(Minghui.org) Fuyou Street is about 1,700-meters (1.06 mile) long, and is located in the Xicheng District of Beijing. Residential areas and administrative buildings are on the west side of the street, and the west wall of Zhongnanhai is on the east side. The State Council Central Petition Office and the west gate of Zhongnanhai are also located there.
On April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners peacefully gathered along Fuyou Street. I participated in this peaceful appeal, which lasted lasted 16 hours. I’d like to tell you what I witnessed when I went there with several other practitioners to lodge an appeal with the State Council Central Petition Office.
Peking University First Hospital and its Women and Children’s Emergency Department are located on a diagonal opposite the north entrance of Fuyou Street. Around 6:00 a.m. on April 25, several fellow practitioners from Beijing and I met in front of the emergency department. A female practitioner said, “This probably won’t be over quickly today, so we should grab something to eat first.” We found a breakfast shop and quickly ate. After that, we crossed the street and headed south on Fuyou Street.
Unexpectedly, we couldn’t get through the north entrance of Fuyou Street since the police had set up a cordon at the intersection, preventing anyone from entering from the north. It was around 6:40 a.m., and it was barely daylight. We couldn’t see the police officers’ faces clearly, but the yellow police tape was very conspicuous. Some practitioners who’d arrived earlier were already stuck there. However, this didn’t deter the locals. A female practitioner turned around and walked west without a word, and we headed west along Xi’anmen Street. She reached a hutong (alleyway), walked south along the hutong, turned east, and exited to reach Fuyou Street. (This shows how interconnected Beijing’s hutongs are.)
A number of practitioners had already gathered on the west side of Fuyou Street, and we joined them. We all stood quietly. Soon, a large number of practitioners poured in from the north. We were told that shortly after we left, the police at the north entrance started letting people enter.
We stood diagonally opposite the west gate of Zhongnanhai. As the crowd grew, later arrivals found that there was no room left. A few practitioners, clearly from out of town, started walking across the street towards the red wall and stood there quietly. Just as they reached the middle of the road, several policemen suddenly appeared out of nowhere, gesturing at practitioners not to cross. The practitioners immediately turned around and stood at the back of the western line of practitioners. From that point on, no practitioners crossed the street to the eastern red wall; everyone stood on the west side of the road.
After 8 a.m., a large number of police officers began to appear. They stood guard opposite the line of practitioners. Their uniforms were olive green, and they looked imposing. The police were initially stationed every five or ten steps, and appeared tense as they watched the practitioners. Their expressions were serious and their bodies were taut. The practitioners stood quietly. We held no banners and chanted no slogans; we just stood there peacefully. The police profession requires the ability to quickly determine whether a person is good or bad, kind or violent; it’s their specialty, and they are very sensitive to this. The police gradually relaxed, initially standing every few dozen meters, and later, we only occasionally saw an officer standing a considerable distance away. As time passed, they began to gather and chat, and some talked to practitioners. They appeared completely relaxed. By 6 p.m., the police were nowhere to be seen.
Around 10 a.m., practitioners passed around the message saying that plainclothes officers had infiltrated the queue and were spreading false information. Practitioners reminded everyone not to pay attention to them and to not be swayed.
Around 2 p.m., police cars slowly moved from north to south, their loudspeakers repeatedly broadcasting a notice from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. Some police officers handed out printed leaflets of the notice to practitioners. I took one and glanced at it; the gist was that everyone should disperse as soon as possible. The police cars drove by, broadcasting the notice continuously, and the police kept handing out leaflets to practitioners. Everyone heard it, and many practitioners took the leaflets and looked at them. But as far as I could see, not a single person moved. At that time, several practitioners were inside Zhongnanhai talking to the leaders of the State Council. I knew that the police officers did not have the final say on this matter.
Around 3 p.m., several plainclothes officers came over and started taking pictures of us. After taking pictures for a while, one of them even brought out a stool, stood on it, and started taking pictures of the practitioners in the back row. I was young at the time and I stood in the front row. When I saw someone taking pictures, I instinctively straightened my back, looked at the camera, and thought to myself, “I hope they take a good picture of me, because I am a Dafa practitioner.”
Standing with us was a practitioner who was a soldier, the son-in-law of an older practitioner. He was in uniform and held a high rank. Shortly after the plainclothes officers took his picture and left, two soldiers arrived, called him out of the crowd, spoke briefly, and then took him away. Around 7 p.m. that evening, he called the older practitioner, saying that everything was fine; he had just been called back to his unit for questioning and was told not to go back to Fuyou Street. That day, he wasn’t the only practitioner in military uniform standing in the crowd; there were also several practitioners in police uniform.
Interestingly, during the mass departure after 10 p.m., many large buses and coaches were rerouted to Fuyou Street to transport practitioners back home. Several plainclothes officers shouted loudly beside the vehicles, “People from Langfang City? Come here! Anyone from Langfang?” “From Hebei Province?”... So, a fellow practitioner and I ran over and stood beside them, helping to shout. At that time, our goal was completely aligned: to safely get all practitioners out of the area before midnight.
April 25, 1999, was a Sunday. After 8 a.m., more and more pedestrians appeared on the road, some walking and some riding bicycles. They all looked at us curiously. Buses and cars were driving back and forth in the middle of the road; at that time, Fuyou Street was a two-way street.
A family member of a practitioner from Beijing passed by and, seeing so many people, went home, drove along Fuyou Street with a video camera, and filmed the scene. I also noticed people filming from the windows of passing buses, and some people in cars even rolled down their windows to film us.
It was a peaceful scene. About 10,000 people standing silently on one side of the road, facing a red wall quietly. That stillness created a powerful energy in the space, causing passersby to hurry by without speaking. Buses and cars also drove by in silence. Everyone who passed by seemed to be affected by this powerful force and was silent.
This quiet was broken around 3 p.m. Suddenly, a large number of pedestrians appeared, walking from north to south along the human wall of practitioners, shouting out names. One group passed, and then another would arrive. It turned out that the matter had spread and escalated, and various employers in Beijing, as well as many Falun Gong practitioners’ families, received notices from the authorities instructing them to come to Fuyou Street immediately and call out to their colleagues and family members, telling them to go home. Upon arriving, these people found themselves in a sea of people; how could they possibly find the person they were looking for? With pressure from above, they had no choice but to walk around shouting names, hoping for the best.
In the afternoon, suddenly a person slipped along the opposite red wall from north to south. This person was short, somewhat hunched over, and kept glancing around as he walked. He then quickly turned his head away again, acting very unnaturally and furtively. This was the scene: thousands of people were on this side of the road, while there was no one under the red wall on the other side until this person slipped along the wall, and thousands of eyes were watching him. He walked very fast, seemingly somewhat frightened. I wondered: Why does this person look so shifty?
A practitioner recognized him and said, “That’s He Zuoxiu.” Everyone knew that He Zuoxiu had written an article defaming Falun Gong, which led to the detention of practitioners at the Tianjin Education Institute (when practitioners went there to clarify how the article was defamatory). A practitioner next to me asked a Beijing volunteer assistant I knew, “Should we send someone over to confront him?” We were all here because of this man. The assistant replied, “Ignore him. We do not need to do anything.” Several practitioners and I nodded in agreement. We watched as He Zuoxiu spoke briefly with the guards at the west gate of Zhongnanhai, completed the registration procedures, and went inside. It’s possible that after the practitioner representatives reported the situation inside, the State Council summoned He Zuoxiu to verify the facts.
Around 9 or 10 a.m., about 20 meters to the south of me, a burst of applause and commotion suddenly erupted. A little while later, news came that then-Premier Zhu Rongji had come out of the west gate to meet with the practitioners, and had randomly selected three practitioners as representatives to go into Zhongnanhai to discuss the situation. Afterwards, he also summoned the former head of the Falun Dafa Research Association to come in and talk.
In the afternoon, staff members came out from the west gate and selected a few more practitioners to talk. At this time, several people who looked like officials approached the practitioners and spoke to them. One of them went directly to the university professor next to me; it turned out they were university classmates. The professor then gave her classmate a detailed explanation of the situation, talking about the Tianjin Education Institute incident, why the practitioners had come to Beijing, and our three requests (releasing practitioners detained in Tianjin, lifting the ban on Falun Gong books, and allowing practitioners to practice Falun Gong). She also described her own physical and mental benefits after she started practicing Falun Gong. True to her professorial status, she spoke calmly and logically. Her classmate listened attentively, nodding frequently, and finally left, satisfied.
While the practitioner representatives spoke inside, we waited quietly outside. From morning till night, more practitioners continued to arrive and join us. Among them, I recognized university professors, high school teachers, hospital doctors, bookstore owners, returned overseas PhDs, company leaders, retirees, active-duty soldiers, married couples, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and even pregnant women and women with children. One pregnant practitioner, over seven months along, got tired of standing with her large belly, so she walked back and forth in the front row, smiling and walking with a relaxed gait, as if taking a leisurely stroll.
Around 10 a.m., some practitioners who were standing at the front sat down cross-legged. Some were used to sitting cross-legged; some had tired legs from standing for a long time; some had traveled from out of town the night before. They were exhausted and sleepy, unable to stand any longer. At this point, a fellow practitioner I knew said to me, “This won’t do; we can’t let people think we’re here for a sit-in.” So we divided the task: he walked from south to north, reminding the practitioners, while I walked from north to south. Along the way, whenever I saw practitioners sitting in the front row, I would remind them, “Those in the front row, please don’t sit down. If you’re tired, you can sit and rest in the back. We’re not here for a sit-in protest.” I kept saying this as I walked, and the practitioners who were sitting immediately realized the problem and stood up. This continued until evening; the first few rows of the long human wall were all standing practitioners, and no one sat. I walked all the way to the south end of the street and then turned back.
At this time, a practitioner told me that there were also practitioners standing along Chang’an Avenue, row upon row, all the way to Xinhua Gate; and to the north, along Wenjin Street, all the way to Beihai Park. Later, a fellow practitioner said that he received information that the number of practitioners who came from Beijing at that time was 113,000.
Speaking of numbers, there’s actually a very simple way to estimate: the average shoulder width of people in northern China is 39 centimeters, and Fuyou Street is 1,700 meters long. Even if the practitioners lined up in five rows, that’s already over 20,000 people, not counting those in the alleys, on Chang’an Street, and on Wenjin Street. The practitioners who came from other places included Tianjin, Langfang, Baoding, and Laishui, mostly from areas near Beijing. Practitioners from farther away were also heading to Fuyou Street, but I heard that many were stopped by the authorities and couldn’t come.
At 1:30 p.m., the fellow practitioner standing with me received a phone call informing us that all the practitioners arrested in Tianjin had been released. This practitioner’s relative had been arrested at the Tianjin Education Institute along with other practitioners in Tianjin, and the relative called her on their way back to Beijing. At that moment, we knew that the first of our three requests had been met. As for the remaining two demands—providing Falun Gong practitioners with a legal and free cultivation environment, and allowing the publication of Falun Gong books—the practitioner representatives were still discussing them.
A fellow practitioner’s child was with me. That afternoon, he got tired and hungry, so I took him to a small shop in the alley to buy instant noodles. We ran into many fellow practitioners there buying water, and some were even queuing for the public toilet. There are many alleys on the west side of Fuyou Street; the streets were crowded, and the alleys were full of practitioners. Some practitioners from Beijing also lived there. A few of us even went to sit in a fellow practitioner’s courtyard house in one of the alleys to rest and drink water.
Around 9:30 p.m., the former head of the Falun Dafa Research Association and others emerged from the west gate of Zhongnanhai. We had gone to the same practice site, so I went over to greet them. He told us, “There are three things I need to tell the practitioners: 1. All the practitioners arrested in Tianjin have been released. 2. A few of us representatives will come back tomorrow to continue our discussions. 3. All practitioners must leave before midnight. If practitioners from other places have difficulty returning home, practitioners in Beijing can help arrange accommodation.” After hearing this, we immediately dispersed to inform the practitioners, and they began leaving.
I first ran back to inform the fellow practitioners who had come with me, asking them to also spread the word. Then I went out and notified them. The process wasn’t smooth. Some practitioners questioned the notification itself; some felt they couldn’t leave until the three requests were met; some instinctively didn’t want to believe us and they didn’t want to leave. Especially practitioners from other places, many of whom were hesitant. However, as more and more practitioners came over to notify them, they started leaving.
I encountered many practitioners who had doubts, so I explained to them one by one. Even some fellow practitioners I knew well had doubts. A PhD who just returned from overseas was clearly stunned after hearing this and asked me, “Is what you said true?” I asked him in return, “You don’t believe me?” When we studied the Dafa teachings together, his comprehension was really high, which is why I asked him that.
While I was running around informing the practitioners, someone ran up to me and grabbed me, saying, “Please help me persuade them. I really can’t convince them, they just won’t leave!” He led me deep into the alley, where many practitioners from out of town were sitting on the ground, not moving. I went up to them and told them that we had been told to leave. One female practitioner with a round face, who looked like a college teacher and was probably a volunteer assistant, directly questioned me, “How do we know you’re not a spy?”
I then understood why they wouldn’t leave. All day long, plainclothes spies had infiltrated the practitioners, trying to find ways to get them to leave and go back home. Since they were from out of town and unfamiliar with the area, the practitioners were very vigilant. I asked her, “Then what do you want me to do to get you to leave?” She thought for a moment and said, “Recite a passage from Lunyu in Zhuan Falun (Falun Gong’s main book).” I asked, “If I can recite it, will you leave?” She nodded and said yes, so I started reciting, reciting it fluently. After reciting just a few lines, she said, “Okay, okay, I believe you!” Then, suddenly, 20 or 30 people stood up at the same time, packed their things, and started to leave.
This continued until around 11 p.m. By then, most of the practitioners had left. I walked along Fuyou Street from south to north, looking for practitioners from other areas who needed help. I continued until I reached the intersection, then turned onto Wenjin Street, where I ran into a familiar volunteer assistant who was also helping practitioners leave. Then, I walked back south from the north entrance, and I saw many buses and public buses along the way. Practitioners from other areas quietly boarded the buses, and each bus departed once it was full. I saw some practitioners from Beijing picking up litter and putting it in plastic bags. Much of the trash had been left by pedestrians and police, and they picked it all up. There wasn’t much trash left; the practitioners from other areas also picked everything they could find before they left.
I watched until all the buses left before I headed south to the intersection to cross the underpass and go home. At the underpass entrance, I saw several practitioners from the former Falun Dafa Research Association there, watching Fuyou Street. They wouldn’t leave until all the practitioners departed. Over 10,000 people, in just over an hour, all quietly left. All of the trash had been picked up; not even a scrap of paper remained on the ground. This is a demonstration of the power that manifests when people’s hearts return to the right path.
Finally, the other practitioners left. Before I stepped into the underpass around 11:30 p.m., I looked back at Fuyou Street and I saw that it was glowing! The street was empty without a single person or car. The streetlights shone on the road—the whole street sparkled, as if it was bursting with vibrant life, and it radiated an energetic light. One word immediately flashed through my mind: “Splendor.” The memory of that day is forever splendid to me.