New York: Practitioners Participate in Chinese New Year Parade in Flushing (Photos)

By Cai Ju

(Clearwisdom.net) A Chinese New Year parade was held in the second largest Chinatown in New York on February 17, 2007. The Flushing community is composed primarily of Chinese and Korean ethnicities. More and more new Chinese immigrants initially come here due to language. On this day, crowds of Chinese people stood along the path to watch the parade.

During the parade, the Falun Gong practitioners’ procession was the most magnificent, colorful, and bright, and represented traditional culture, which became the focus of cameras and video camcorders.

The Falun Gong practitioners’ procession was led by the Divine Land Marching Band, members of which wore blue hats, blue jackets, white trousers and black shoes. The performers were full of energy. The music they played included "Falun Dafa is good," "America the Beautiful," and "Fa-rectifies the Universe." The practitioners’ large band moved the Chinese audience members and also became the focus of media reports.

Practitioners also had a lion and dragon dancing team. The Lion and dragon are regarded in China as auspicious and evil-suppressing entities. The active performance of lion and dragon dancing team won acclamation from the children and their parents. They were surprised to see so many western practitioners in the team.

Chinese people overseas call their streets Chinatown, indicating they are descendant of Tang Dynasty people. Tang Dynasty was a prosperous dynasty, of which Chinese people are most proud. Practitioners prepared Tang costumes for the parade to inspire people’s thinking of the connotation of their traditional culture.

Falun Gong practitioners’ drum team was the last in the procession. Many players were older people, but they were energized during playing. Their performance touched the audience.

Falun Gong practitioners’ procession showed brightness, grace, and delight, moving the audience members. People were happy and took photos and videos. Several Chinese people held their thumbs up and many applauded to encourage the practitioners. Western audience members were delighted and even the police on duty greeted and praised the older players.

Through continuous efforts of truth-clarification, more and more Chinese people are understanding Falun Gong. The Chinese Communist Party is very afraid of this, so they exert pressure on Chinese people and dispatch spies to slander Falun Gong.

Practitioner Yi Rong said, "Falun Gong practitioners clarify the truth as usual and bring the grace of Dafa to each corner of society. The community initially rejected our application for the parade and now welcomes our participation. More and more people know and support Falun Gong. The spies have less and less influence. Our wish is just as the banner reads, "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance and Fa-rectifies human world, we celebrate New Year and come for you."

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/2/18/149275.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version