As a Falun Gong practitioner, this was my third time attending the Dafa conference in New York City. Compared with the ones in the past, this conference had a larger scale of activities, a longer time frame, much more personal improvement, and was a more effective job in promoting Fa, thus being of greater historical significance. Here are a few observations of mine:
1. A breakthrough in both content and format
Content-wise, at the previous conferences, in my personal view , speakers mainly focused on personal cultivation experience. , I listened to their stories with great interest, and learned a lot from them (The conference in Washington DC in July showed some changes, with its focal point being shifted toward "clarify the truth"). In line with the cosmic changes and rapid progress in Fa rectification, practitioners?speeches in this New York conference were all focused on how to promote Fa and clarify the truth to the people. My personal viewpoint is that this change is the manifestation of the cosmic realization in "Follow Teacher closely, steadfastly cultivating Dafa", . This was a great turning point and milestone for experience sharing conferences, it also demonstrated that our practitioners have progressed further from individual cultivation toward spreading Fa, a step closer to the state of Selflessness and Altruism in the realization that Dafa is above anything even our own cultivation.. On the format side, this was the first time that various regional Falun Dafa Associations/Assistance Centers reported their Hong-Fa experiences and results, among which the reports by the New York and Canada Falun Dafa Associations were especially comprehensive and thorough and well received.
2. Tremendous attendance from all over the world, with Western practitioners giving an outstanding presentation
There were about 2000 practitioners coming from 18 different countries and regions such as North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Among them, there were many Caucasian practitioners from European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. They joined forces with the Western practitioners from the USA and Canada and played a very important and special role during this conference. For example, during the grand parade on Sept. 6, Western practitioners walked in the front of the parade with some of them holding the wreath and portraits to commemorate the practitioners who had died as a consequence of severe abuse while in custody. The Western practitioners were very noticeable and a well-known Chinese newspaper reported: "In the parade, there are Westerners leading which is rare (in a seemingly Chinese event.)" Also when we were peacefully appealing and practicing exercises in front of the United Nations, the western practitioners ran back and forth to help maintain order, hold banners, and communicate with the police. They did an excellent job.
3. We received huge support from New York City police
In contrasted to the so called "peoples police" who abuse Falun Gong practitioners in China, the performance of the New York City police was totally different. During the conference, the New York police gave us great support, either directly or indirectly. Here are a few examples:
1) Police uphold the order, protecting practitioners from malicious attack from the bodyguards of the Chinese delegation.
It occurred at the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where the Chinese president Jiang and his delegation stayed for the Millennium World Leaders Summit. The hotel was tightly guarded and difficult to get near. One practitioner in a suit, walked in the hotel nonchalantly and distributed material about the truth of Falun Gong to every person he encountered. When the material was almost gone, the Chinese guards with the delegation noticed him. The guards grabbed this practitioner, dragging him upstairs. At this moment, two American policemen on duty spotted them and ordered the Chinese bodyguards to let go of our practitioner. Since it was on US soil, the Chinese guards went away sulking.
2) "You are very law-abiding"
On the evening of Sept. 5, several hundred practitioners gathered across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to hold a peaceful appeal. . To the right of the practitioners Tibetan demonstrators were shouting their protests. The police saw us practicing peacefully and holding the banners calmly and serenely. They treated us differently.. Only a few policemen were patrolling on our side. Some of them were chatting with us. One policewoman was very interested in Dafa. She accepted English versions of the books, Zhuan Falun and Falun Gong. Her supervisor also came over to look at the books, and said to our practitioners" If everyone behaved like you, it would make our police life very easy. You are very law abiding." Later, the Tibetan demonstrators became very emotional, and the police were afraid of them losing control; so they sent over a Crowd Control Squad with shields. The police on our side explained that this had nothing to do with us.
3) Police helped us by guarding us voluntarily
On Sept 7th and 8th, most of our practitioners were practicing in front of the United Nations to promote Falun Dafa. There were several unidentified individuals trying to slip inconspicuously into our ranks. Some of them claimed they were practitioners. Some practitioners noticed the situation and reported it to the police standing nearby. The police were very friendly and helped us by using roadblocks to block the entrance to the road, leaving only a single passage to our appeal site , which they personally guarded. Only practitioners with yellow T-shirts were allowed to pass through. In 20 minutes, the police stopped three groups of people who tried to break in.
4) Police gave a "thumbs up" to show their support
On September 7th and 8th, some of us drove cars with visible side banners around the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where the Chinese delegation was staying. We wanted the Chinese delegation to know that Falun Dafa practitioners were everywhere. There were police spread around the Hotel and on every street. Since they were on duty, they were not supposed to take our flyers, nor could they express their opinions to us. But when our cars passed by, we saw that the police either winked their eyes at us, or nodded to us with a smile or supported us with thumbs up.
4. A unique way of promoting Falun Dafa in a Car Parade
It was very creative to promote Falun Dafa using a Car Parade. It created a beautiful scene on many streets of New York City. There were about sixteen to seventeen vehicles of different types in the car parade. On both sides of every vehicle hung a banner with words like "Falun Dafa Is Great", or "Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance" or just "Falun Dafa" . Along the route we drove, we caught the attention of many pedestrians. In each car there would be at least two practitioners, one was the driver, the other one distributed material. Lots of people asked for the material with great interest. Here is an interesting incident. . While we were waiting for a traffic light, there was a young man in the car beside us. When he saw we were distributing material by holding them out of the window, he reached out his hand and wanted to get a copy. But his car was a little too far away from our car and the light turned green. Cars started moving. This young man suddenly turned the wheel to be closer to us and finally got his copy. Another time, again when we were waiting for a green light, someone knocked on our rear window. We saw a Chinese man eagerly waving to us to for a copy of the material. After he got it, he walked back to his car quickly just as the light turned greenAgain, we were waiting for a green light. A taxi driver beside us asked for the flyer. The light turned green, cars started to move. Suddenly the car behind us honked. We turned back and saw the driver in the car behind signaled us to give him a copy too?
5. Attention from the New Yorkers and major media organizations
We received extensive attention from the media. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and major Chinese newspaper such WorldDaily, XingDao Daily and Ming Bao, all reported the peaceful activities of our practitioners using a lot of column space with pictures. Some TV channels also continuously covered this event. Many New York City residents asked us: "What is Falun Gong?" Here is an interesting item: Since some of our banners read "Free Falun Gong in China", and some Americans thought "Falun Gong" was a persons name. So they asked our practitioners who Falun Gong was. After the practitioners explained to them, the Americans came to understand what it was. During the parade, there were some Americans asking us "where are these folks in beautiful white dresses coming from?" When they heard the Chinese governments brutal persecution of kind-hearted people, they shook their heads and said: "Unreasonable!" There was another thing worth noting: On Sept. 7, when we participated in the Car Parade and passed by a small alley and were waiting for the traffic light, an old man in ragged clothes, walked up to us. He took out a small yellow flag with "Falun Dafa" on it. This old man told us he picked it up from the street. He had read the newspaper and knew our story. Then he decided to save the flag for us carefully, and wanted to return it to us. We were so touched by his heart that we were speechless.
6. Be alert, safeguard our group activities
Because of the great number of participants at this event, there were some unidentified individuals trying to slip in for their own purpose. When we practiced exercises at the Fort Park in the morning of Sept. 5, some practitioners noticed there were several people wearing the same T-shirt as ours that slipped into our group, but they did not do the exercises. Instead, one of them posed some gestures while the others were busy taking pictures of him. Also they were heard talking something like "Now you have these photos for political asylum, there should be no problem in getting the green card!" Moreover, on September 7th and 8th, when most practitioners practiced and promoted Fa in front of the United Nations building, some practitioners noticed there were a few suspicious individuals wandering around the outside of the fence taking individual close-up pictures of our practitioners . Some of them even attempted to break directly into our practice site, but the police immediately stopped them. In fact, this type of interference from unwanted individuals and special agents are already well known. The most recent occurrence was in Washington DC where a practitioner had been followed; the window of one practitioners car was broken, the inside of the car was messed up, the doors and gas lid were pried open. The tires of one practitioners car were damaged. Practitioners phones had been tapped and the lock on the door had marks of being pried, etc. In light of these disturbances, we should safeguard ourselves to avoid any losses to our effort.
From Washington practitioners on Sept. 11, 2000
