A few days ago I was given some propaganda material from the Jiang regime. It says "Whenever there are Chinese leaders attending international conferences in the US or there are important national days or celebrations, there are some Falun Gong practitioners from the US, Canada, Australia, etc. to demonstrate. Please think about it: someone with a proper job could take 4-5 days off and spend over 10,000 or several tens of thousands of yuan (Chinese currency) on travel fare and accommodations to go to other countries to exercise and demonstrate? Would their employers authorise their leave for doing exercises?"

I am a Falun Gong practitioner in the United Kingdom and I work as a full time permanent member of staff for a non-profit organisation. I am also the only one in the organisation who practises Falun Gong.

Since 1999, I have travelled outside the UK to join Falun Gong activities in different countries. Up to now (August 2001), during the eight months of this year, I have traveled for Falun Gong activities twice to Hong Kong (my entry to HK on the second trip was rejected without good reason), twice to the US, three times to Geneva and twice to Sweden. My leave for every single trip was authorised by my boss. Colleagues also know that I have used the majority of my annual leave on Falun Gong activities.

In May of this year, after my entry to HK was rejected without good reason, my colleagues were very sympathetic. Since then, before I took my annual leave some of them said to me in a humorous way, "Where are going to again? Hope this time you won't be rejected entry." I then took the opportunity to explain to them why we have peaceful appeals and all countries, except China and Hong Kong, which I have traveled to have never rejected my entry. Later, there were a few colleagues who learnt Falun Gong exercises from me and read some books on Falun Gong.

In the Chinese propaganda material, it also says "...it has been found that many of them are employed Falun Gong people, which is an open secret." What I would like to clarify is that I have joined all Falun Gong activities on a voluntary basis according to my own wishes and there has been no one forcing and paying me to do it, i.e. no one has employed me to do it. All Falun Gong practitioners whom I know have joined activities on the same voluntary basis as I have. I have never heard of any of us receiving any payment for doing so. Many of us have proper jobs and some are students. We all use our leave/holidays or time outside work/study to join Falun Gong activities.

We know that all Falun Gong activities are free of charge but we need to pay travel and accommodation costs ourselves. Indeed, it does cost a lot of money for people like me to travel abroad frequently. However, I consider these expenses to be necessary because so many Dafa disciples overcome many difficulties to join activities in order to explain the truth to the world and validate Dafa. Those who have never been in contact with Falun Gong and have no idea about us may not understand us. In fact the reason is very simple. There is an old Chinese saying "If one is your teacher for a day, treat him as your father for your whole life." I have benefited tremendously from practising Falun Gong. At a time when my Teacher has been put on the wanted list and hundreds practitioners have been tortured to death how could I just "look after myself with worldly wisdom" and "turn a blind eye" to of all these? In fact, I really wish that everyone in the world could understand what kind of moral power makes Falun Gong practitioners willing to do so, and then maybe they would also do the same.

As Falun Dafa disciples, we can let go of all personal interests, money, and time to call upon the conscience of the people in the whole world and let them see that although nowadays "desires for material gain are everywhere and desires for interests are paramount" here is a group of people who live on the earth with completely renewed moral standards and values.

They are bringing to the society a completely new moral force, which will be the spark that lights up a whole new culture in the human realm.