(Minghui.org) The Falun Gong group was invited to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) on January 27, 2018 for an event celebrating the coming Chinese New Year. Practitioners demonstrated the exercises for crowds of visitors and a network TV station's report on the event featured footage of the Falun Gong exercises.
The Penn Museum invites local Falun Gong practitioners to join their event on January 27, 2018 to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year.
For many years, the Penn Museum has hosted activities to celebrate Chinese New Year. This year, besides the booths, there were dances, martial arts, music and lion dances.
A Chance to Learn Falun Gong
Museum visitors learn Falun Gong exercises.
While practitioners demonstrated the exercises by the 13-ton Sphinx, dozens of spectators followed along to learn the movements.
Phil, a practitioner who talked with spectators at the event, shared his own experience with the practice. Years ago, a close friend gave him the Falun Gong books-Zhuan Falun and Falun Gong. Forty pages into reading Zhuan Falun, Phil fell asleep. “After I woke up, I became very energetic and the dislocated hip joint that had bothered me for years had healed. My allergies and back pain eventually disappeared, too. It was a miracle,” he said.
A spectator named Andie said she’d tried many kinds of yoga before, but Falun Gong seemed unique. She was pleased to learn that she could download the teachings for free from the Falun Gong website (FalunDafa.org).
Chinese Visitors See Falun Gong in New Light
Falun Gong practitioners answer booth visitors' questions about the practice.
At the Chinese Rotunda, the practitioners’ booth had many visitors who were interested in the practice, as well as Chinese visitors who had questions about the persecution.
Terri, a practitioner who has participated in this event for years, said, “A student who was born in China and grew up in Hong Kong asked me many questions today.” Terri gladly answered all her questions and the student seemed grateful to finally learn the real story of Falun Gong and why it is persecuted by the communist regime.
Another practitioner, Mr. Leng, also spoke with many Chinese visitors. Most of what they had heard about Falun Gong was propaganda created by former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin, who single handedly initiated the persecution in 1999.
Mr. Leng told a group of Chinese students how the Chinese regime harvested organs from living practitioners incarcerated for their faith and killed numerous innocent practitioners just to profit from illegal organ transplants. The chatty students suddenly quieted down and listened carefully. They continued to ask questions. Eventually, two of them decided to withdraw their memberships in the Communist Young Pioneers to take a stance against the regime's crimes.
Media Coverage
Fox 29 films the Falun Gong practitioners meditating.
CBS 3 airs the practitioners exercising at the event in its evening news.
Fox 29 filmed the practitioners' exercise demonstration and CBS 3 aired footage of the meditation in its evening news. Robert was one of the practitioners meditating. He’s been a practitioner since he was 15 and has kept at it for the past 16 years. Before that he'd been to many churches and read some Buddhist sutras, but was still confused. “The first time I read Zhuan Falun (Falun Gong’s main book), I was amazed by how it explained such profound principles of cultivation in a way that was easy for me to understand,” said Robert, a PhD candidate in psychology.
Robert's experience with the practice has inspired him to work to help today's youth. “I’ve been a therapist for teenagers for five years and know how easy it is for young people nowadays to become lost in this world, causing problems for themselves and society. Falun Gong and its principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance can certainly help young people find their way,” Robert said.
