(Clearwisdom.net) May 13, 2008, was the 9^th World Falun Dafa Day. To celebrate the 16^th anniversary of Falun Dafa's public introduction, practitioners in central Taiwan held activities at the famous scenic Gukeng Green Tunnel in Yunlin County. Upon learning of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, many visitors signed the petition to call for it to end.

Su Chih-fen (middle), Yunlin County Commissioner, learns the Falun Gong exercises.

Demonstration of Falun Dafa exercises.

Visitors view photographs taken by Falun Gong practitioners.

The Gukeng Green Tunnel attracts heavy tourist traffic during the weekends and holidays. May 11 happened to be Mother's Day, which brought even more traffic.

At 9 a.m., the Falun Dafa Divine Land Marching Band started the celebration with its loud, inspirational music. The band was followed by the NTDTV flag team, Falun Dafa exercise demonstration, a drama, group singing, and the waist drum team. Local art groups joined the celebration as well. In between the performances, the host introduced Falun Dafa to the crowd and mentioned how it's embraced by people around the world. There were other activities going on at the same time: "A Photographic Tale of Falun Dafa's Principled Resistance," a painting competition, and paper lotus flower construction. Practitioners also prepared cakes and longevity peach buns to give away to the crowd to celebrate the birthday of Falun Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi.

Many local officials came to the celebration to give their congratulations. Commissioner of Yunlin County Ms. Su Chih-fen arrived while practitioners were demonstrating the exercises. Ms. Su immediately started to learn the exercises. Principal of the Kouhu Junior High School Wu Yann-men, a practitioner, stood next to her to help her with her movements.

In her speech, Ms. Su talked about how she felt the goodness from her friends who practice Falun Gong and how the practitioners like to help others. She also pointed out that a practice that follows "Truth, Compassion, Tolerance" is beneficial to society and the government. She encouraged practitioners, "Please hold on to your beliefs." When talked about the ongoing persecution and illegal organ removal from living practitioners, Ms. Su asked Beijing to "quickly stop the inhumane actions and restore the free practice environment to Falun Dafa."

Counselors Hsieh Shu-ya and Liu Jian-Guo and Chief of the Education Department, Hsu Ming-Ho, came to the celebration to show their support. Ms. Hsieh said she learned the beauty of Falun Dafa from friends around her. She thinks her practitioner friends are "awesome" because they "are not selfish and work hard for a beautiful and peaceful world."

Ms. Hsieh said as she walked into the celebration activities and saw the practitioners, she felt "peaceful and pleasant and 'truth, kindness, and beauty' of the world." "A harmonious society would look like this in my opinion," she said. Ms. Hsieh commented that Beijing's persecution of Falun Gong is against the will of God and unwise.

The photograph exhibition "A Photographic Tale of Falun Dafa's Principled Resistance" attracted many visitors. Many of them, after seeing the photographs of the persecution, felt it was 'unbelievable and horrifying.' A girl who came with her mother thought the illegal organ removal from living practitioners was the most intolerable. Many signed the petition to call for and end to the persecution.

Mr. Jiang's wife is from China and he frequently travels to China. After seeing the photographs, he said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was best at doing surface work and hiding secrets. He talked about how the CCP persecuted his father-in-law during the Cultural Revolution and he was not surprised to see how brutal the CCP has been in the persecution of Falun Gong.