, and hurried to stop me. He told me: "Don't take it now; we'll give them to you after the lecture."
The lecture lasted for about two hours, and I didn't understand exactly what the master was talking about. At last, he concluded his speech by saying: "if you want to practice Falun Dafa well, you'd better take some materials back home, reading Master Li's books and listening to his lecture tapes, and you can gradually comprehend the meanings of Dafa." Pointing to materials piled on the stage, he continued: "Since these materials are limited in number, please line up for a copy if you want to study the Fa and we won't charge you a penny for them; of course, if you do not want to have any regrets in your future cultivation, you can put in some money to the donation box beside me – it doesn't matter how much money you donate, so long as you are sincere about the cultivation."
Hardly had the master finished his speaking, a middle-aged woman climbed up the stage, put in RMB 500, and took a book away. It immediately caused a commotion among the audience. Encouraged by the woman, many people followed and gave generously of their money: some put in RMB 100 for a tape, some donated RMB 300 for a portrait of Li Hongzhi; and the most generous one seemed to have put in as much as RMB 2,000 for a book and a portrait.
I didn't take a penny with me that day since I thought everything was really free of charge. I waited. The audience had left, and most of the materials were also "taken away". Since I wanted to study Falun Gong, and I was really sincere about it then. So I waited for an opportunity to ask Mr. Liu a favor, and see if he could give me a grace period: I took a book that day, and "donated" the money the next. When the audience was all gone, I went to the backstage and looked for Mr. Liu.
Behind the stage, there was a dressing room whose door was locked. And though the window of the dressing room, I saw Mr. Liu and the master who taught us the Fa at stage were counting the money from the donation box. To my surprise, the woman who was the first to donate on the stage was helping with their counting. After the counting, Mr. Liu handed over RMB 500 to the woman, and then he said: "Here is RMB1,500, also donated by our insiders, I'll give it back to them myself; so there was altogether RMB 42,500 left. Pay RMB 2,000 for renting the Theatre, and give RMB 500 to people who helped with our propaganda, the rest RMB 40,000 will be brought to Master Li Hongzhi by this master." Upon receiving the thick stack of bank notes, the "master" re-counted.
I left the place with a flurry for fear that I might be spotted by them.
After the incident, I never mentioned a word about learning Falun Gong. In1999, the media began to expose Falun Gong's money-raking tricks – a variety of them, so more and more people freed themselves from the frauds.
People also voluntarily burnt Falun Gong materials including its books, pamphlets etc. And the so-called Fa Conferences disappeared from the scene ever since.
Ten years has passed, and I still live by my small restaurant. Of course, I am not rolling in money, yet feeling well-fixed. The name of "Falun Gong" has gradually faded from my memory, but then it comes to me as a surprise: Early in the morning, some Falun Gong materials used to cost people hundreds have been placed on the doorstep of my small restaurant.
Then I found out that my neighbors and other shop owners also received these materials. My next door neighbor, a barber named Old Xiao, asked me what's going on. I teased him: "Maybe they thought I didn't have enough kindling to light my oven." Old Xiao was puzzled: "Wow, so many exquisite discs, books and pamphlets, it must cost a leg and an arm to produce them. But who placed them here?" I told him: "if you're afraid they'll charge you for them someday, just give them to me as kindling." Old Xiao quickly collected all the books and pamphlets from neighbors, gave them to me, and urged me to burn them at once. I was curious and asked him: "Why are you in such a hurry?" Old Xiao answered: "I feel disgust at the very sight of ‘Falun Gong'."
Later I learned that Old Xiao's wife had died of practicing Falun Gong (here I don't want to mention her name). Actually, Old Xiao's wife suffered from a liver disease at the beginning. Old Xiao was told that Falun Gong could cure illnesses without injection or medication. Eager to help his wife recover from illness, he "donated" several hundreds Yuan and got a copy of Zhuan Falun for his wife at a Fa conference. But soon his wife was utterly obsessed with Falun Gong. She refused to do any housework but fooled around with her Gong mates or practiced Falun Gong in her room all day long. As a result, her illness deteriorated instead of getting better. To make things worse, she totally rejected medical help, and finally died of cirrhotic ascites.
Trying to forget the tragedy, Old Xiao moved to Xiantao city from countryside, rented a house along the street and became a barber.
So, the deceiving book Zhuan Falun cost Old Xiao several hundreds Yuan; and practicing Falun Gong cost the life of his wife! Now so many Falun Gong materials are delivered to people free of charge, and who knows how much people have to pay for them in the future?
(Kaiwind.com, April 24, 2009)
