Australia: Falun Dafa Shines at the 2004 "Carnival of Flowers" Parade in Toowoomba, Queensland

Falun Dafa Practitioners from the southeast Queensland area joined the Toowoomba "Carnival of Flowers" Parade for the fifth consecutive year on Saturday September the 18th 2004. This is one of the largest parades and festivals in southeast Queensland, with an estimated 140,000 people attending.

As this was also the 100 year anniversary of the city of Toowoomba, Queensland's Premier, Mr Peter Beattie, attended the festivities and was a guest of honor at the parade. As our float and procession went past the main announcer's stand, Mr Beattie smiled and waved to the practitioners.

Floats in this year's parade had to be largely decorated with fresh flowers. Practitioners in the procession wore flower corsages and our Chinese dancers were adorned with beautiful flower wreathes in their hair. The beauty and elegance of our procession had a very positive impact on the crowd along the route, with much enthusiastic waving and supportive comments. A local practitioner met a man she knows from the local radio station in the crowd and shared a few words with him. He was most impressed with our procession, saying, "Your presentation is great! Could you please thank everyone in the group for bringing something so beautiful to Toowoomba!"

A woman was reading out the words "Falun Dafa" and another lady sitting next to her replied, "Yes, Falun Dafa. I know it is becoming very popular and lots of people are doing it. There is some persecution going on in China. It is so stupid. How can you persecute something so beautiful?" After hearing that Jiang Zemin, who instigated the persecution, is being sued in many countries, one of them replied, "I'm not surprised. I hope he gets what he deserves."

As one of the announcers was sharing with the crowd about our presentation, he paused as our "The World Needs Truth-Compassion-Tolerance" banner went past, and then said, "Isn't this so true. The world really does need these principles of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance."

The parade was a grand success and the beauty of Dafa delighted many thousands of people. On the way home, a couple of practitioners stopped at a fruit and vegetable market, still dressed in their yellow outfits, and people who had attended the parade positively remarked about our participation and asked questions about Dafa. More and more people are indeed being touched by "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance."