Chen Guangjun (a pseudonym), born in 1967, is my childhood friend. When I went back to my hometown in Gao Village, Yishui County, Shandong Province during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I happened to meet with him while he was also visiting his relatives.

But at that time, I noticed that he seemed to be much reserved while he used to be talkative. Chen was a filial son, but his ignorance about the nature of the Falun Gong cult cost the life of his mother.

At the beginning of 1998, Chen Guangjun suffered from neck and waist pains due to his perennial desk work. In order to cure his pains, he started to learn from others to practice Falun Gong. After a period of regular exercise, his pains in both the neck and waist were somehow alleviated, which was quite normal because all moves in Falun Gong were based on Qigong “Zen Tantric Exercises” and “Nine-Grid Bagua Gong” , both beneficial to health. Chen didn’t know the origins of those moves, so he believed in Li Hongzhi’s heresies and regarded him as a “God”, thinking his own diseases were cured by Master’s “supernatural” powers. For this reason, Chen introduced Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong to everyone he met, saying Li Hongzhi had magic power and Falun Gong was miraculous.

In July 1999, the Chinese government banned Falun Gong cult in accordance with the law. However, Chen, as a middle school teacher, highly publicized to his students that Falun Gong was not an evil cult. When leaders in school learned that Chen openly prettified Falun Gong in the classroom, they talked to him and listed many tragedies caused by Falun Gong who harmed lives and shattered families, and even committed many criminal cases, but Chen was strongly disinclined to believe any of that and made a decision that he regretted the rest of his life – he quitted the job. Although leaders and colleagues in school all tried to dissuade him from leaving, Chen firmly refused to take back his decision.

After leaving school and his students, Chen was fully engaged in illegal Falun Gong related activities. In order to evade punishments of the law, he even ran away from home and worked in a restaurant with a pseudonym, so that he could furtively take part in illegal Falun Gong activities. He occasionally made phone calls to home, but he always used public phones far away from the restaurant where he worked, for fear that his mother might find him.

In the summer of 2001, Chen’s mother fell ill because of missing her son too much. However, after learning his mother’s illness, Chen thought it was the exact “emotion test” set for him by his “Master” Li Hongzhi. Therefore, instead of going back home to look after his mother, Chen told his mother over the phone that she was ill simply because she didn’t practice Falun Gong. His father died early, so Chen and his mother depended on each other for so many years that he had been the emotional anchor for his mother. Chen’s mother was already suffering from emphysema, his running away from home without trace caused too much anxieties for the old lady, and his ruthless accusation against his mother for not practicing Falun Gong made the old lady’s poor health even worse.

Chen was originally a very filial son, and he used to tell others that his mother brought him up through innumerable hardships so that he could eat well and dress warmly, and then become an enviable teacher, therefore he always said it was his duty to make sure that his mother could spend the rest of her life in happiness. However, after cultivating Falun Gong which boasted about “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance” and “teaching people to be good ones”, Chen had become a completely different person who seemed to forget all about his mother and his promises for her.

After knowing about his mother’s illness, Chen decided to follow Li Hongzhi’s instruction to put aside his emotion for his mother by not calling her, greeting her or caring for her. Half a year later, when he called home again, no one answered, so he hurried back home only to realize that his mother had passed away over a month and it was his uncle and kind neighbors who made arrangements for the funeral. His neighbors told him that his mother kept murmuring “my son, my little son… ”till her final moment.

In the face of his mother’s death, Chen began to reflect on the fact that no one in the family benefited from his devoted cultivation! Later on, with the help of anti-cult volunteers, Chen came to realize that he had been fooled and bewitched by Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong cult.

Chen told me that now he was doing his favorite work in a private school, teaching on the podium in classrooms just like old times. Nevertheless, his mother’s untimely death was an irreparable pain for him. The reason why he went back hometown during the Mid-Autumn Festival was to honor the memory of her mother at her grave.

I sighed deeply at Chen’s tragic experience, and understood better why the Chinese government made a great effort to give publicity to exposing the evil nature of Falun Gong and other cults to make sure maximum number of innocent people could be protected from the harm of any cult.