Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Mystery Chinese Celebration in Civic Center

On Sunday, March 19th, there was a stage set up for a celebration involving singing and dancing.

The event seemed to involve lots of Chinese women in brightly colored outfits.

I asked my Sinologist buddy James Parr what the occasion could be, and he wrote: "The backdrop reads "Overseas Descendants of Yan and Huang Ancestor Worship Ceremony." Descendants of Yan and Huang (Yanhuang Zisun) is a poetic way of describing han Chinese. The four slogans in vertical text read "the same root, the same ancestors/race" and "Peace and harmony." Knowing that, however, does not in any way explain this event. Who organized it? What was the point? Where did those dresses come from?"

I asked the woman above if this was part of the Falun Gong cult, and she laughed before replying, "No. It has to do with clearing out dark spaces."

To underscore her testimony, a few Falun Gong meditators were seated on the ground at the other end of the plaza.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and were even posing in groups with random tourists walking through Civic Center.

If anyone knows what the mystery is about, please get in touch at fototales2001@yahoo.com.

3 comments:

saveyorsol said...

I'm curious why you choose to refer to Falun Gong as a cult?

Civic Center said...

Dear Saveyorsol: I refer to most new religious movements as cults.

Hattie said...

A mystery to me, as well. I guess it's one of those things we have to regard as just "their culture."