Denmark: Dafa Practitioners’ Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions during the Asian Cultural Festival

By practitioners from Europe

Performing Falun Gong exercises and traditional Chinese dances at the King’s New Square

To welcome the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit, mandated by the Denmark Foreign Affairs Ministry, a quasi-governmental organization, the “Danish Cultural Center of Development” (DCCD), organized a cultural festival entitled “Asian Comments”. The purpose of this event was to introduce Asian cultures to the Danish people before the ASEM summit through a series of local Asian people’s traditional performances. As early as June, the Denmark Falun Dafa Association received an invitation to join the event from the Københavns Internationale Teater (KIT), an organization that belongs to the DCCD and is in charge of the event operation. At that time, practitioners had just won the first prize for Community performance during the UK Edinburgh Fringe Festival and therefore were very happy to attend this cultural festival.

Just when practitioners were busy doing the preparations, the Denmark Falun Dafa Association suddenly received a note from KIT stating that they had cancelled the invitation. The reasons were: Some Chinese organizations opposed Falun Gong partaking in the event. They threatened KIT that if Falun Gong attended the event, all Chinese performers would withdraw. Through private conversations, the persons in charge of the Chinese organizations admitted that they received pressure from the Chinese government. They said, if they performed on the same stage with Falun Gong, they would encounter big trouble from the Chinese Embassy later on.

On the surface, it seemed that we encountered a big difficulty, but in fact, this provided us a great opportunity to clarify the truth, because Denmark is a country where human rights are respected and people value freedom and democracy. Obviously, the Chinese Embassy’s pressure is contradictory to the principles that local people respect. In addition, people care more about what is happening in their own country. Isn’t this a good opportunity to clarify the facts about Falun Gong?

Without a bit hesitation, we visited the organizers and had a long conversation with the person in charge of the KIT. We first introduced the basic exercises of Falun Gong, then talked about the persecution in China and explained the importance of people’s moral standard. The organizer said that the cultural festival is a pure tradition-based cultural event, and that they would not like to get involved in politics. We said that Falun Gong has absolutely no political agenda and we have no political intent to join the festival. The essence of the ancient Chinese culture is embodied in the cultivation practice of Falun Gong and we hoped that our attendance would allow more people to learn about the beauty of the Chinese culture and the truth of Falun Gong. We also expressed that no reasons that are related to introducing Asian cultures could be used as an excuse to refuse any organization to join the event, because no matter how different people’s beliefs are they all have equal rights. We sincerely hoped that we could work together with the festival organizer to uphold the pure tenet of this cultural festival. At that point, the organizer already realized that his excuse was untenable. He changed his attitude and began to think of a way to solve the problem.

In the subsequent few months, Dafa practitioners from several European countries used different ways to clarify the facts to the related people at all levels of the relevant organizations. During the whole process, all people who had talked with practitioners were moved by the facts that we explained. Therefore, they took their initiative to provide us information and suggestions and started helping us to look for solutions. But later, they became a little flinched. While having conversations with them, writing letters to them and exposing what had happened to the Danish public, we never ceased our preparation for the dance performance. While trying our best to apply for the opportunity to perform at the city hall plaza, through information provided by the organizers, we also applied for the permission to perform at the King’s New Square, another square in the downtown area.

On Saturday September 21, the last day of the 3-day festival, which also marked the climax of the event, a few dozen female practitioners from different countries in Europe dressed in beautiful “heavenly girl” and “Tang Dynasty” costumes and came to the King’s New Square. Practitioners were all aware of the meaning of this performance. With rich and colourful Dafa banners as the background and accompanied with the song “Falun Dafa is good”, practitioners gracefully performed different dances. Their beautiful performance and pure and righteous energy field attracted more and more people. During the dance performance and Falun Gong exercise demonstration, the policemen on duty who stood aside could not help but come over to say hello to the practitioners. They praised, “You are so beautiful! You are so peaceful!” Looking around as far as we could, only smiles of admiration and appreciation were flowing on people’s faces. Visitors came over to take Dafa leaflets on their own and attentively read them. Looking up, we saw the sun was surrounded by a huge aura.

The sun surrounded by a huge aura
However, the situation was still not resolved because Falun Gong practitioners were still refused to attend the cultural festival. We made a prompt decision and divided into two teams to walk on the pedestrian pavements while performing the dances. Accompanied by banners reading, “Falun Dafa Is Good!” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance”, and the song “Falun Dafa is good”, a team of practitioners walked onto the pavements while dancing. At that moment, we saw two policemen standing at the intersection, smiling at us and watching us dance along the pavements.

Practitioners walked and danced. Each time when they finished their dancing, spectators warmly applauded them. Many people highly praised, “Oh! Falun Dafa, so beautiful!” Some people even followed us all the way through.

When practitioners reached the intersections of the pedestrian pathways, they halted and made a stationary posture. Then they danced towards the city hall plaza --- the central spot of the Asian Cultural Festival. There were only a few Chinese performers on the high stage in the plaza. It seemed that was the interval between performances. We walked and danced around the plaza, using our serene and peaceful demeanour to display the truth about Dafa to the precious Chinese people.

Then practitioners walked and danced back to the King’s New Square. It took several hours to complete the round trip, but even the teenager practitioners did not say “tired”. Around 6 Pm, we ended our performance at the King’s New Square. We then decided to go together to the city hall plaza.

Performing “Flying Heavenly Girl Dance” along the pavement	Performing dances at the city hall plaza

Thus, set off with Dafa banners and accompanied with melodious music, over 40 female practitioners who were dressed in “flying heavenly girl” and red “Tang Dynasty” costumes once again danced towards the city hall plaza - the centre of the cultural festival. More than 40 practitioners presented the wonderful dances and songs to the visitors at the city hall plaza. In order to let more people learn about the truth of Dafa and support justice, practitioners will always keep righteous thoughts and righteous actions.

Translated from Chinese Clear Harmony at http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/200210/12761.html