(Minghui.org) In the early days after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Dafa, I was transferred from the department where I worked because of my faith. Influenced by the CCP’s propaganda, my new coworkers had a lot misunderstandings and even thought I would commit suicide or murder someone. I just conducted myself according to Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and the situation gradually changed.
Three or four months after I started my new job, by observing my behavior, my coworkers understood what Dafa is and they began to help me. Nearly 20 years later, a friend told me that when she attended a wedding banquet a former coworker said, “She (referring to me) is a real Falun Dafa practitioner. Falun Dafa isn’t like what they say on TV.”
I worked in the business department at the time. Because they wanted to make more money, the officials required every employee to sell additional goods; and our performance bonuses would be reduced if the quota was not met.
The assignments were continuous; as soon as the first batch was completed, the second batch immediately followed. Our regular jobs were already exhausting, and adding these extra tasks made it incredibly difficult to keep up. People started exploiting loopholes, falsifying documents, and doing shoddy work. To avoid being penalized, falsifying documents became an open secret.
I could never finish these extra tasks. But when the deadline was approaching, the newly-promoted deputy manager took my task away through her good friend (a coworker in our group) to help me out. The other workers told her that, due to my faith in Falun Dafa, I would rather have my pay docked than falsify the records.
The deputy manager increased her own workload so I could complete the task. I felt bad about this and did not want to trouble her; but she did not want me to have my pay docked because she knew my difficulty. During the worst of the persecution, I had my salary, bonuses, and year-end bonus docked because I refused to write a statement to renounce Falun Dafa. I only received 80 cents a day for living expenses. I was divorced and still had to pay a mortgage, so I had to keep my standard of living to the bare minimum. My coworkers knew I was very frugal, and they sometimes joked, “Even a mouse would run away from her house.”
So many employees failed to complete their tasks or falsified the records that the leaders turned a blind eye and relaxed the requirements for completing the tasks, while replacing fines with giving up Sundays. I no longer had to worry about the deputy manager, so I went to the team leader in charge of attendance and said, “I came to work today, but you can mark me as having a day off.”
We work half-day shifts and don’t have regular days off. We only have limited annual leave and Sundays off as compensation for working overtime. Everyone planned their Sundays carefully and wouldn’t take a day off unless they absolutely had to.
The team leader smiled and said, “Can’t you think of another way [to avoid the penalty]?” I said, “This is the easiest way. No need to deduct money, no need for others to worry about me, and no need to falsify attendance records. Isn’t that great?" The team leader had no choice but to mark me absent on the attendance sheet.
I forget how many Sundays it took before the team leader couldn’t take it anymore. I was the only one in the entire company who insisted on not falsifying records. Everyone else completed their tasks by falsifying records; as a result, I was the only one in the entire branch office who was punished. I accepted it calmly, and, in the end, management stopped pursuing the issue of whether or not the task was completed.
My financial situation improved, and I bought a house. My workplace had a rule that heating costs wouldn’t be reimbursed for those who bought houses later, those whose homes didn’t meet the requirements, or those whose homes exceeded the permitted size. I didn’t know about this rule when I bought my house, so the heating costs weren’t reimbursed. But the annual heating cost was over 800 yuan, which was almost my entire year’s living expenses.
My coworkers said, “Why don’t you give some gifts (bribe the officials)? They won’t reimburse you right now. How much money would that add up to year after year?”
“No,” I replied, “I have to be honest.”
A coworker who was good friends with the deputy manager told me, “Let me deliver the gift for you. I’m quite familiar with the general manager.”
I said, “No, I can’t do that. Bribing people is not in line with Falun Dafa’s principles.”
After these incidents, my coworkers admired me and learned what Falun Dafa practitioners are really like.
It’s possible that the manager and deputy manager reported this to the higher-ups, because when I was later transferred, the first thing the new managers said was, “You are the best.”
When the 610 Office personnel came to talk to me, their first words were, “From your Party secretary to your branch manager and director, they all praised you. You are such a good employee and we cannot do anything here [to persecute you].”
A customer caused a commotion in the lobby, claiming he’d lost money and that all of us were suspects; he also demanded an investigation. To minimize the impact, the manager ordered all the staff present to go to the office to talk with the customer. But my team leader said, “She (referring to me) doesn’t need to go; the rest of you go. She definitely wouldn’t do such a thing.” None of my coworkers objected. It was then that I realized how much they trusted me.
A coworker named Wang later became a leader. A practitioner told one of her team members about Falun Dafa and suggested she quit the CCP. The team member told Wang about this and asked what she should do. Wang said, “If you don’t agree, just let it be. They are all good people, not like what the [CCP] propaganda says. Please treat them well if you encounter them in the future.” The team member said she understood.
A friend recommended to Wang that she practice a certain religion. She replied, “I have seen many people claim to believe in God and that they had faith, but few people can act like her (referring to me): returning gifts and not being swayed by money, quietly helping others, not lying, and always being consistent in word and deed? I’ve only seen a Falun Dafa practitioner do this. Although I don’t practice it, I admire Falun Dafa.” This was something she told me casually.
In 2003, without showing any identification or legal documents, three plainclothes officers took me to the police station and detained me for seven days. The aforementioned deputy manager brought me food every day—sometimes three times a day. Several coworkers from my team visited me at the police station, and I was very touched.
During those seven days, I barely ate due to the intense pressure, but the deputy manager still brought me something to eat every day. My coworkers took turns staying with me, telling me to rest so I’d have the energy to deal with the police. At night, colleagues from the unit’s security department (whom I didn’t know) watched over me and said, “Get some sleep. I’m here so you’re safe.” The police only came once or twice to take my statement. When my coworkers saw me handcuffed to the iron chair, some wept, while others tried to get the police to let me off the chair to rest for a while, but they were unsuccessful. Even after I was put in the detention center, it was my coworkers who provided me with daily necessities.
Thanks to my kind coworkers, I was not severely tortured. Other practitioners arrested with me were tortured in the police station, including being restrained on tiger benches. All of them were later carried to the detention center on stretchers.
For the first four months in the detention center, the police station did not notify my family, so they didn’t know where I was, who to ask, or where to look for me. As a result, I had no money. The detention center then called my workplace, saying I was unwell and needed money for medical treatment. The new manager organized a donation drive, and many coworkers donated. But because the detention center only asked for money and did not say where to send it, they couldn’t get it to me. After some time, the manager returned the money to my coworkers. I only found out about this after I returned home.
My health deteriorated while I was detained. One morning, I suddenly became paralyzed and stiff. My cellmates were terrified and frantically rang the bell to call the guards. After what seemed like a long time, the guards didn’t come, so everyone tried to help me. Someone stuffed nitroglycerin pills into my mouth, while someone else pinched my philtrum. A guard eventually came to check on me and said, “Just wait” and left. After a long time, the detention center doctor came in with a full syringe. Without asking any questions, he injected me with it.
I was clear-headed at the time. I knew that this detention center had injected practitioners with poisonous substances in the past, and I had seen one of them: He’d been released from a mental hospital, and for a while, his eyes were vacant. I thought about this and asked Master for help.
After the doctor locked the door and left, whatever had been injected into me started to gush out through the injection site. I could hear people talking nearby. Someone asked, “It’s coming out, what should we do?”
Others said, “Why is it gushing out?” “Should we apply pressure?”
A practitioner in the cell said, “Don’t touch it, let it out. It’s definitely not good stuff. If it was, Master Li wouldn’t let it leave her body.”
This continued until everything that had been injected into me had come out.
Medically speaking, medication injected into a muscle cannot possibly be expelled through the same route. I felt this was a miracle. Everyone in the cell witnessed it.
These are some of my experiences. I hope more people learn about Falun Dafa through my story.
(Selected submission in celebration of 2026 World Falun Dafa Day on Minghui.org)