Robert Counts
Here is a painting I just finished. I want to give you a little background
as to what this painting is about, why I painted it, and what I hope to do with
it.
About a year and a half ago a man named Wing Yuen Chan, a Hong Kong resident,
went to Burma (Myanmar), a south Asian country, to translate a book. Mr. Chan
practices Falun Gong. While he was in Burma he heard that the president of China
would be visiting Burma for some political business. Knowing about the incredible
hardships that the people who practice Falun Gong in China were going through,
70-year-old Wing Yuen Chan walked to the street leading to the airport. He nobly
held a banner that said “Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance” in the
hope of helping to put an end to this awful persecution.
As the motorcade approached, the officers at the head of the procession drove
ahead towards Mr. Chan, snatched away his banner and illegally arrested him.
Unfortunately, Burma is not as advanced a place as America, where a man would
be honored for holding up such a banner in the face of wickedness. Mr. Chan
was put in a Myanmar prison. On top of this, the sentence given to this 70-year-old
man was seven years, and he wasn’t allowed his right to have a lawyer. The Chinese
regime then contacted his family and threatened them that if they leaked any
news of this to the public there would be consequences to pay. It disturbs me
to imagine what it would be like for a family to be in such a situation. Because
of this pressure, it took a whole year before news about Wing Yuen was finally
released, and releasing this information was most likely a very difficult decision
for his family to make, but I think they made the right decision. It’s very
hard for me to believe that people in a government would have so much depravity
that they would persecute a 70-year-old man and his family for trying to do
something right in this world. I painted this because it is my sincere hope
that this painting will bring light and raise the awareness of different governments
and people and hopefully put more pressure where it needs to be put to release
this good man.
Unfortunately, I am not sure what the Hong Kong government has done about this
because even though the people are, in theory, free in Hong Kong, they are greatly
pressured by the Chinese government.
The other day I was talking to a friend a who is knowledgeable about out the
Great Cultural Revolution in China, and he was telling me that during those
years, the number of people who died was nearly triple that of the Holocaust.
That’s 20 million people or more. When I heard this I was shocked. It made me
also think about the people who practice Falun Gong in China and people who
do other spiritual practices such as Catholicism and Buddhism. There are 100
million people who practice Falun Gong there and the government has called for
all-out genocide of the people who practice. That means that the number of good,
innocent people that are in concentration camps and who have already died there
may be much greater than that during the Holocaust. After hearing about the
unique situation in Hong Kong and that there will be some events there to help
people know the truth about this persecution, I will travel there with this
painting to help try to raise awareness and support Hong Kong for what it will
hopefully remain — a free and independent city in China.
Category: Practitioner’s insights
