"After I quit the Falun Gong cult, I reinvented myself and found my place in real life," Ms. Li said, "My thanks go to all the people who have helped me."
She married a man whose parents preferred boys to girls
In 1990, Ms. Li, then a 20-year-old girl from Nakan Township, Ningming County, on the southwest border of Guangxi Province, was married through a matchmaker to a man from Taiping Town, Chongzuo County of Guangxi. She came to and settled down in Taiping Town after marriage.
Ms. Li’s brother-in-law also got married in the same year. Soon after, her brother-in-law had a baby boy, while she gave birth to a baby girl. Unexpectedly, her parents-in-law preferred boys to girls, and they would rather take care of their grandson than their granddaughter. So they coldly proposed to break up their extended family and live apart to avoid the responsibility for taking care of their granddaughter. In the following year, Ms. Li had another daughter. As the daughter cried from morning to night, Ms. Li sometimes got tired carrying her in her arms, but even so, she could only sit down and have a nap. Her husband stopped taking care of the baby on the excuse that it affected his rest, while her parents-in-law complained that she should give birth to a boy.
She strayed into an evil cult in order to cure her illness
Ms. Li
In order to have a son, Ms. Li underwent several miscarriages, which resulted in her lumbar muscle strain, arm numbness, fear of cold, insomnia, and dreaminess. Her husband drank all day long without taking any care of his family to force her to divorce him. As time went by, he simply did not return home.
In 1998, a woman who claimed to be Ms. Li’s “cousin” came to her. During their chat, the woman asked Ms. Li whether she was healthy and told her not to take any medication or injections if she was ill, saying taking medication or injections was bad for her health. The woman claimed that as long as you believed in Falun Gong and kept practicing some kind of qigong, your health would get better and better.
Therefore, under the influence of this “cousin” of hers, Ms. Li began to practice Falun Gong together with her. She practiced meditation and listened to “lectures” every day. Gradually, she got involved in the small group of Falun Gong practitioners.
She got caught in the mire of the Falun Gong cult
After practicing Falun Gong for a long time, Ms. Li's mind was occupied by "Master" Li Hongzhi all the time. She thought that Li Hongzhi was the "true God" of the world, that Falun Gong could keep her fit, and that only by listening to "Master's words" could she gain happiness.
To get rid of "human attachments,” Ms. Li stopped cultivating her fields but concentrated on her "cultivation", no longer caring anything about her own daughters. Her eldest daughter had to collect the scrap metal picked up by the village children after school and sold them to scrap collectors for a price difference so that she had money to buy pens, books, and exercise books.
After the government banned Falun Gong according to law in 1999, Ms. Li stopped practicing for some time for fear of violating the law. However, her fellow practitioners still practiced Falun Gong secretly in the form of "a family reunion". Under the influence of them, Ms. Li, who was afraid of “retribution” if she stopped practicing, fell deeper and deeper into the quagmire of Falun Gong. Even when she was in pain and anxiety due to her illness, she mistakenly thought based on the interpretation of "Dafa" that her daughters were “devils” who had harmed her and hindered her “cultivation”.
She broke away from the evil cult and started a new life
In March 2001, Ms. Li's mother learned from her niece that Ms. Li, her daughter, was still obsessed with Falun Gong, so she resolutely went resolutely to the police station to report it to the police. After being reported to the police, Ms. Li was very angry and turned her back on her family. Furthermore, she refused repeatedly to allow the police and community workers to help and educate her at her home. Even so, the anti-evil-cult workers persevered in taking care of her and treating her with much consideration. Also, they enlightened her with affection and motivated her with reason, finally awakening her to reality in 2004.
"The police and relevant workers took great pains to explain to me how to fight against evil cults. Then I began to reflect on my absurd experience after I got obsessed with Falun Gong. I became eccentric and heartless after practicing Falun Gong. Fortunately, I broke away from Falun Gong very early. Otherwise, it could bring about a tragedy," Ms. Li said. "Li Hongzhi claimed that Falun Gong is not involved in politics, but in fact, he just wanted to create trouble by asking us to ‘clarify the truth’. A small number of stubborn elements had even falsified the publicity slogans hanging in the streets of Chongzuo city to spread rumors. Isn’t it an indication that they have turned themselves against the people?"
After Ms. Li made a clean break with the Falun Gong cult, the police and anti-evil-cult workers paid regular return visits to her to learn about and help solve the difficulties she faced in her life. In 2005, Ms. Li participated in a skills training course held by the government, and she completed the course with excellent results. Later, she succeeded in getting admitted to an institution, where she engaged in the pruning and management of the plants and flowers in the landscape.
"When I was pruning flowers and plants in my daily work, I came to realize many truths about life. Labor gives me peace of mind. I have learned to be tolerant and more responsible. My two daughters joined the workforce after graduating from vocational high school. Now, they are working as teachers in private kindergartens with great filial piety to us. My husband realized his errors long ago, so we are now getting along quite well. I'm going to retire this year, which will allow me to enjoy more family life," said Ms. Li, her face beaming with a happy smile.
Ms. Li told the author that she joined a Cantonese opera performance lovers group
