Radio Free Asia: Irish Falun Gong Practitioners Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese in all parts of Europe held activities in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Irish Falun Gong practitioners introduced traditional Chinese culture to Irish citizens and celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with them in Dublin city centre.

“The moon looks brilliant and round in my hometown,” goes a Chinese poem. Although they don't get the day off work, overseas Chinese in all parts of Europe came up with various ideas and activities to celebrate their festival during the weekend around Mid-autumn. Last weekend, Irish Falun Gong practitioners took to the streets to introduce the traditional Chinese festival to locals. A reporter interviewed a practitioner coordinating the activities in Dublin.

Recorded music being played on the streets could be heard. “Because next Tuesday is our traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, this Saturday we Irish Falun Gong practitioners took advantage of the occasion to spend the festival with overseas Chinese. Our activities included exercise demonstrations, traditional Chinese Fan Dancing as well as making paper lotus flowers. Then we translated people's names into Chinese and also used Chinese Calligraphy to write down their names. They were happy to receive a gift like this.”

The practitioner went on to introduce to the reporter the situation on the Dublin streets where people could take in the atmosphere of Chinese culture.

“We are on the busiest street in Dublin, where numerous cars are passing and there are lots of pedestrians. Our activities started at noon and ended at 6:00 p.m. At first the weather was a little cloudy, but later it was sunny; the weather was quite good, and there was a pleasant atmosphere here. There were many people around watching the dancing.”

During their activities they also introduced Chinese family values to Irish citizens and the importance of family reunions in the hope that Irish citizens fond of a beautiful life could pay attention to the broken families ruined by violence and autocracy in China and in other parts of the world, the practitioner was quoted as saying.

The above is a report by RFA reporter Tian Yi in Germany.