Australia: Falun Dafa Shines at the 2004 "Carnival of Flowers" Parade in Toowoomba, Queensland (Photos)
(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Dafa Practitioners from the southeast
Queensland area joined the Toowoomba "Carnival of Flowers" Parade for
the fifth consecutive year on Saturday, September 18, 2004. This is one of the
largest parades and festivals in southeast Queensland, with an estimated 140,000
people attending. As this was also the 100 year anniversary of the city of Toowoomba,
Queensland's Premier, Mr Peter Beattie, attended the festivities and was a guest
of honor at the parade. As our float and procession went past the main
announcer's stand, Mr Beattie smiled and waved to the practitioners. Floats in this year's parade had to be largely decorated with fresh flowers.
Practitioners in the procession wore flower corsages and our Chinese dancers
were adorned with beautiful flower wreathes in their hair. The beauty and
elegance of our procession had a very positive impact on the crowd along the
route, with much enthusiastic waving and supportive comments. A local
practitioner met a man she knows from the local radio station in the crowd and
shared a few words with him. He was most impressed with our procession, saying,
"Your presentation is great! Could you please thank everyone in the group
for bringing something so beautiful to Toowoomba!"
A woman was reading out the words "Falun Dafa" and another lady
sitting next to her replied, "Yes, Falun Dafa. I know it is becoming very
popular and lots of people are doing it. There is some persecution going on in
China. It is so stupid. How can you persecute something so beautiful?"
After hearing that Jiang Zemin, who instigated the persecution, is being sued
in many countries, one of them replied, "I'm not surprised. I hope he
gets what he deserves." As one of the announcers was sharing with the crowd about our presentation,
he paused as our "The World Needs Truth-Compassion-Tolerance" banner
went past, and then said, "Isn't this so true. The world really does need
these principles of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance." The parade was a grand success and the beauty of Dafa delighted many
thousands of people. On the way home, a couple of practitioners stopped at a
fruit and vegetable market, still dressed in their yellow outfits, and people
who had attended the parade positively remarked about our participation and
asked questions about Dafa. More and more people are indeed being touched by
"Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance."
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/28/85222.html
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net