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Short Stories from A Westerner's Trip to Houston By a Western Practitioner in North America (Clearwisdom.net) A Predestined Meeting On our drive from Chicago to Houston, we stopped for lunch in a tiny town in Illinois. The
father of the family I rode with suggested we find a Chinese restaurant, but that seemed impossible
in such a tiny place. His precocious little girl played the role of naysayer, insisting that we
would not find a place and if we did she would not like any of the food there. The rest of us just
smiled and (for once on the trip) just ignored her. We stopped at the first intersection and went
inside to ask about local restaurants. It turned out the local Chinese restaurant was just a
block away! We went in and found that it was very busy, especially for the day and time. Our
waitress, however, was very friendly and soon asked me about my Falun Gong t-shirt. She asked if I
practiced, and looked surprised when I told her I had practiced for four years. She said that all
she knew was what the Chinese government had said. I told her that in four years, I had never seen a
single bad element to Falun Dafa. She asked me which was good, Jiang Zemin or Falun Gong. I told her
Falun Gong was good and Jiang was not. She seemed amused. Someone said, "What do you want?" I told him that we had food to share. The man in
charge who was organizing the students quickly turned to me. I looked at the faces of the students.
Some looked surprised, some a little amused, but most of them just plain looked hungry and eager to
have the food. But the leader, who was clearly not a student, shouted at me, "Back off!!"
I was so surprised that I asked him to repeat it. He shouted again, "Back off!" I took two
steps backwards, then turned to the students. I opened one of the boxes to show them the rice,
vegetables and finely cut beef that was on top. Speaking with their eyes, I understood how much they
would have liked to eat just then. With my expression alone, I asked them: "Who is it that is
really harming you?" I could see how selfish that "leader" was, and I believe
the students could too. Posting date: 11/19/2002 |