Australia: Chinese Waist Drums Come to the Small Ancient Garden Town in Sydney

Hunters Hill, located on the north side of the Sydney harbour, is one of the oldest garden towns in Australia. Hunters Hill has a population of 12,500 people. Apart from the native-burn Australians, its residents also include immigrants from United Kingdom, Italy and New Zealand.

A waist drum band composed of Falun Gong practitioners.

Saturday, August 2 was a sunny day. People in Hunters Hill celebrated their annual Moocooboola Festival on this day. Many local organisations came to attend the grand festival parade. In addition, the small town's residents were pleasantly surprised to see a group of Chinese people dressed in yellow shirts and carrying red waist drums. The drummers were dressed in Chinese traditional costumes and gave a special performance for the crowds. The audience along the streets warmly applauded. There were very few Chinese people living in this small town. When a Chinese resident saw the drum band, he was very happy and excitedly waved his hands toward the band. Later he found out that these were a group of Falun Gong practitioners who used their spare time to join local community's activities, hoping to introduce the ancient Chinese culture to Australian people.

Following the drum band was a float decorated with big hand-made lotus flowers, inside which were young children doing the sitting mediation, accompanied by peaceful music. Many adults were very impressed to see that such young children were able to maintain such a peaceful mind and good endurance. In the procession, there was a team of young ladies dressed in graceful Tang Dynasty costumes. They attracted more acclamation and applause. One could see with one look that both teams were among the procession led by banners reading, "Falun Dafa" and "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance". When they passed by the platform, the Master of Ceremonies introduced Falun Gong as a meditation practise that promoted "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance". A local artist, David was deeply attracted by this group of Chinese people. When he found out that this was Falun Gong, he said that he knew that Falun Gong was the group that was persecuted in China. He said that years ago, Nero's persecution of Christians was also very brutal without any reason.

The parade concluded at a greenbelt along the seashore. Several dozen booths selling food or handicrafts were set up. A seemingly endless flow of people came to visit different booths. Falun Gong practitioners also had a booth. Many visitors stood in a long queue, waiting for Falun Gong practitioners to write their names in Chinese by using brush pens. David was also excited to obtain such a calligraphy work and he kept expressing his thankfulness. A person from India and a local resident came over to learn Falun Gong exercises and said that they would go to our practise sites, because they had been searching for a good cultivation method all along.

In the afternoon, the parade master announced that Falun Gong procession won the second place award. Falun Gong practitioners decided to donate the winnings to the State Emergency Rescue Team. The Mayor of Hunters Hill delightfully accepted the donation. He expressed his wish that Falun Gong practitioners would join this festival again next year.