UK: Falun Gong Student Society Takes Part in University Fresher’s Fair

By a UK practitioner

On the 23rd and 24th of September some practitioners in the UK set-up a stall at the “Fresher’s Fair” of a well-known university. The fair is for new students to find out about clubs and societies at the university. This was the third year that Falun Gong practitioners had a stall at the annual event.

It was at this event that I personally first came to hear about Falun Gong. I was attracted by the words “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” displayed at the Falun Gong stall. This year I helped to set-up the stall. We used a TV and video player to show Teacher Li’s exercise tape. The tape has a brief introduction to Falun Gong followed by a description and demonstration of the five exercises.

Some people stopped to ask about Falun Gong or to watch the exercise video for a few moments. I spoke to a girl from China who was very surprised to hear that I (a westerner) practise Falun Gong. She said “you would be arrested in China, aren’t you frightened?” I told her that we are free to practice in peace in the UK and the rest of the world. I did my best to kindly explain to her that the media reports about Falun Gong in China are not true. After a very brief talk she said took some literature in Chinese. This was probably the first chance she had had to hear what Falun Gong practitioners have to say, and it is even more likely the first time she heard a non-Chinese person’s view. Seeing that people other than Chinese practise Falun Gong can already make Chinese people question what they know about Falun Gong.

I find it very sad that all the Chinese people get to hear in China are lies about Falun Gong. She asked me if I really felt the power of Falun Gong. I said yes. I pointed to the Chinese characters on the front of a flyer “Zhen-Shan-Ren” (Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance). I said, “Zhen-Shan-Ren is good”. I have met other Chinese students at university who looked really scared of me when I told them I practised Falun Gong. This isn’t really a surprise, since the propaganda in Chinese media has played on the public’s worst fears. I asked them to please not be scared, and that what they had seen about Falun Gong in China really is not true. Since the media campaign against Falun Gong in China is so intense and has been carried out continuously for more than three years, it is not always easy for these people to immediately accept what we tell them and reverse their ideas about Falun Gong.

I also spoke to one of the main organisers of the Fresher’s Fair who wanted to know why Falun Gong was banned in China. I told him about the massive numbers of people practising Falun Gong (70-100 million, more than the membership of the Chinese Communist party) and that China’s dictator was frightened for his power. I often find this a little difficult to explain because to persecute Falun Gong is essentially irrational, since practitioners live normally like everyone else, have good health and like to do good jobs at work so as to make sure they earn their wage. In this respect the dictator’s actions really can’t be explained with reason. The organiser of the fair told me that the reason he asked was that the Chinese representatives in the UK often write letters to the Student’s Association asking them to shut the Falun Gong society down! Here we can see that the Chinese government uses their offices to interfere with Falun Gong abroad too. What a shameful state of affairs!