Ireland: Introducing Falun Dafa and the Persecution to Chinese People on Mid-Autumn Day

On the Saturday before Mid-Autumn day, we went to O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre. We made a banner suitable for the Mid-Autumn festival, which read, "Falun Gong Practitioners Wish Chinese people a Happy Mid-Autumn Day."

After setting up the posters, practitioners began performing a traditional Chinese fan dance and demonstrating the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. The exercise demonstration music we used was a shorter version with English explanations, so that people could watch the whole five sets of exercises and learn their special features.

We also made many paper lotus flowers and prepared brush-pens, ink, paper and ink-stone to let people experience the beauty of Falun Dafa through Chinese Calligraphy.

Here are some touching stories to share. A old lady with her granddaughter asked for their names written in Chinese. The practitioner talked about Falun Dafa and the persecution when writing the names. The old lady said, "I recognise you, I saw a documentary on TV a few years ago, and I couldn’t believe that such cruel things could be happening." The practitioner wrote “Falun Dafa is good” and their names, she then explained the meaning to them. They left happily.

There was another English family on holiday in Ireland. The father was a teacher at a children’s school. The practitioner wrote “Falun Dafa is good. Truth, Compassion and Forbearance is good” and the name of his school. The teacher said he would have his pupils copy them and take them home.

Another westerner come along and said that he was supposed to have an operation that day, but he didn’t want to go. He had been operated on a couple of times, but it didn’t do him any good, as he was suffering from cancer. He also said he had a few children at home and he seemed hopeful. A western practitioner told him that before she started practising Falun Gong she couldn’t even get up the stairs as she had bad arthritis as well as tracheitis; all of this had changed not long after she began practising Falun Gong. She suggested this man give it a try as well and he promised he would.

Although we have been raising awareness about the persecution to people in Dublin for five years, there were still many Chinese who dared not talk to us. But on that day, they stood there watching our exercise demonstration and dancing and talked to us for a long time.

In Ireland, we only started this year to show the beauty of Falun Gong using the form of dancing. A practitioner had practised carefully before the performance. In the early morning, it was cloudy, and there were signs of rain as well. But as soon as we started doing the exercises the clouds gradually dispersed and a clear sky emerged. The beautiful day was over too soon.