Feng Shaobao was a Falun Gong practitioner living in Pukou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. Confused by Li Hongzhi’s heresies about “ascending spiritually” and “achieving consummation”, he killed himself by hanging at home on July 10, 1998. He was only 39-year-old upon his death.
Feng Shaobao
Now 14 years have passed. The writer recently came to the neighborhood where Feng Shaobao had lived. Social workers in the neighborhood introduced that since Feng Shaobao died more than ten years ago, his wife had been plunged into deep grief, and their daughter became introverted, reluctant to communicate with other people. Such introduction made the writer not willing to bother Feng Shaobao’s wife and daughter by reminding them of the miserable past. With the help of local social workers, the writer visited Sun Yuying, a resident in the neighborhood and also a close friend of Feng Shaobao’s wife. Having learned my intentions, Ms. Sun agreed to receive my interview.
The writer: Hello, Ms. Sun. Local social workers have introduced the purpose of my visit. I am sorry for interrupting you.
Sun Yuying: That’s OK. Since publicity campaigns have been held in our neighborhood every year, now all of us have known that Falun Gong is a heretical cult.
The writer: How are things going with Feng Shaobao’s wife and daughter?
Sun Yuying: Not good. Feng Shaobao had been the pillar of the family. After his death, his wife and daughter have been living in straitened circumstances. Now his wife is mentally unhealthy. She is very anxious and seems ready to quarrel, even for trivial things. Their daughter was at the age of 23 or 24. She has left home to work.
The writer: Do you know well about Feng Shaobao?
Sun Yuying: I know him a little. Before Feng Shaobao committed suicide, his wife was on good terms with me. We were neighbors, so we often visited each other. After the death of Feng Shaobao, we did not call on each other as frequently as before. In my opinion, Feng Shaobao was a capable, sincere and warm-hearted man. He got along well with our neighbors. At that time, he was working in the Xinhua Shipyard and was well paid. Moreover, he was a family man. Although he was busy at work, he took care of housework. He escorted their daughter to school and back home every day. In addition, he did shopping and cooked meals at home. He was the real pillar of the family.
The writer: When did he begin to practice Falun Gong?
Sun Yuying: It seemed around 1995. During that period, there were various kinds of Qigong, all of which reportedly claimed to be helpful for physical improvement. A large number of people swarmed to practice Qigong. It seemed that it was during that period when Feng Shaobao began to practice Falun Gong. Since I do not believe in the so-called Qigong, I know little about such things. I often watched he read a thick book carefully. I remembered that once I said to him jokingly, “Old Feng, as a nearly illiterate man, what book is so fascinating to you?” He secretly told me that it was a “treasure”. Reportedly, he was appointed as an instructor of a practice group in Taishan area, in the light of his positive and pious attitude toward Falun Gong.
The writer: Were there any changes happened to him after he began to practice Falun Gong?
Sun Yuying: He had changed a lot! According to his wife, he took every chance to sit in meditation at home. During his everyday practice, he often sat for more than an hour, while murmuring to himself. He neither did housework, nor took care of his daughter. Even at work, he was not as active as before. For this reason, his boss had paid a visit to his home. Since he began to practice Falun Gong, he often looked absent-minded. He no longer exchanged greetings with the neighbors, but sometimes giggled at us. We wondered whether he was mentally ill.
The writer: what is the attitude of his wife and daughter toward Falun Gong?
Sun Yuying: Both of them were against it. His wife quarreled with him fiercely for several times. But that did not work at all. Instead, he blamed his wife for hindering him from ascending. Feng Shaobao said to his daughter who was then 10-year-old that those who practiced Falun Dafa were less likely to die. Then he asked the girl to try cutting him with a knife. Feng Juan was so frightened that she ran to my home, weeping out that her dad went mad. As Feng Shaobao got increasingly obsessed, he even had illusions. He tore down the Teddy Bear pictures that his daughter stuck onto the mirror because he took the pictures as devils; he tried to erase the elephant design on the girl’s pencil box with sandpaper. When he was at home alone, his daughter preferred to stay in the house of neighbors than going home. She said, “My dad was somewhat mad. I don’t dare to go home.”
The writer: How did he commit suicide?
Sun Yuying: I remembered that I was washing clothes when I heard the heart-rending cry of Feng Shaobao’s wife. Upon hearing her wail, our neighbors rushed to see what happened. When I got to their home, I was scared stiff upon seeing that Feng Shaobao killed himself by hanging with a power wire of an electric boiler. The scene was so horrifying that even now recalling it made my heart palpitate. His wife wept out, “Feng Shaobao told me before his death that I should not wait for him if he did not come back within 48 hours after he left, because he must have gone to the heaven by then.”
Afterword: Feng Shaobao wrote in his notebook, “Who is our master? Our real parents are looking at us from the heaven. They are expecting our return. All of us are longing for the return.” To ascend spiritually and to go to the so-called heaven, Feng Shaobao killed himself by hanging, leaving behind his beloved wife and young daughter. This originally happy family was completely ruined by Falun Gong, leaving trauma difficult to heal.
The crossbeam on which Feng Shaobao killed himself by hanging
