United States: 800 Residents of Chinatown Spend the Evening with Falun Gong Practitioners During Historical Blackout

On Friday the 15th the electricity was still not working in Manhattan's Chinatown. In spite of many difficulties, we decided to not cancel our weekly Friday night film show in Chinatown's Roosevelt Park. It was very dark and extremely difficult to set up the equipment. One difficulty was deciding where to set up the screen. We had about 800 Chinese sitting in the dark waiting for the show to start. What else could they do without lights and electricity in their apartments? We finally found a spot where everybody could see. Looking at the huge crowd that was about to learn the truth about the persecution, I was deeply moved but also concerned about the safety of our equipment. Considering the darkness it would have been difficult to react to any unforeseen problems. We were also short of practitioners, since the subway wasn't running and many couldn't get to the location.

At 8.30 we could finally start showing "Journey to the West" - a very popular and very funny Chinese TV-series, based on the cultivation story of the Monkey King, who is also briefly mentioned in Zhuan Falun. There was still no light around--our projector was powered by a small gas generator. I looked at all the faces and thought I rarely had seen Chinese laughing like this. The adults and children were enjoying themselves.

I thought this would be a good story for the media, who were looking for great pictures from the blackout. At around nine o'clock I called a practitioner to ask him to call a few newspapers. As soon as I had him on the line the lights in Chinatown went back on! Immediately, our whole audience started cheering. Chinatown had been without electricity for 29 hours. I told the person on the phone "Never mind--the lights just came back on!"

Understandably, many Chinese went back home and we concluded the show and our short Falun Dafa films at around 10.30 with a smaller audience. One of the Westerners who organises the film shows told me recently "I don't feel like it's us (practitioners) and them (the Chinese) any more. When I go to Chinatown I feel like I'm seeing my friends." I agreed and felt very fortunate that we were in Chinatown with hundreds of our friends during this historical blackout.