Gao Chengnu was a kindergarten teacher in mainland China who now lives in South Korea with her husband. She fled her homeland in 2005 after being incarcerated and tortured for 12 months in a communist labor camp.
Chengnu married her husband, South Korean Byungho Kwak, in 2003 in China, their wedding coinciding with the SARS outbreak. Large gatherings were banned for fear of spreading the disease so the wedding was a small affair, held in Chengnu’s family home with only immediate family to help them celebrate.
The couple was introduced through Chengnu’s mother. Chengnu showed Byungho around her home city and helped him with the language. His humility and kindness touched her heart. On occasions when she cooked for him Byungho ate lots of vegetables and very little meat. Later, she discovered that he preferred meat but he’d wanted to save her the expense.
“My first impression was that he was a very kind and honest person … the kindness in his heart touched my own heart.” She reminisces with a smile, “He always puts me first—it’s very touching!”
Chengnu and Byungho planned to live together in South Korea. Chengnu applied for her passport from the authorities soon after the wedding and would ordinarily have received it within a month.
But Chengnu practices Falun Gong, a spiritual practice with its origins in China. The founding philosophy is “truthfulness, compassion, tolerance” and it includes the practice of meditation and slow moving exercises. It is similar in appearance to Taichi. Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, anyone who practices Falun Gong can be arrested and imprisoned or sent to a labor camp without trial.
She went to the passport office where she was told they couldn’t give her a passport. Gao Chengnu was on the official blacklist of Falun Gong practitioners and there was no way the Communist authorities were going to let her leave the country.
“At one stage my husband and I were in tears every day. I told him to abandon me. I tried to put him first and I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever make it to Korea, but he wouldn’t give up.”
A persistent Chengnu visited the immigration office every week for a year requesting her passport, but with no change in their response. Then one day while walking down the street, two policemen arrested her for practicing Falun Gong.
She was sentenced to three years in a labor camp. When the two policemen that had arrested her came to her cell to give her the news, she confronted them.
“I’m simply trying to be a good person using truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Being compassionate and tolerant! What is the problem with that? Do you have any evidence that I have broken the law?”
Life in the labor camp was very hard for Chengnu. Her hair was cut short and she was watched night and day. She refused to cooperate or follow orders and she refused to accept that she was guilty of a crime. She continued to practice the Falun Gong exercises despite being repeatedly beaten as punishment. She couldn’t accept that she was being treated like criminal because of her personal spiritual beliefs. As a result she suffered terribly at the hands of the camp guards.
During one particular incident Chengnu recalls, “The guards beat me until I lost consciousness; they handcuffed me to a bed frame. They had removed the base of the bed. They forced me into a position where I could neither stand nor sit. It was incredibly painful.”
With three years of this to look forward to, things seemed grim for Gao Chengnu. But one night in the labor camp, she had a dream.
“I was on the phone to my husband. He was crying on his end of the line and I was crying here in China. Later, I dreamt my husband bit his finger and wrote me a letter with his blood. He wrote ‘I won’t abandon you and I will do anything to get you back.’”
Though Gao had no contact with her husband, the dream was uncannily accurate. Byungho was back in South Korea, working hours on end to free his wife.
“I worried so much and called my father-in-law everyday. I never had the slightest intention of giving up on getting my wife back,” says Byungho.
For all of the time since Chengnu was first refused a passport, Byungho, with the help of over 240,000 concerned South Korean citizens, had been working tirelessly to help her. They held rallies and parades, handed out flyers, lobbied Korean lawmakers and the United Nations and even phoned and wrote letters to the guards at the labor camp where she was held.
Finally after intervention on her behalf signed by 24 South Korean lawmakers, Gao Chengnu was released and given a passport. She was finally able to fly to South Korea and be reunited with her husband.
“When she arrived in Incheon Airport in South Korea, I was so happy. I thought she wouldn’t be able to come with me,” says Byungho, visibly moved.
Although it seems to be a happy ending for Gao Chengnu and her family, she is still deeply concerned. The brutal persecution of Falun Gong continues in China. Since 1999, 3,283 people have been killed by the Chinese communist authorities for their practice of Falun Gong. In addition over 100,000 have been locked away in labor camps and tens of thousands have been beaten and drugged in mental hospitals.
Chengnu is safe in South Korea and will never have to return to China and its abusive political system because her husband is Korean. Many others who have fled to the small Asian nation are not so lucky. They have had to apply to stay in the country as refugees. But unlike most other developed nations, South Korea has yet to grant refugee status to any Chinese Falun Gong practitioner.
Chengnu has a close friend who is currently in this situation.
“I’m really worried about her. I hope the South Korean government will treat Falun Gong practitioners honestly and fairly. I’m really worried about this situation. … If they are returned to China by force, it’s very dangerous for them. The highest court in Korea has ruled that this illegal persecution is still happening.”
Chengnu and Byungho now live together in a simple apartment in the small city of Cheonan, a satellite city of Seoul. They’ve been reunited for four years and now have a young daughter of their own.
Of her wishes for the future Chengnu says, “Nothing could be better than if she [my daughter] can live in world with happiness. … I really want her to do what she wants to do, with a kind heart.”
Slideshow presenting the story: http://brightvillage.com/ET/gao_flash2.html (Jarrod Hall/The Epoch Times)
