[Minghui Net]
More than 180 Falun Gong practitioners from New York, Philadelphia, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Washington D.C, Virginia and Maryland participated in
the Oriental Cherry Day parade on March 31, 2001, in Washington D.C.
At 8 am, several thousand people from 60-70 different groups gathered on
the grassy field in front of Capitol Hill. Falun Gong practitioners prepared a
float and numerous eye-catching banners that read, "Falun Dafa,"
"Fa Rectify the Universe," "The Buddha-light illuminates
everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities" (translated from Chinese) and
so on.
It was raining that morning, and some of the practitioners guessed that
there might not be many people coming to watch the parade. However, the rain
diminished when practitioners gradually spread out and opened their banners
and by the time the parade started, the rain had stopped completely.
The parade ran from 7th to 17th street along
Constitution Boulevard. Accompanied by the beautiful exercise music, Falun
Gong practitioners demonstrated the smooth and harmonic exercises to thousands
of applauding onlookers. Interestingly, three policemen on duty also tried to
follow along with the exercises.
The parade ended at around noon. Afterwards, practitioners scattered to
different places around the Capital to Hongfa (spread Falun Dafa), demonstrate
the exercises, share ideas, distribute truth-telling materials, and so on. The
next day, many practitioners also participated in the large-scale group
exercise held monthly in Washington D.C.
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