(Clearwisdom.net) This year's Taiwan Lantern Festival was held in Yilan Sports Arena on February 9, 2009. The "Lantern Lighting Ceremony" was held that night at 7 p. m. Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou and Yilan County Magistrate Lu Kuo-hua led the on-site audience to count down and turned on the lights. In the meantime, there were fireworks with brilliant lights for the ceremony. It was a splendid and magnificent scene. Practitioners' theme was "Falun Dafa Is Good" and they made huge, vivid, and delicate lanterns. Their lanterns shone out among the sea of countless lanterns.
Lanterns made by practitioners. They used this traditional custom to let more people know about Falun Dafa.
Lantern Festival is a holiday in traditional Chinese folklore. It is also called "Little Spring Festival." It is an important festival in Taiwan, too. Since 1990, the Taiwan Department of Transportation has organized the "Taipei Lantern Festival" every year, and there have been over one million visitors each year. This year is the Year of the Ox and the 20th Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival used an ox as the design of the main lantern. The host of this lantern festival hoped people could learn from the ox's spirit, silently working very hard, and have a great year. The lantern festival is held for 14 days, until February 22.
When asked why they participated in the lantern festival, one practitioner who had helped make the lanterns said with a smile as he stood by the lanterns, "Because we practice Falun Dafa, we have personally experienced its beauty. We follow the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in our daily lives. Our health improves, our minds are clean, and life is richer. Amidst the joy of the lantern festival, we wish to share with others the blessing of Falun Dafa."
During the Lanyang Taiwan Lantern Festival, many lanterns glowed and the square was filled with people. It was a scene full of prosperity and happiness. A person stood in front of the lantern made by practitioners for a long time and exclaimed, "I have never see such a lantern before. It's so pretty. I cannot describe it, but I feel very happy while I look at it."
Falun Dafa, which is still persecuted in China, is practiced in over 80 countries and areas all over the world and is welcomed and approved of by these countries. During the Taiwan Lantern Festival, practitioners also performed waist drums to further demonstrate the beauty of Falun Dafa and add to the happy atmosphere of the Lantern Festival. Practitioners hope to immediately stop the persecution in China. They hope that by next year's Lantern Festival, practitioners on the Chinese mainland can freely practice their cultivation. They hope the Chinese people in mainland China can completely overcome the Chinese Communist Party's poisonous propaganda of violence and lies.
