Book Pagoda of Light Published in Toronto

As July 20th approaches and the world remembers ten years of persecution of Falun Gong in China, our Toronto correspondent takes us to a ceremony for the publishing of "Pagoda of Light", a novel based on the life story of Mainland Chinese adherents.
The tenth anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China is days away, and the book "Pagoda of Light" was recently published in Toronto, offering readers a very personal insight into the beauty of Falun Gong and the harsh reality faced by practitioners, like the main character Bai Shaohua, in China.

[Yuan Meng, Co-author, Pagoda of Light]
This book is the true life story of the Bai family from China. It traces how their devotion to truth put the family on a collison course with the Communist Party.

Now an architect and University of Toronto alumnus, co-author Yuan Meng shared at a Mississauga Library event , on June 10, how her personal experience in a labor camp helped her in the writing of the book.

[Yuan Meng, Co-author, Pagoda of Light]
I have [lived] a very similar experience like Bai Shaohua in this book, and I was also jailed in a Beijing labor camp. We suffered very similar treatment in there, so it helped me to understand different peoples source, and why [those things] happens. So I put this feeling [of being in a labor camp] and the deeper source in this book.

As the narrative of the book offers a realistic insight into the persecution of Falun Gong, it appeals to a wide audience that can be touched by the universality of the story despite not having lived in Mainland China under Communist Party-rule.

[Elizabeth, Librarian, Mississauga Library]
Its a tragic story in that someone who is only trying to pursue their spirituality is facing a lot of persecution, and ends up showing a lot of courage in their convictions through a lot. In a way, it is uplifting, but its kind of a sad story too.

[Dominic, 13 year-old Student]
Because I read a similar book to this but its about WW2, and I kind of liked it, so I was trying to find an Asian version of it.

The co-authors, Yuan Meng and her husband Long Tu, sought to highlight the goodness found in traditional Chinese culture. The main character, Bai Shaohua, not only seeks to abide to Falun Gongs principles of truth, compassion and tolerance, but also cultivates himself through the practice of drawing sketches and Chinese poems.

"Pagoda of Light" is available through Blue Butterfly Book Publishing at bluebutterflybooks.ca.

NTD, Toronto.

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