Anne's Story (I)

Originally from China, I now call Fairfax home. In the past one year and half, my neighbors often saw me doing a Taichi-yoga-like meditation on my backyard porch. Some of them got quite curious. Last month I wrote the following piece. But, boy, do I not have a much longer story to tell! So let me begin with the one below. Ready?  Here you go...

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My Thank-you Letter in This Asian Heritage Month

Thirteen years ago, I came to the States from China for graduate study. When an American friend asked me for help reading the Tao Te Ching, I felt quite embarrassed. I had never read it before.

Brought up after the Cultural Revolution in China, Chinese classics such as the Tao Te Ching were usually considered useless and irrelevant, other than a few selected paragraphs required for college entrance exams. Even those few paragraphs gave me a headache. Once I asked, “Why ‘compassion’ (ren2) sounded like the key in winning the world in these classic texts? Didn’t the (communist) ideology teacher say class struggle is the source of social progress?” My Chinese teacher did not know the answer. She was educated during the Cultural Revolution, when Confucian teachings were criticized and trashed.

Growing up, I always felt I did not quite understand my own culture.

A friend gave me a book about Falun Gong as I was preparing to leave China. “Maybe it can help you save a trip to the doctors,” she said. Falun Gong is a form of qigong, the generic term for Taichi or yoga-like meditations. Every Chinese knows qigong is good for health. So I brought the book with me.

After reading a few pages into the Falun Gong book, something inside me clicked, literally — like finding a long lost friend. For the first time in my life those values discussed in the Chinese classics were explained in plain language and with clear reasoning. The book explained to ‘look inside’ and find shortcomings within instead of blaming others. It also explained cause and effect, and the deeper meaning of life. These teachings are deeply rooted in Chinese philosophy. I was finally coming to understand the deeper meaning of China's cultural heritage.

For the last ten years, Falun Gong has been persecuted in China. These days, most of my friends consider me a part-time human rights activist. But I would rather spend Saturday morning in the park, meditating quietly under a tree.
 
In May we celebrate Asian Heritage Month. I can't thank Falun Gong and the friend who gave me the book enough. They helped me to reconnect with my cultural root, my Asian heritage, in a soulful way.