(Minghui.org) I am deeply grateful to Master for transforming me from an illiterate person into someone who is able to read all 50-plus Dafa books. There are several teachers in our Fa study group and I’m the only one who’s never been to school. Yet, whenever Master publishes a new article, I am the one who reads it aloud to everyone.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) labeled my father an anti-revolutionary before I was born and he was sent to a labor camp in northwest China. At the time of my birth the CCP was conducting the Great Leap Forward campaign, which resulted in a devastating famine. People scarcely had enough to eat. My sister later told me that my belly was swollen and shiny from severe malnutrition. When I did manage to eat, the food was so scarce that you could see exactly where it was in my belly. As I lay in the bed she said I looked like a large, transparent bubble. Because I was so malnurished I couldn’t walk until I was five years old. One year, my father managed to send a few yuan home and asked my sister to have a family photo taken. He hadn’t seen me since he left, and he wanted to know if I was still alive. Unfortunately, my family was extremely poor at that time, and we couldn’t afford clothing for me. They just covered with a piece of cloth. I was so weak and underfed, that I lay on the bed all day. Unable to take me to be photographed my sister only brought my brothers to the photographer and sent it to my father. It must have seemed as if I died long ago.
I almost starved to death several times. I was so fragile that it seemed I was on the brink of death, yet somehow I survived. In one especially harrowing experience, I appeared lifeless, and my legs stuck straight out. Seeing my state, my grandmother told my sister to notify my mother. Because our family owned land before the Communist takeover, and my father was labeled anti-revolutionary, we were severely persecuted by the CCP. The authorities abused my mother and forced her—despite being a woman—to battle floods on a stormy day. My mother knew that I was starving so she thought it would be better if I died instead of suffering.
When she heard that I may have died she felt no sorrow. She told my sister, “You don’t have to wait for me to return. Just bury her.” When my sister returned home and relayed the news, my grandmother planned to take me outside to bury me. However, torrential rain made it impossible to leave the house. Finally, my grandmother told my sister, “There are still some sweet potato vines. I’ll squeeze out some juice. I’ll pry open her teeth and you drip some juice in and see if she swallows it.” Amazingly, I swallowed a few drops.
My grandmother exclaimed, “It looks like she’s still alive. Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow.” Just like that, a few drops of sweet potato vine juice revived me, and I was given another chance at life.
When I was six years old, my mother could no longer bear the burden of life and the persecution under communism, so she ended her life, leaving us behind. My uncle, feeling sorry for us four underage children, and gave us to a kind family who could support us. Thus, my three siblings and I went to live with them in another village.
When my father returned he tried desperately to find us, but he was concerned that his situation would negatively impact our future. After much deliberation, he decided to take only me back. I was innocent and unaware of the world’s harsh realities. My father was still labeled an anti-revolutionary and faced constant criticism and denunciation. He was punished by being made to dig up the graves of people’s family members (ancestors). During the Cultural Revolution these graves were seen as remnants of feudal superstition. I was too frightened to stay home alone, so my father carried me on his back while he worked all night. Terrified, I clung to him, eyes tightly shut, too scared to look into the darkness around us.
When I reached school age my family couldn’t afford to send me. I spent my days collecting firewood, cooking, and grinding grain. By that time, the CCP had taken over our house and turned it into a school. Watching other children attend class filled me with longing. Every day, I walked around the school, collecting branches and leaves to bring them home. My true motive however, was to eavesdrop on the teacher’s lectures. I soaked up as much knowledge as I could, regardless of the grade level.
I eventually memorize a few articles, even though I still couldn’t read a single word. Desperate to attend school, I wept and begged my father many times to let me go. Unable to bear my tears he comforted me and said that going to school was useless. He often said, “You see, I went to school, but what good did it do me? I am ruined by the knowledge I had.” My father once served as a secretary for a Kuomintang official, so he was labeled an anti-revolutionary and sent to a labor camp for more than ten years.
My brother had difficulty finding a wife due to our family’s “counter-revolutionary” background. During the Cultural Revolution, the CCP divided people into different classes. Those who were wealthy or those who had previously joined the Kuomintang Party, were labeled enemies of the people and became targets for the CCP’s persecution. To help my brother I entered into a marriage exchange, and I married my sister-in-law’s brother, who was six years older than I was. After I got married, my mother-in-law’s family looked down on me because I was short and small, and they bullied me. I was forced to do all the hard work yet they still treated me poorly. As a result of this mental and physical strain, my health gradually deteriorated, until I finally collapsed.
I struggled with numerous illnesses. I often thought that I would be better off dead; I simply could not go on living like this! However, the thought of leaving my young children behind pained me deeply. I lost my own mother at a young age so I knew the suffering it caused. I resolved that I would end my life when my children were adults and I even planned how I would do it.
I visited my neighbor’s house in 1998. As I entered I noticed he was absorbed in a thick book. He glanced up at me from behind his glasses and then continued reading, seemingly indifferent to my presence. I asked: “What book are you reading?” He replied, “I’m reading a good book. Do you want to read it?” I answered, “I can’t read. To me, the letters are nothing more than black marks.” He said, “I can read it to you.” I gladly accepted
He read one lecture of Zhuan Falun to me that day, and I was instantly captivated! I couldn’t explain why; but the words in the book resonated so deeply that I felt transformed. In that moment, I felt as if all the doors in front of me opened. I told my neighbor I would return the next evening to hear more. As I walked home I was filled with so much happiness that I felt every cell in my body was rejoicing. I practically bounced with joy. In my heart, I shouted, “I found the truth! I found hope!” I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep for three nights. I could hardly put into words how happy I was.
Just three days after I began listening to the Fa my severe rhinitis, gastroenteritis, nephritis, heart disease, breast hyperplasia, cervical spondylosis, and other ailments disappeared.
I eagerly visited my neighbor’s house every day to listen to him read the Fa, and I couldn’t get enough of it. There was a lot of farm work to be done at home. I worked in the fields almost every day, getting up at four or five o’clock in the morning. By the time I finished all my chores it was ten o’clock in the evening. Only then would I go to my neighbor’s house to listen to a lecture of the Fa. By the time I returned home, it was already past midnight, so I never went to bed before then. I usually only got about three or four hours of sleep each night and did not take a nap.
I wanted to read Zhuan Falun myself. So, I began reading the book, even though I didn’t recognize the words. If I didn’t have time to read during the day, I read it at night and whenever I had a free moment. In this way, I learned to read Zhuan Falun in just one month. Whenever I encountered unfamiliar words, I looked them up in the dictionary. One day, I told my husband that I had been using the dictionary to look up some words. He didn’t believe that I could do that, so he marked a word for me to find. When our child came back from school, he asked our child, and our child confirmed that I found the correct word. My husband was impressed and said, “This Dafa is amazing! A person who can’t read a single word can actually use a dictionary to learn to read!” In fact, I learned how to look up words in the dictionary by chance. While I was doing housework next to my child, I watched how he used the dictionary to do his homework.
Because I was so busy working during the day I didn’t have time to read. Instead, I used mealtimes to catch up on reading. At that time, I didn’t fully understand that I should respect Master and the Fa—I simply thought the Fa was good and I wanted to read more. For about one year, I almost never used chopsticks. I held my food in one hand and the book in the other. When my child noticed that I wasn’t eating any vegetables, he said, “Mom, why don’t you eat vegetables? If you don’t eat vegetables, your body will lack nutrition.” I replied, “I am learning Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Those values are true nutrition. They are better than anything else. Mom doesn’t lack anything.” In this way, I read the book day and night with great eagerness. In less than a year I read Zhuan Falun fifty times.