Ms. Chen Yanping, a 60-year-old practitioner of Falun Gong and resident of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, died on May 23, 2024, as documented by Minghui. Throughout her life, she received endless harassment for her faith in Falun Gong, which began immediately after the persecution of the practice by the Chinese Communist Party began in 1999.
Prior to becoming a Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Chen suffered from a rare condition called congenital hepatic cyst, an ailment which meant she had fluid-filled sacs on her liver. She believed that practicing Falun Dafa kept her medical condition under control. However, after repeated harassment from the police for her faith in Falun Gong, she experienced a relapse in symptoms stemming from her liver cyst and passed away.
Early Harassment
Ms. Chen was a mother and owner of an architecture firm, who attributed her success at balancing the stress of the two worlds to practicing Falun Dafa. She became a Falun Gong practitioner in May of 1997, citing the practice as something that gave her energy and kept her in good health. As a licensed senior architect and firm owner, Ms. Chen often needed to work overtime.
Architects in China are frequently characterized as busy professionals who have trouble finding time for their families. Contrary to this stereotype, Ms. Chen was able to be present with her child, drawing pictures with and giving the child time and attention, even in the midst of preparing for her architect license exams.
When the persecution of Falun Gong began in the summer of 1999, Ms. Chen began to be closely surveilled around the clock and prohibited from traveling abroad. She was not even permitted to visit Hong Kong, which was quite close to Guangzhou City. There were several instances during which Ms. Chen was about to board a plane for a domestic flight and was called by the police, who demanded to know where she intended to travel to. To avoid this harassment, Ms. Chen often opted to drive long distances (rather than fly) when she needed to travel.
Harassment Intensified
In 2023, the harassment of Ms. Chen by the police intensified when the Wushan Police Station found out that she had shared an article written by Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, on WeChat. Against her will, police officers appeared at Ms. Chen’s home, interrogated her, checked her cellphone and WeChat post, and seized her Falun Gong artwork and portrait of Teacher Li Hongzhi.
In late November of 2023, police officers knocked on Ms. Chen’s door. When they received no response, the officers went to her neighbor’s home to ask if he knew about Ms. Chen’s whereabouts and who she lived with. At slightly past 8 p.m. that same November night, Ms. Chen left her apartment to collect something from her car, encountering four officers on her way to the garage. In passing, the police officers did not recognize Ms. Chen, but Ms. Chen instantly recognized that the officers were there for her. Rather than going back to her apartment, Ms. Chen got in her car and drove away without her phone or any money. To avoid being apprehended by the police, Ms. Chen lived away from her home in temporary housing.
Due to the stress from the constant police harassment which drove her into an itinerant lifestyle, Ms. Chen’s feet began to swell, leading her to have difficulty walking, in February 2024. Gradually, the swelling spread from her feet to her legs. In spite of not eating much, Ms. Chen gained nearly 70 pounds over the course of three months. Her waist size drastically increased, and the sudden weight gain blocked the flow of venous blood in her lower legs, aggravating her leg edema. At the same time, her abdomen forced itself up against her diaphragm and heart, which started beating violently. Her stomach felt squeezed, and Ms. Chen lost all desire to eat.
During this period of extreme weight gain and concurrent health problems, Ms. Chen felt physically uncomfortable in every position – seated, standing, or reclining. As she suffered a relapse of her congenital hepatic cyst, officers from the Wushan Police Station continued to surveil Ms. Chen. Soon after she FaceTimed someone on April 4, 2024, two police officers showed up at her home, demanding she stop using FaceTime and forcefully deleting the app from her phone.
After this episode, Ms. Chen was hospitalized. At the hospital, she repeatedly told medical workers and family members that her health would not have deteriorated so rapidly had she not been forced to leave her home in November 2023. In spite of her many ailments and extreme physical suffering, Ms. Chen continued to exude joy and serenity. On May 12, International Nurses Day, she gifted her nurses a fruit basket and a flower basket. In this way, until the moment of her death, Ms. Chen did not waver in her generosity and compassion, two traits which were characteristic of her and which she attributed to her faith in Falun Gong.
Principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance in Her Relationships
Ms. Chen’s home was raided by officers from the Wushan Police Station on July 30, 2008. During the home raid, the police officers learned that Ms. Chen’s child was a student at the Affiliated High School of South China Normal University, a first-class and highly respected high school. Upon discovering this fact, the police officers conveyed their admiration for Ms. Chen, inquiring how she raised her child to gain entrance into such a prestigious institution. In response, Ms. Chen answered that she brought her child up on the principles that Falun Gong teaches, which are those of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
The mother-in-law of Ms. Chen was a highly esteemed elementary school teacher who could be assertive and unyielding at times. Despite the potential for interpersonal conflicts that could arise in a relationship with someone so headstrong, Ms. Chen harmonized her relationship with her mother-in-law by observing the teachings of Falun Gong.
In 2010, after moving into a new house with her family, Ms. Chen invited her mother-in-law to live with her, even giving the older woman the master bedroom. When Ms. Chen later discovered that the location was not well-situated for her mother-in-law, she bought her an apartment in a more convenient area. Profoundly moved by Ms. Chen’s compassionate behavior, the mother-in-law frequently shared that she had the best daughter-in-law in the world. Additionally, Ms. Chen’s own parents’ apartment had no elevator. To remedy this inconvenience, Ms. Chen gifted them a new apartment with elevators.
Editor’s Note: Dear readers, do you know that Falun Dafa, originally from China, is currently practiced by people in over 100 countries? But in China, since Jul. 20, 1999, Falun Gong is defamed, slandered and persecuted due to the Chinese Communist Party’s fear of Falun Gong’s rapidly growing popularity. Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology.
To learn more about the persecution Falun Gong practitioners are subjected to in China, visit http://faluninfo.net/.
For more information about the practice or to download Zhuan Falun, visit: www.falundafa.org. All books, exercise music, resources, and instructions are available completely free of charge.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO WATCH [Shen Yun Zuo Pin] Persecuted Artists – Jiheng Zhao
(https://www.ganjingworld.com/video/1evrj38e59g3gG1RF1Ls5ETsF1ct1c)
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