United Kingdom: Falun Gong Practitioners Take Part in New Year’s Day Parade in London

The 21st New Year’s Day Parade in London was held on January 1st, 2007, and Falun Gong practitioners were invited to participate in the festivities. Setting off from Parliament Square at noon, the parade passed through Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus and ended at the junction with Berkeley Street. More than ten thousand performers representing twenty countries around the world attended the parade with a half million spectators seeing the parade along the route.

At the very front of the Falun Gong section were three Chinese characters reading “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance”, which are Falun Gong’s cultivation principles. This was immediately followed by a big banner inscribed with “Falun Dafa”.

Waist-Drum band and Tang Flag dancers convey a cheerful atmosphere to the spectators

The float designed by Falun Gong practitioners illustrates the belief in Buddha and the connotation of cultivation

Right after the float were the Fan Dancers, all female Falun Gong practitioners, who wore beautiful traditional Chinese costumes. Accompanied by music composed by Falun Gong practitioners, they danced swiftly along the road. The delicacy of Chinese tradition exhibited by the Fan Dance highly intrigued the people.

Behind the Fan Dancers was the banner phalanx. Through various banners and scrolls, Falun Gong practitioners delivered information to the spectators including “Falun Gong has spread to more than eighty countries world wide,” and “More than a hundred million people have benefited from Falun Gong in their bodies and minds.”

Along the way of the parade, practitioners gave the spectators a New Year’s gift, an exquisite folded paper lotus flower. Introductory information about Falun Gong was printed on bookmarks attached to every lotus flower, in the hope that more people will understand the truth of Falun Gong.