Emigrating from Distant Russia

[PureInsight.org] I heard about M. and T.'s story a long time ago. How amazing! They can speak eight different languages. When M. and T. invited me to their home for lunch, I accepted the invitation right away. One of the reasons was that I am partial to ethnic food. The other reason was that M. is a kind-hearted person. Everyone likes her. Who does not want to spend time with such a kind and sincere person?

It took me more than an hour to get to their home, located in Bucks County of northeastern Philadelphia. My first impression was that the owner of this house is incredibly neat! The entire house, from wood floor, the walls, to all the furniture, was spotless. M. is warm hearted and outgoing, and her husband T. is quieter and very sincere. They came from the former Soviet Union. We wasted no time in polite greetings and social niceties, and went straight to the dining table.

The first dish was a Russian appetizer soup, which M. called "the summer soup." It was made of kvas (an ancient Russian beverage), sliced eggs, ham, cucumber, fruit jelly, sour cream, and green onions. It was refreshing and delectable. It really stimulated my appetite. Then followed a salad, which was made of beets, carrots, peas, green apples, and green onions. This dish looked very colorful and the vegetables were painstakingly and beautifully cut into julienne strips. The beautiful dish would make one drool with hunger. Then came the entrée --- mashed potato and chicken stew, an authentic Russian dish. The dessert included a Russian dessert and chocolate wafers. Even the beverage was of international style --- Bulgaria's sour cherry juice. It was not until we started to drink Earl Grey tea out of a Slavic-style tea set hand-made in Saint Petersburg that I felt that I returned to the U.S.

M. and her husband both are fluent in English, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Yiddish, and Hebrew. I asked them what language they preferred to use to talk to each other. They told me that they speak English at work. They speak Russian and Azerbaijani when they meet people from their hometown. They speak Yiddish and Azerbaijani when they talk with Jews. They speak Russian at home. T. will curse in English when angry. I really envy them when I see them respecting and being affectionate to each other.

M. was born in Gorgy, a city in the middle of Russia and west of Moscow, about six hours driving distance from Moscow. The city was named after a writer named Gorgy from the former Soviet Union, who wrote the books My Childhood and My University. Those who grew up in China are familiar with Gorgy and these books. Gorgy is an industrial town. The "Volga" sedan is manufactured there. Middle-aged Chinese people are familiar with the Volga. M.'s father is a locomotive engineer and her mother is an accountant. She has a sister who is six years younger.

After M. graduated from middle school, she was admitted to a professional music school. She became a music teacher. She taught children to sing and dance. She later chose mechanical engineering and computer science as her college major, but her job after college required her to work with people instead of computers or machines. She even became the chairman of a railroad workers' union, which had about three thousand members. Each worker was given two to three weeks of vacation each year, and they usually spent their vacation at the Black Sea. M. was in charge of arranging three thousand workers' vacations. She was like a young empress in control of three thousand subjects. I was also surprised by the similarity in the work and vacation system between China and the former Soviet Union. I asked her very directly if she had ever abused her power to give her relatives and friends special advantages. She smiled embarrassedly. She said she was like that before. She frequently did favors for friends under the table. She added that she would not have done that if she had been a cultivator at that time.

M. is extremely capable. She invented a barter system by which she traded labor and goods for rare and highly desirable goods, including meat, fruit, clothes, shoes, hats and all kinds of other daily consumer products for her three thousand workers. She then divided and distributed all these items to the three thousand workers through company stores open only to employees. She also hosted a New Year's costume party where the workers partied hard in their handmade costumes. She felt that the only slight imperfection in her otherwise perfect life was that there was no Jewish synagogue where she lived, because all the Jewish synagogues and temples had been destroyed. All Jewish scriptures were also destroyed. If she had not emigrated to the U.S., she would still be the union chairman today. It is truly like what her grandma repeatedly told her in a dream, "Your destiny, your future, and your husband will be connected to the United States of America."

M.'s husband, T., is a Jew from Azerbaijan. His surname is actually a French surname. After T.'s grandfather graduated from Belgium's Brussels University, he moved to Russia from Poland. T. is a violinist who graduated from a music conservatory. He used to be a violinist at the Baku Theater. In 1988, Azerbaijan began to persecute the minorities, including Armenians and Russians, so T. left Azerbaijan. He stayed in many places before he settled down in Israel. Then he moved to the U.S. At the end of the 80's, about 1.2 million Jews fled from the former Soviet Union to Israel. Among them, there were a lot of physicians, scientists, engineers, musicians and many other types of professionals. Israel did not have enough job opportunities for so many high-tech professionals so T. had to settle for a job in a factory in Israel manufacturing socks. It was truly a tragic turn of events for T. to change from a violinist to a sock worker, and to use his dexterous fingers on socks instead of on the strings. T. is now a technician in an electrical parts factory in southern Philadelphia.

M. was not particularly attracted to T. when he proposed to her. She did not think T. was her type, but she admitted that he found T. very handsome, hard working, independent and masculine. In addition, her Grandmother later advised M. to marry him, so she finally married did.

Speaking of M.'s grandmother, she was not only M.'s angel, but also her mentor. When M. was six years old, she was lovely but fierce little Russian girl. She often got into physical fights with other children, even boys. One day, a boy bruised M. during a fight. She returned home, and complained to her grandmother in tears, "Look at what he did to me! How can I get even with him?" Her grandmother answered, "Are you happy with what he did to you? How do you feel about him right now?" "I hate him! I hate him! He has given me so much pain!" Her grandmother said, "So why do you want to do the same thing to him that he did to you? Do you want him to hate you as much as you hate him? Do you want him to feel the same pain you feel now?" Then little M. suddenly fell silent.

When M. was ten years old, she wanted a children's bicycle. Her grandmother told her that she must be able to earn the bicycle with work, and asked her to weave a wool shawl to trade for a children's bicycle. For one full month, the young M. wove the shawl every day. When she was too tired, she thought about the bicycle. Finally, she completed the project. The shawl was sold for 60 rubles, and she bought a bicycle with the money. From then on, M. learned that she could accomplish anything that she set her heart on. She felt that if she worked hard, she could achieve her goal. After her grandmother passed away, whenever M. faced important decisions, her grandmother always gave her advice in her dreams. Before she decided to come to America, her grandmother told her in a dream that she should go to the U.S. When she did not know if she should marry T., her grandmother said in a dream, "What are you waiting for? Why do you want to wait? Why don't you marry him? Go ahead!"

M.'s daughter also lives in Philadelphia. She studies Criminal Law at Pennsylvania State University's law school. Her son-in-law owns a consulting firm. M. works as a project coordinator at a chemical company in Princeton, New Jersey. Her boss is a Chinese. The relationship between M. and China is not limited to work. M.'s husband, son-in-law, younger cousin and her maternal aunt have one thing in common – they all practice a Chinese qigong, called Falun Gong.

"Falun Gong is from traditional Chinese culture. How did you, as people from Russian and Jewish heritage, become attracted to an eastern spiritual practice from China?" M. admitted that at first she found it was a little bizarre for a Russian Jew such as herself to practice Chinese qigong. A lot of Chinese people were shocked to see her practicing the Falun Gong exercises in front of the Freedom Clock at the Philadelphia town center. But then she quickly realized that there are no borders in the Buddha Fa. Falun Gong belongs to all the people in the world. She expressed this point at a Falun Dafa cultivation experience sharing conference with western practitioners from Australia, Italy, French and Russia, and everyone agreed with her.

As for Judaism, M. regards it as one of the ancient orthodox religions and thinks it is very good. But she feels let down when some clergymen fail to follow the doctrines that they impart. She also does not like that some people show off their wealth or diamond rings in the synagogues. She also feels that it is not right to assign everyone's seat in the synagogue according to his respective amount of donations to the synagogue. She does not like that those people who donate more money get the front seats or special seats. When she talked about this, she stopped and looked at me with a mysterious smile. She said that she could see many things in other dimensions. "Is your Celestial Eye open?" "Yes." She said that she could see things in other dimensions soon after she began practicing Falun Gong.

How did M. find Falun Gong, this Chinese qigong practice? In the spring of 1997, she and her neighbor from across the street jogged together. They chatted while jogging. M. said that she had to change herself. Her neighbor's eyes widened and she exclaimed, "Why? Are you crazy? Look at yourself. You are a wonderful person. Why do you want to change yourself?" M. said that she had a lot of bad thoughts and had done a lot of bad things that she had not realized until right then. These issues were like a giant rock pressing on her chest, making her feel terrible and helpless. She cried and drank. After she got drunk, she forgot all this for one or two hours. Afterwards, the bad feelings came back to haunt her again. She resolved to get that giant rock off her chest and get rid of it.

The neighbor could not understand her, but she said, "Oh, wait a minute. I know a person in our company who is also a little peculiar. She is cultivating herself in some kind of self-improvement system. Do you want her to give you a call?" "Yes! Please ask her to call me."

Soon her neighbor's coworker called M.. She is also a Russian Jew. She gave M. a computer printout of a book called Zhuan Falun in Russian. When reading the book for the first time, M. felt that she knew instinctively some of the things written in the book, but she had forgot them now. How could she have forgotten those things? She cried for a long time. Then she started to practice Falun Gong. She is 100% sure that this is precisely what she was looking for.

Before M. started to practice Falun Gong, her blood pressure was unstable. Sometimes she had high blood pressure and sometimes she had low blood pressure. She did not know if she should take medicine for high or low blood pressure at times. After she practiced Falun Gong for six months, her blood pressure became normal. Since then, she has never taken any sick day at work. When a coworker gets sick at work, people are afraid of being infected during meetings and will say, "Go sit beside M.," because everybody knows M. does not get sick. In addition, after practicing Falun Gong for one year, that invisible giant rock that had been pressing on her chest disappeared without any trace.

It is a very interesting story how M.'s husband T. started to practice Falun Gong. He did not believe in Falun Gong or practice Falun Gong at first. When M. practiced the Falun Gong exercises with her eyes closed, he often made funny faces at her. One day M. dreamed of Teacher Li Hongzhi telling her to practice the Falun Gong exercises with other people, so she started to join the group exercise at the Rittenhouse Square in the center of Philadelphia. T. was worried about M.'s parking skills in that crowded area, so he drove M. to the practice site and picked her up after the exercises. One day, T. felt so bored from waiting that he followed them and did the Falun Gong exercises to kill time. After two hours of the exercises, T. became unusually quiet. M. asked him what happened. He replied in a very gentle voice that he felt his body was purified from inside out and that he felt his whole body was very light.

Since then, they have realized the true reason why they had emigrated from distant Russia to the United States. They have come for the opportunity to cultivate in the Buddha Fa based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/5/8/27044.html