It was extremely dark on the winter night 18 years ago and the wind was piercingly cold when, suddenly, a sad and shrill scream came out of the backyard of a peasant family’s home. The 13-year-old daughter of this family was woken by the scream and went to the backyard, following the noise. In the light from a nearby room, she saw her own mother lying in the snow covered with blood. There was a sharp knife in her mother’s abdomen, and her father was standing beside her, staring blankly at what had happened…… The girl was frightened, ran back into her room, covered herself with a quilt, and did not dare to make any noise.
This tragic scene happened on the 3rd of December, 1997, in Pingyang Town, Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province, when resident Jiang Chaojun, a Falun Gong addict, ripped open his wife’s abdomen to find ‘Falun’ in order to ‘fly up to heaven’. Later, Jiang Chaojun deeply regretted his actions and refused to drink or eat anything and died of starvation after seven days.
A few days ago, this author visited Jiang Shaoan, Jiang Chaojun’s uncle, and other relevant people again. Although many years have passed, the memory of this tragedy still remained fresh in their minds. Besides feeling sorry for Jiang Chaojun and his wife, they hate ‘Falun Gong’ even more than they did years ago.
1. Happy family based on hard work, lost humanity because of practicing ‘Falun Gong’.
Jiang Chaojun, born in 1954 (43 years old when the incident happened) and Jiang Xiuxia, born in 1957 (40 years old when the incident happened), were from Henan. In 1987, the family moved to Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province to join Jiang Chaojun’s uncle, Jiang Shaoan, to earn a living.
According to Jiang Chaojun’s aunt, ‘both of them were around 30 years old at that time. They were young, strong and capable. Jiang Chaojun was a temporary employee at the cigarette station, responsible for making flue-cured tobacco and made a comfortable income. His wife sold ice cream. She went by bike to buy ice cream from wholesalers every morning, and sometimes she went twice a day. During the busy season, she made fried dough twists and sold them in the countryside. They were hard working so they had better lives than many others and had 40,000 Yuan in savings, which was a lot of money at that time. People who had from around 30,000 - 50,000 Yuan savings were rich people in the village at that time’.
Jiang Chaojun’s uncle says that, “around 1996, Jiang Xiuxia caught a cold and met an old lady when she went out to by medicine. The old lady said to her that buying medicine was useless and that she should practice Falun Gong, which could cure her illness without the need for any medicine. Then she gave her a book named Zhuan Falun. Because Jiang could not read all the words, she asked her husband to read for her after coming back home. Gradually, they not only started to believe in the hearsay of ‘curing disease by eliminating karma’, but also dreamt of ‘achieving consummation and going up to heaven’ in order to live a life paved by golden bricks. Therefore, the couple began learning and practicing Falun Gong competitively and had meditation as long as they were free. They developed abnormal behavior; the husband did not care about his work and the wife did not care about housework and they always beat their children. So the family was shattered. They sometimes jumped in their room while practicing and the wife would sit on her husband’s back or backwards to practice ‘going up to heaven’”.
Their neighbors reminiscence that, “the couple was fine before practicing ‘Falun Gong’, they always said hello to elder people. However, their personalities changed a lot after practicing ‘Falun Gong’. They became very arrogant and totally ignored us when we met. We discussed them behind their back, saying that they were mad and that no good came from practicing ‘Falun Gong’”.
2. Finding ‘Falun’ after failing to ‘go up to heaven’, regretted his whole life for ripping open his wife’s abdomen and killing her.
According to Jiang Shaoan who is the uncle of Jiang Chaojun:
“On the morning of the incident, I ran into Jiang Chaojun. I asked him ‘why are you getting up so early and where are you going?’ He stopped and acted abnormally, and then kept the same state until he reached the crossroads”. Our neighbor Mr. Sun who made bean curd also recognized his abnormality and asked me, ‘what happened to your nephew?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I only said one sentence to him and then he turned out like this.’ Later, we knew that he had already killed his wife at that time. Dr. Xiao from the hospital came and I asked what happened, he said, ‘She’s dead, there are knife wounds in her mouth and abdomen. She is long dead.’ According to Jiang Chaojun, his wife and he had practiced ‘Falun Gong’ at night and had become possessed by the Devil. They thought they would achieve ‘consummation’ so they went outside and carried each other on their back to run to ‘go up to heaven’. However, they failed after running several miles. Afterwards, they came back home in their backyard, both of them thought they had higher ‘power’ than each other and wanted to take out the ‘Falun’ in their abdomens to see whose was bigger. Jiang Chaojun wanted to see the ‘Falun’ in the abdomen of his wife first and used a knife to cut into her belly. Jiang Xiuxia screamed and fell to the ground. Jiang Chaojun, who had already lost his mind, stabbed her mouth with the knife because she cried too loud. Later, Jiang Chaojun thought his wife had already ‘gone up to heaven’ so he continued running like he would ‘go up to heaven’ as well”.
It was almost dawn when Jiang Chaojun suddenly realized what he had done, after seeing his wife lying in her own blood. He was stunned, did not know what to do and was extremely regretful. He murmured repeatedly every day, saying that ‘I was stupid, I was stupid’, ‘how people can fly’, ‘why did I trust in Falun Gong, who will take care of my children?’ He did not drink or eat for seven days, had a nervous breakdown and finally died of hunger. His two children were traumatized and went back to their hometown in Henan with their uncle, to leave the sad place. A happy and healthy family with 4 people was shattered after the incident.
3. Hate the cult ‘Falun Gong’, do not let the tragedy happen again.
During the interview, Jiang Chaojun’s aunt became emotional and said, ‘the death of Jiang Chaojun and his wife hit us substantially. We are not their parents but we treated them like they were our own children. They lost their lives after practicing Falun Gong and left two children unattended. This will be a life-long pain. We hate Falun Gong in our guts and all the consequences are caused by it.’
The incident of Jiang Chaojun killing his wife and ripping open her abdomen to take out ‘Falun’ is shocking and caused an earthquake in the village. People saw the scene by their own eyes and realized how bloody and scary a cult could be. So people leant the lesson and will keep away from cult and cherish the happy life.
