Grow up World

Why am I personally walking from Boston to DC on foot? What does a high school junior have to do with walking twenty miles a day for twenty days? Should I not be doing what "normal" teenagers do the summer before their last year in high school -- travel to foreign places, or better yet for the college application process, take summer classes? Am I "a little too young" to concern myself with these world issues?

Some say that things happening in China have nothing to do with them. Well what has happened in China helped determine what I would not do for my summer. If I could choose where to spend two weeks of my vacation where ever I wished, I would choose China. It is my birth land. It is part of my identity. I am still proud to be a Chinese citizen. I love the country. This has nothing to do with loving the government. If I were to step onto Chinese soil that would probably be the last time people of the Western world ever hear of me. Why? I practice Falun Gong. That in its self would get me arrested in China. I have practiced Falun Gong for four years, but even if I had just begun practicing and had Falun Gong material with me that would have given the police enough reason to detain me for questioning. That rules out "traveling to foreign places" as an option for my summer. The second idea is attending summer classes for self-enrichment. I have considered the option. However, how could I feel good about myself if I knew what was happening to Chinese students in China and not speak out. Chinese students and teachers are being expelled and fired every day because of their belief. If I did not speak out, if everyone "minded their own business," what would happen to those in China?

I am walking to create awareness of the situation in China. I am also walking to make every one truly face the world we live in, not just the city, state, or nation we reside in. I have gone for weeks in the same small district of Cambridge, MA. This trip will be an eye-opener for me as well. What better way to grow up than this trip to make me deal with the real world? It is time the world grew up as well. It is time to stop thinking only in terms of "they don't concern me." We all share this small earth. We cannot turn a blind eye on what is happening in China. It would be like watching a murderer kill an innocent person on your front lawn. We cannot let ourselves blow ourselves to oblivion by some oh "accidental" nuclear war. We cannot just ignore Africa and hope the AIDS crisis will just go away. We have to accept the world as it is and then deal with it. Let us not let a whole continent die if we have the ability to prevent it. Let us not destroy the only homeland we know of, Earth. Let us not let this "rerun of Hitler's persecution of the Jews" continue. Let us all grow up.

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