Early Thanksgiving morning, practitioners from Kansas City, Columbia, St. Louis, and as far away as Tennessee gathered in downtown St. Louis to take part in the second largest annual Turkey day parade in the United States. Organizers indicated that the local NBC affiliate would broadcast the event, and expected to reach an audience of over ten million people, not counting the 100,000 who would witness the parade in person.
My daughter and I arrived in chilly St. Louis at about 7:30 a.m. Coming off the exit ramp, it was easy to spot the Falun Gong practitioners at a nearby parking lot, as they were all wearing bright yellow-gold sweatshirts, khaki pants, and white gloves. Everyone was quite busy putting the finishing touches on the trailer on which our practitioners would soon be riding. I stepped out into the 32 degree air, put on a yellow sweatshirt, and started setting up the video camera and tripod. In just a few minutes a Russian-American practitioner, who knew a lot about cameras, came over and gave me a lot of good advice.
Soon it was time to take up our position, so everyone left the parking lot and got in line a few blocks away on Broadway Avenue. Here we would wait for two hours before beginning the parade. Although it was cold, everyone was in high spirits. Practitioners brought three banners: a large blue one, which led the way, that said "Falun Dafa." There was a yellow banner which said, "Falun Dafa, A High Level Meditation Practice for Body, Mind, and Spirit." Finally, there was a third banner with large Chinese characters and the English words, "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." Three or four practitioners carried each banner, and approximately fifteen more walked behind the wagon.
Eight practitioners manned the trailer. Three faced either side of the street, and performed exercises one, three, and four, while two other practitioners sat in meditation (exercise 5) on an elevated section of the trailer. Large speakers were strapped to the roof of the SUV which pulled the wagon, and from these speakers came the familiar sounds of Falun Gong music and Master Li's voice.
Floats, marching bands, and interesting exhibits of all kinds joined together to make up the parade. In front of our group, a supermarket chain had built a gigantic motorized grocery cart in which three or four people were riding. Another wagon carried an Elvis impersonator. Meanwhile, marching bands filled the air with drumbeats and the blaring sounds of brass instruments. Behind us was a model T police car, which periodically blasted a very loud siren.
Finally, it was time to begin. The announcer gave us the sign to move out, so our group started walking up Broadway Avenue for several blocks, at which time we would turn left on Market Street. Running ahead, I found a perch on an elevated landing of a building. From this vantage point, I had a very clear view of the practitioners as they rounded the corner and proceeded down Market Street. Sometimes, the parade stopped moving and we had to wait for awhile. During these moments, the practitioners walking behind the wagon also started doing the exercises to demonstrate Falun Gong to the crowd.
People lining the streets were very curious and very friendly. They waved to us and we waved back. We were not allowed to pass out literature, but we demonstrated Falun Gong to many thousands of people that morning. I ran ahead once again in order to get in position to photograph the practitioners marching down the street with the famous St. Louis Arch in the background. It was a beautiful sight.
After the parade, one practitioner said, "I felt like Master Li was leading us with his voice. Our trailer looks like a ship, and the banner looks like its sail, which reminded me of Teacher's poem, The Knowing Heart:
'With Teacher at the helm, the Fa saves all beings,/One sail is hoisted, one hundred million sails follow.' Thinking of this," the practitioner said, "brought tears to my eyes."
Later, we walked over to the park by the giant Arch and took some video of practitioners doing the exercises near a pond. Then, because we had relatives visiting from out of town, we headed home early so as not to disappoint our family. Many practitioners got together for group study for the rest of the day in St. Louis.
As we ate our annual feast that day, we could not help thinking of the many thousands of practitioners illegally detained and abused in prisons and labor camps in China. This would be no holiday for them, and for them there would be no feast. They would be lucky to get anything to eat, and to not get beaten. Hopefully, our activities in St. Louis not only helped introduce Falun Gong to the American people, but also perhaps it helped inform people about the terrible persecution taking place half way around the world.