Hello Sharon. Hello John. Nice to meet both of you here! Allow me to introduce myself first - I'm Jane. I live at another part of the globe - Los Angeles, U.S.A.. I was born and grew up in Beijing, China. After finishing my college degree I came to the U.S. for further study. Now I work as a scientist in an university.

My road to Falun Dafa seems less dramatic than John's, and it took much longer. It was in 1994 when I went from the U.S. back to Beijing for my summer vacation, Wenny, my best friend in China since high school, came to my parents' home. At that time my sister, who was an editor at a publisher in Beijing, just started to practice a type of qigong. So we talked about the qigong topic and Wenny, who had had experiences with several types of qigong in the past, said she has found the best qigong. Yes you guessed it right - what Wenny told my sister and I was - Falun Gong (aka Falun Dafa).

Qigong, generally speaking, is a type of ancient Chinese practices using a series of gentle focused exercises and meditation. Qigong was extremely popular in China starting at late 70's, especially in 80's to mid-90's. There are many different styles and schools of qigong (for example, Tai Chi is one of them) and usually people practice them for improving their physical and mental health.

Before I heard of Falun Gong, I had been to a few qigong lectures and had read some books on different qigong. I did not practice any, though. Wenny lent us "Falun Gong", an introduction book to the practice and I read it. I felt Wenny is definitely right. This is the best qigong, and if one day I start to practice qigong - and I knew I will - this must be the one.

My sister wanted to start the practice right away. So we went to a local public park next morning (Wenny told us one can learn Falun Gong at any park, and it's free of charge). The park was full of different groups of people doing morning exercises with different types of music. We walked around and automatically stopped in front of a large group of people who were doing very graceful yet simple movements (later I learned it was Falun Gong's forth exercise), with very peaceful music. We asked one person which qigong it is and he said it's Falun Gong. Mistakenly thought qigong's main purpose is to improve health, and since I felt perfectly healthy myself, I did not practice Falun Gong at that time.

My sister did. From that day, she went every morning to the local park and practiced the five gentle exercises before going to work. And this routine lasted until 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) tried to carckdown Falun Gong (the brutal persecution has been going on for more than seven years - until today).

The spreading of Falun Gong in China was basically by word of mouth. My sister's story is quite typical: three months after she started to practice Falun Gong, one day, a colleague of hers asked her what happened to her. The colleague said my sister looked so good and her face was almost shiny. Until that time, my sister did not even realize her appearance had changed since she practiced Falun Gong! This story soon spread among her colleagues. By 1999 when the CCP started the persecution, there were more than 60 people practicing Falun Gong in her working place, which had about a total of 140 employees.

In 1999, the estimate number of Falun Gong practitioners in China was 70 - 100 million.

Here are some documentary photos:


Fifth (sitting) Exercise. a typical Sunday morning practice site in Beijing
before the crackdown - 2000 people


practitioners doing Exercise One during group practice in Shengyang City,
May 1998
Last year when I visited Beijing, I went to that same local park. There was no one doing any type of qigong anymore (I heard that if someone goes to public park to do qigong, as soon as they rise their arms they may get arrested - even someone who do other types of qigong, security guards may think they are doing Falun Gong.)......

... ... OK it has passed midnight here. I think I will stop for now and will talk about myself next time - how and when I actually became a Falun Dafa practitioner. Seeya.