(Clearwisdom.net) On the morning of December 7, 2003, Falun Gong practitioners from Canada and San Francisco joined their fellow local practitioners in San Jose for the 22nd Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday Parade sponsored by NBC in Northern California. NBC broadcasted the parade live to millions of people on Channel 11.
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| Parade precession | "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" | Exercise demo team |
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| Dance of seven fairies | Fan dance | Colorful lantern dance |
The annual Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday Parade is one of the ten biggest parades in the U.S. Falun Gong is the only participating ethnic-Chinese group among the one hundred and twenty groups and attracted a lot of attention. The dazzling costumes and beautiful fairy dance performance, the colorful lantern dance, the fan dance, the butterfly dance and the solo dance won waves of applause. Western practitioners demonstrated the exercises together.
When we passed the NBC stage, the cameras pointed to Falun Gong's procession from different angles. NBC's host introduced Falun Gong and said that more than 100 million people in more than 60 countries in the world practice Falun Gong and follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. Every morning, Falun Gong practitioners do their exercises in parks for health and peace. Falun Gong's Independence Day Parade procession in Redwood City this year won the first place. This is the first time they participated in the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday Parade in San Jose. Their lanterns say "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.
The national broadcast of NBC on the same day covered Falun Gong's procession for more than one minute, allowing viewers to see the practitioners' demeanor. It created a sharp contrast to the Jiang regime's lies about Falun Gong.
After the parade, Ms. Gaines, one of the organizers of the parade, told the media at her interview, "We know that Falun Gong practitioners in China are persecuted. The American public is concerned about it."
