(Clearwisdom.net, November 24, 2003) On the morning of November 22, 2003, Dafa practitioners from New Zealand joined the annual Rotorua Christmas Parade and multi-cultural festival. The scale of the parade was the largest this year. Among the 50 parade processions, Dafa practitioners' float with the bright and colorful traditional Chinese costumes drew much attention. The mayor and national Congress Members also applauded them, saying that they loved ancient Chinese traditional culture very much. During the parade, practitioners waved to the crowd and wished the spectators a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Among the audience, a Chinese student said to us, "Greetings! Master Li!"
On the float, a sign was imprinted with the words, "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" in Chinese, English and Maori language. A local practitioner suggested to add Maori language, since Maori people are the native residents of New Zealand. Our banners were imprinted with words in both Chinese and English, "Falun Dafa is Good!" and "The World Needs Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." In addition, we held banners that read, "Roturua Ethnic Council" and "Unity in Diversity." This year's Christmas parade and multi-cultural festival were held on the same day. The Ethnic Council chairman invited practitioners to help hold these two banners and distribute the festival program flyers, because local practitioners joined this council in their own names and regularly attended its meetings. This is a non-profit organization and has very closed relationship with the city government. It often holds different kinds of activities.
In the afternoon, practitioners participated in the Rotorua multi-cultural festival and demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises and performed a heavenly flying girl dance. On the spot, the mayor came across practitioners again. He was very pleased and said that practitioners really merged themselves into local communities. After the activity, the sponsor, "Ethic Council" chairman sent a fax to express appreciation to practitioners for their support. He also thanked the practitioners who helped hold banners and distributed festival program flyers in the parade procession. He said that practitioners are the only group who offered to help.
