(Clearwisdom.net) On August 4, 2002, the 56^th annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest performing arts festival, was unveiled in the old but beautiful City of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The opening ceremony parade this year was extremely grand. Nearly 4,000 participants marched in the parade. Falun Gong practitioners were dressed in their splendid attire. With a beautiful float, elegant dances and their peaceful demeanor, practitioners displayed the beauty and sacred nature of Dafa for an audience of over 200,000, winning first prize for their float. This caused a sensation throughout the local media. Many influential national newspapers including Daily Telegraph and The Scotsman covered the story on their front pages and in feature articles. The wonderfulness of Falun Dafa illuminated the Edinburgh festival.

There were many touching stories before and after the parade.

Since the deadline had already passed when local practitioners found out information about the parade and decided to attend, and since the standard required to join the contest was quite high, practitioners were not sure whether they would be able to obtain the participation approval, even though they quickly designed the float and parade procession arrangement. However, the day after practitioners sent in the application form, the parade organizer personally phoned practitioners and highly praised our design and immediately approved our application. During the few days that followed, the art festival committee granted whatever we requested. The overall application proceeded smoothly. We understood this was due to Dafa's mighty power and practitioners' wisdom and righteous thoughts obtained from the Fa. On the other hand, we also learned the lesson that we will try to file the application and do the preparation in advance where there is such a chance.

The practitioners who were in charge of designing the float came to a practitioner's house two weeks in advance to prepare the final design. The local practitioner's parents and wife do not cultivate Dafa, yet they took good care of them and helped with many tasks. They also drove us from place to place. With time being so limited, their help played an important role. They also drove to Edinburgh to watch our performance. Seeing the parents working so hard for Dafa, local practitioners highly praised them and the old couple cheerfully smiled.

(see also http://clearharmony.net/articles/6030.html)