I witness how Li Hongzhi grabbing money from practitioners

My name is Zhang Qingyun, female, 34-year-old. I came from Yong’an of coastal Fujian Province in southeastern China. In 1996, when I still studied in the university in Beijing, I began practicing Falun Gong. It was around 1999, I took on a task of proofreading of two books titled Hong Yin and Falun Buddha Fa Lectures in the United States written by Li Hongzhi.

In the first half of 1999, I worked at a bookshop in Ditan, Beijing as a trainee, which was close to the Falu Dafa Research Institute. It gave me a chance to know how the books, audios and videos about Falun Gong were published, as well as getting acquainted with how Li Hongzhi extorted money.

In late 1994, Li Hongzhi claimed that, “There is no difference between reading my book, watching my videos, or listening to my videos.” He instigated people to learn “Fa”, through which, he could gain huge profits from publishing large amounts of books, audio and video products, VCD and etc..

Between 1998 and 1999, I was acquainted with some backbone members of the Falu Dafa Research Institute and organization involved in Beijing. Of them, Chen Ling, a retired cadre of the General Political Department of Dance Troupe, was in charge of the proofreading of the hardcover edition of Zhuan Falun. She was one of the early Falun Gong followers in Beijing, who was able to contact with Li Hongzhi directly. In early 1999, just before my winter vacation, Chen Ling invited me to her house to proofread and check the book Hong Yin and Falun Buddha Fa Lectures in the United States.

At her house, I saw two other persons participating the proofreading. One was a retired professor of Beijing Agricultural University while the other was also a retired cadre. At first, we four checked the paper manuscripts. I wondered the sources of the paper manuscripts, but I didn’t dare to ask. Li Hongzhi has taught all followers that they should learn to “keep mouth shut” and never ask or talk about anything that should not know.

At Chen Ling’s house, Li Hongzhi telephoned her. Obviously, Li Hongzhi was clear about what we’d done, so we all felt quite excited. After finishing the proofreading, the manuscripts were taken to a factory. As time was tight, Chen Ling asked me to fetch the film with her the next evening. To my surprise, the factory was in the library of my university. Astonished as I was, but I’d never asked, not even a single word. Later, we were asked to go on proofreading. We worked day and night at Chen Ling’s home.

When it was completed, Chen Ling asked a girl Zhang Xiaojie to come for the print film. Zhang came from Changchun, capital city of Liaoning Province, worked in Beijing and was also a backbone. Just at that moment, I thought we were engaging in a holy job. The idea really made me excited. Chen Ling told us that we had been blessed to work for such a great master directly, so anyone let the secret out was a person likes “showing off”. We were required to keep secret.

At that time, I’d been addicted in Falun Gong for years in fact, which have crushed out my instinct of asking “why”, so I’d been tight-lipped about the secret of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi for years.

Today, when I looked back, however, my opinion has changed. Li Hongzhi’s books all were abstracted by his followers from the videos or videos of his speeches abroad. The followers, who were also responsible for arranging, proofreading and publishing the books, on the contrary, were moved to tears of gratitude by Li Hongzhi’s praise of “immeasurable merits”.

After reading the inside stories revealed by Yu Changxin, I came to realize that it was Li Hongzhi who personally gave the manuscripts to the publishing house at last. The Falun Gong practitioners worked for it without any pay or even put their own money into it.

For example, Chen Ling’s son, who was in charge of the proofreading and typography of the book Falun Buddha Fa Lectures in the United States, always worked overtime at his company together with some followers. They had to pay for their own food, transportation as well as expenditure caused by making print films. The master Li Hongzhi has never paid even a single penny.

It is clear that Li Hongzhi has squeezed huge amounts of money out of the practitioners in the name of publishing books, which are in fact illegal.

I had worked at the Wenhua Bookshop in Ditan of Beijing as a trainee since March 1999. The manage was Li Xiaobing, a backbone of Falun Gong, while her sister Li Xiaomei, who organized the disturbance of Tianjin Educational Academy in 1999, was a core member of the Falun Dafa Research Institute. The bookshop was actually the franchise shop of the institute. All the books on Falun Gong including video and audio products available in or in the vicinity of Beijing were supplied by the bookshop, which purchased the books from Xu Xianglan’s Wuhan Shenshen Group and Xu Jinliang’s “Technical and Cultural Center of Shandong”. The Falun Dafa Research Institute played a crucial role in the whole process.

Workers of the bookshop usually went to Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, to restock the shop regularly and the books were carried back by truck. It was also how the new edition of Hong Yin was here in 1999. The books were sold at fixed price with no discount regardless of the amount. The bookshop wasseemingly an ordinary one, but in fact, the workers including the boss himself were Falun Gong practitioners. In the eyes of the costumers, who had no idea about the truth, it was an ordinary bookshop like any of other ones since it gave people an illusion of “legal operation”.

One day in June 1999, I overheard Li Xiaobing telling his sister Li Xiaomei that they would give 110,000 yuan to the master. I felt strange because in my mind the bookshop was doing something kind by selling the books at cost. I could clearly remember that Li Hongzhi had said that he would never make money from the practitioners, so I always thought that everyone of us was contributing to protect the “Dafa” without asking. Later, I came to realize how naive I was.

After knowing the inside stories through the articles of Xu Xianglan and Xu Jinliang, I understood at once that people involved in the matter, from the research institute to the publishing house, the booksellers and also the distributors, everyone was in fact doing business with Li Hongzhi. Each process was supervised by the Falun Gong practitioners. The bookshop usually gave money to Li Hongzhi directly. Besides, the Wuhan Shenshen Group was subjected to pay 8% of the total prices of the books to Li Hongzhi according to the agreement. In another contract Li Hongzhi signed with Xu Jinliang, Xu Jinliang should paid 10% of the total prices of audio and video products to Li Hongzhi.
                                
Li Hongzhi repeatedly swore that he got no commission from the materials available in the domestic market except 20,000 yuan for writing the book. We all know that the remuneration should be paid by the publishing house, but why either the booksellers or the distributors had to pay “remuneration” to Li Hongzhi? According to Xu Xianglan, they had to give money to Li Hongzhi as remuneration and pays for proofreading besides the sum stated in the contract. However, the fact was that Li Hongzhi has never shown up to join in neither the arrangement nor proofreading, which were completed by the practitioners, who got not a single penny from Li Hongzi. He has played dusks and drakes with money squeezed fromthe practitioners who were working hard for him. It this was not an economic exploitation, what was it?

What is more, the State Press and Publication Administration has banned the publication of Zhuan Falun and books related since 1996. Since then, all books available in the market were published by the practitioners under Li Hongzhi’s instruction secretly in an illegal way.

Most Falun Gong practitioners were deceived by Li Hongzhi. In this way, Li Hongzhi not only evaded paying taxes, but also grabbed considerable amounts of money from it!