Family Driven To The Wall By Falun Gong

Li Zhen placed all her hopes on "Shen Gong（Divine Power）" to remove her illness , never believing that her illness could be cured through medical treatment. In fact, her uterine bleeding caused by hysteromyoma couldn't have been fatal if a surgery had been performed in time. It was a pity that due to her refusal of medical treatment, her minor illness worsened into a serious one, which had finally killed her. Li Zhen didn't realize until the end of her life that she, so devout a follower of Falun Gong, would actually become its victim.

Li Chang, male, was born in 1951 in Heshun Town, Nanhai City and graduated from a junior high school. As a former laid-off worker from Foshan Nanhai Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Li Chang got exposed to Falun Gong at the end of 1995, and began to advocate it to people familiar to him in the neighborhood, becoming an instructor in the local Falun Gong training station. Being the eldest son of his family, he taught his mother, one elder sister and two younger sisters to practice Falun Gong and turned them into its practitioners, resulting in the death of one of his sisters for refusing medical treatment.

Turned to Falun Gong because of Illness 

In the 1990s, the supply and marketing sectors changed their systems, resulting in a wave of workers being laid off, and Li Chang was one of them.

Li Chang was assigned to a local glass factory after retiring from the army in the mid-1970s. Because of his hard work and quick wits, he was transferred to a supply and marketing cooperative. Li Chang was excited about it and took to his new job like a duck to water. As the eldest son of his family with an elder sister, two younger brothers and two younger sisters, he helped his parents take care of the youngsters after work. Under his care, his younger brothers and sisters grew up and had their own respective families, while Li Chang was laid off in the wave of reform.

In order to maintain his livelihood, he contracted for the operation of dozens of acres of fish ponds after being laid off, but eventually was forced to give it up due to his poor management. In the 1990s, the economy was booming and gambling was prevalent in the Pearl River Delta. Being in a black mood, Li Chang went so far as to gamble, in the hope of getting rich. While unemployed at home, he not only gambled with his fellow gamblers day and night, but also got into the bad habit of smoking and drinking and so on. In the spring of 1995, Li Chang had some health problems, often suffering from angina and cold sweat. At first he didn't take them seriously, but his illnesses did not go away as he wished, instead, the anginal attacks became more and more frequent. Moreover, he had problems with his knee joints, which led to his slow movement. And to make things worse, he suffered from insomnia and lumbago as well, and neither seeing doctors nor taking medicines had had much effect. Then a doctor friend of his advised him to learn Qigong, which claimed to be good for health. It happened that a former colleague in Guangzhou, who was also in poor health, planned to learn Falun Gong in a Qigong class, so she asked Li Chang to attend the class together with her, and Li Chang went to the class, harboring an attitude of simply trying.

However, this Qigong-learning trip had completely changed the course of his life. After his exposure to Falun Gong, Li Chang entered a state of hyperactivity and practiced meditation each day, and his angina unexpectedly became less serious. It seemed that this magical practice had changed his life all of a sudden, as he mistakenly thought that his illness could be cured with no medication or injections, and most importantly, with no money-spending. He suddenly found a “clear and definite aim” in practicing Falun Gong. Li Chang used to study magical skills like geomancy, reading fortune by face and so on, and enjoyed talking to people about mysterious things. So Falun Gong was very much to his taste. He brought home a lot of books, enthusiastically recommended them to his relatives and friends, and also helped set up a local training station where he served as an instructor.

He first taught his family members to learn the movements of Falun Gong. His father was too old to remember the movements, thinking they were too troublesome, so he gave them up in the end; his mother learned to practice them for a period of time, sometimes forgetting what she had learned, so it had been a start-and-stop-and-start affair for her. His elder sister and two younger sisters were “good students”, and his two younger sisters especially had been obedient to him since they were little girls. As Li Chang, their eldest brother, told them Falun Gong was beneficial and that he had demonstrated its “miraculous effects” personally, so they thought there couldn't be any mistake in practicing it, and they learned and practiced it earnestly.

Then, he recommended this magical "new Qigong" to his neighbors, familiar friends, and fellow villagers. In order to facilitate contact with his Falun Gong friends, he moved into another house allocated by the former institution he had worked for and lived there alone. His wife and children had no control over him, while he practiced meditation day and night, and taught his Falun Gong friends the “secrets” of this practice. He had more than 20 students or “disciples”, including Wu Jinhao and Ye Guangliang who lived in the same village. There were even more strangers from the neighboring villages, as his “admirers” from other places coming to seek his guidance. He devoted a lot of energy to the study of "Zhuan Falun". The more he read it, the more he liked it, as if he had found the only magical medicine to save the world. He believed that by practicing Falun Gong, he would be able to step onto a golden road. So, he pursued his career as a Falun Gong instructor in full swing though he was financially down and out, and became a key figure among the practitioners around him.

Later on, the fire of Falun Gong spread rapidly around the country. There occurred successively vicious incidents involving Falun Gong practitioners, such as committing suicide and self-mutilation, besieging the government and media departments, which had produced very bad influence on the society. On July 22, 1999, Falun Gong was banned according to law.

Brothers Torn Apart by Falun Gong 

In the eyes of Li En, Li Chang's younger brother, Li Chang's family began to slide into the abyss ever since he practiced Falun Gong.

Li En and his sister-in-law saw clearly the evil nature of Falun Gong and strongly opposed Li Chang’s cultivation; however, his mother and sisters continued to practice Falun Gong in support of Li Chang’s idea, so the family was divided into two different groups, resulting in more and more intense conflicts between family members. They often quarreled with each other because of different positions, thus forming a truly "big family" full of quarrels, which was an awful headache for Li En.

After Falun Gong was outlawed by the state in 1999, Li En realized how serious the problem was, and understood that it could spell disaster for his family members if they were still obsessed with Falun Gong. So he mobilized his brother-in-laws and nephews to help him persuade his sisters to stop practicing Falun Gong. Li En's elder sister stopped practicing Falun Gong because her husband stood firm against it, but his two younger sisters went further and further on the road of Falun Gong cult, as their husbands didn't strongly object to it.

The family was split into two different fronts. Li En was very angry with his eldest brother Li Chang who had committed offences time and again. Being frustrated, Li En and another elder brother of his no longer took care of Li Chang. From then on, they broke off relations with their brother Li Chang.

Facing more and more objections from family members, Li Chang and his two younger sisters simply stopped associating with those who disapproved of their cultivation. They went their own way and as a result, there was growing estrangement among the siblings. Ever since then, their family reunion, which used to be held twice a year, has never been a complete one, which was attended by all family members.

In 2002, Li Rui, one of Li En's younger sisters, was seriously injured in a car accident. After being hospitalized for three nights, she insisted on her discharge from hospital, shouting that she would go on a hunger strike if she were not allowed to leave. Finally, her family members were compelled to carry her home.

Li Zhen, another younger sister of Li En's, under the influence of his brother Li Chang and sister Li Rui, also refused to see a doctor whenever became ill. Being in poor health and green around the gills for a long time, she always walked unsteadily. A reasonable person will certainly think that diseases are caused by psychological or physiological factors, such as virus and bacterial infection, or growth and metabolism disorders etc. Seeing a doctor when one gets sick means one hoping that the doctor can find out the exact cause of the disease and take appropriate measures to treat it. However, Falun Gong and some other cults have adopted a totally wrong approach to the cause of diseases, believing that diseases were caused by mysterious factors, such as the invisible "karma" or “test by the Master” and so on. Because of their wrong judgments about the basics of disease, the way in which they dealt with diseases was totally wrong. As the result, tragedies as mentioned in this article took place from time to time.

It’s a pity that, Li Zhen, a pious woman, would never live to the day when she could reap the "blessings" promised by Falun Gong.

In February 2012, shortly after the Chinese Spring Festival, Li Zhen's health began to deteriorate. As she had always refused going to hospital, she became very weak this time after staying in bed at home for more than half a month. His husband felt something was wrong and forcibly sent her to hospital for rescue. She was diagnosed as suffering from severe anemia and had to receive medical treatment immediately, otherwise her life would be in danger. By March that year, when Li Zhen's condition stabilized somewhat, she asked her fellow practitioners to help her to be discharged from hospital, avail of her husband’s absence. After she had been sent home, several of her fellow practitioners gathered around Li Zhen every day, chanting "Falun Dafa is good" and reading aloud Zhuan Falun for her. However, Li Zhen became extremely weak after returning home, with her health condition worsening quickly. In the end, she died of lacking timely rescue. It turned out that the prolonged uterine bleeding since she got hysteromyoma had resulted in severe anemia, which had already reached the point where there was no way to save her. Originally, her illness was not a serious one, but she was too shy to ask others for advice except a few Falun Gong practitioners, who all agreed uterine bleeding was a disgraceful thing, and that women, more than others, needed to pray sincerely for the blessing of the "Master" since their blood was dirty. The most important thing was that Li Zhen was extremely addicted to Falun Gong and had placed all her hopes on "Shen Gong（Magic Power）" , never believing her disease could be cured through medical treatment in a hospital. In fact, uterine bleeding caused by hysteromyoma couldn't have been fatal if a surgery had been performed in time. It was a pity that refusal of treatment had turned Li Zhen's minor illness into a terminal one, which had finally killed her. Li Zhen didn't realize until the end of her life that she, so devout a follower of Falun Gong, had actually become its victim.

Li En, who had always objected to Li Chang’s practicing Falun Gong, cried his heart out when he learned of the death of his sister Li Zhen. He bitterly hated both Falun Gong and his elder brother Li Chang who had drawn his sister Li Zhen into the cult.