(Clearwisdom.net) To improve the understanding, unite different races, and
solve current issues, Pennsylvania state Representative Ronald Waters has
organized "Community Appreciation Day" consecutively for five years.
On August 9 of this year, the "Community Appreciation Day" for the
first time had an Asian team participate that brought many bright colors to the
event. Accompanied by drums and songs, the parade, composed of cultures from East
and West walked on the woodland parkway of west Philadelphia. The residents came
out from their houses to watch along the streets. After the parade, there were
performances and games at Penn's Landing Square. Representative Waters said that the purpose of the event was to make the
community more peaceful and raise the quality of life for everyone. Falun Gong practitioners were the first group to perform on the stage. They
presented an exercise demonstrations, fan dance and waist drum dance. The
audience gave them warm applause and cheers. One teenager said, "It is great. Very beautiful! I like new things. The
Falun Gong performance was my favorite. I especially liked the fan dance and the
meditation." One lady watched the demonstration of all five sets of exercises and followed
the movements of the practitioners. She was excited and said, "I am
thinking of learning these exercises so I can practice at home." One elderly gentleman said, "I want to see them again next year. They
are great!" Representative Waters said, "It is my honor to have Falun Gong in this
parade. At Philadelphia's mutual culture parade in June, I saw their beautiful
costumes and performances. I was the Ceremony Official that time. We never have
had an Asian group in our parade before. I would like to see them in our other
activities. "I heard about Falun Gong a long time ago. The newspapers reported that
many people were arrested and jailed." He continued, "We must look at
the facts and not the one-sided story from the Chinese government. We should
spend some time to explore the truth and not let ourselves be interfered with by
wrong and misleading information. Falun Gong practitioners did nothing wrong. "Recently, Representative Mike Hose initiated a resolution condemning
the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong. I proudly joined other
representatives to support the resolution. In Philadelphia, there are many
residents from Asia. I am willing to do something to solve the problems for
them."
Fan dance
Waist Drum
Young practitioner meditating
Posting date: 8/16/2003
Original article date: 8/15/2003
Category: Falun Dafa Worldwide
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2003/8/12/55487.html