Falun Gong followers are always looking for any opportunity to promote their leader Li Hongzhi’s teachings and/or protest.
And the Chinese New Year is apparently no exception, or at least until this year.
Parade organizers in New York City appeared to resent the group’s self-centered and often seemingly obsessive efforts.
Last year Hongzhi’s devotees handed out flyers and did their exercises, rather than just parade and wave like other participants.
One community leader said, “Lunar New Year is supposed to be all the Chinese forgetting about politics for one day, just one day, just simply celebrating the culture, the traditions.”
The president of one Chinese business association made it clearer, “Celebrate, but don’t promote,” reported the Flushing Times.
Ultimately Falun Gong followers were included in the parade, but only upon the condition they not engage in self-promotion or otherwise disrupt the annual celebration in any way.
Yesterday when they paraded in New York’s Chinatown the group “drew no reaction from the crowd,”
reports Newsday.
It appears many within the Chinese American community are growing tired of the group and its leader.
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