(Clearwisdom.net) On July 4, practitioners from the New England area participated in the Independence Day parade held in Bristol, Rhode Island. This is the seventh year the group has participated, and the practitioners' culture-rich performance was well-received.

The Falun Gong procession consisted of three parts: a waist drum troupe, a dragon dance troupe, and a decorated float on which practitioners demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises. The 2.5 mile long parade lasted three and a half hours. Throughout the parade, the practitioners' performance was met with enthusiastic applause. Many spectators asked how the practitioners were able to be so energetic.

One spectator looked at the Falun Gong website information on a practitioner's T-shirt and said that she would go online to read more about the practice. The practitioner told her that her husband had died in China while he was being persecuted and the little girl on the float was her daughter. The spectator said that she condemned the persecution and wished Falun Gong well.

A Vietnamese couple who fled to the US from communist Vietnam said that they knew Falun Gong is good and that the Chinese Communist Party persecutes the practice. They said that they would visit Falun Dafa websites to learn more about the practice.