Norway: "You are the Only Ones At This Place who are Genuine"

Falun Gong was represented at the "Alternative Fair" in Oslo, Norway November 16th- 18th, 2001.

This was the fourth time that Falun Gong took part at the yearly "alternative fair" (an esoteric fair for health and spiritual growth) in Oslo, which is the biggest one in Europe. This year was very different from the past.

In the other years we only used to distribute 700 flyers from Friday to Sunday, but this year was completely different. Many people, when passing our stand and hearing of us said "Falun Gong information", they stopped, took a flyer or asked, for example, "Oh, Falun Gong! I´ve heard about it. Can I get a flyer?" This year we distributed nearly 3000 flyers!

Some weeks before the fair, there was a two-page long article published about Falun Gong, written by Norwegian practitioners for the most important Norwegian alternative-magazine. This is a magazine with a lot of alternative-, esoteric- and new-age articles, and is read by nearly all spiritual, open-minded people in Norway. It happened that just this edition printed 30 000 copies instead of the usual 15 000! Many people had read it and were very positive about Falun Gong.

Falun Dafa Reaches People’s Hearts

A young couple stopped and talked with us for a while. When hearing that Falun Gong is completely free and that we use our own money to print flyers without demanding any money, because we do all this completely from our wish to let other people have a chance to cultivate, they told me: "You are the only ones at this place who are genuine."

A middle-aged lady told us. "I have been to Beijing and have seen Falun Gong practitioners being arrested! It is really horrible!" She told us that she would soon be travelling to China again. She took different Falun Gong information materials from us which she would take to China to clarify the truth to Chinese people.

Another middle-aged lady was deeply touched by Falun Gong, and told us that she had waited for this her whole life. Now, she knows that she finally had found what she had been looking for.

Many people bought the books and videotapes. A lady called us some days later and told us that instead of an introduction video, the video she bought, was a SOS-video (in an introduction video-case). She wanted to get the real introduction video, but also three more SOS-videos. "This issue is so important that we need to inform the world about it!" she said to a practitioner.

A man from a nearby stand asked a practitioner: "Why are your flyers being distributed so much faster than mine? The people take your flyers, but not mine. Is it because your ones have a nicer colour?" A practitioner replied, "I think it is because most people recognize Truthfulness-Benevolence-Tolerance from their heart. The man then said, "Yes, there you are right, human beings understand that they are missing something in their life, they are longing for something." The practitioner said, "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Tolerance is an universal principle, one feels satisfied if one follows it and that is the best, a human being can get." The man said, "I will come to the exercise site, I have a strong desire to try it. That seems very interesting."

On another neighbouring stand, there was the stand of "parapsychologists". They were always watching us. One of them come over to a practitioner and asked how it could be possible to hold the arms so quietly and without moving a little bit such a long time when we were doing the fifth exercise. He found it really impossible to do so! After talking with the practitioner, he got very interested in Falun Gong and said that he wanted to read the introduction book [Falun Gong].

There was a small girl who passed our stand many times. She was looking at Teacher Li on the TV and said to her mother that she liked the exercises very much and wanted to learn them. There were other children looking at Teacher Li on the introduction video and found it so nice to watch it that they did not wanted to leave our stand.

When people received the Falun Gong flyers, they were smiling broadly and a lot of them said "thank you very much, I will read it". Some people first refused to take a flyer, but then they stopped only after a few steps because they changed their mind suddenly, and asked us for a flyer.

There was one very old lady who was buying the books and the introduction video when she suddenly asked a practitioner to show her the exercises at our stand. She wanted to learn them straight away.

We also held lectures during the three days of the fair. Around 70 people attended the lectures. They were very touched with Falun Gong and the serenity of the atmosphere in the room. Many of them wanted to learn more. One lady believed Falun Gong could help improve relationships at work. She invited us to lecture to a group of employees at a hospital.

Two weeks after the fair (on November 30th, 2001 and December 1st, 2001), we held an introduction course over two days and around 25 people came to learn Falun Gong. After the fair and the introduction course, we had run out of materials (books, videotapes and exercise music).

Norwegian practitioners
2nd December 2001