On 5 July at noon, Melbourne’s Polish community held a “Falun Dafa Culture Festival,” specially inviting a Falun Dafa group to perform. Through exercise demonstrations and traditional Chinese artistic performances, Falun Dafa practitioners brought a distinctly featured cultural showcase to community residents.
Every Sunday at noon, the Polish House Syrena community hall in Rowville, Melbourne’s south-eastern district, becomes lively. Community residents sit around tables, savouring authentic Polish cuisine served on-site while chatting leisurely with family and friends; the stage frequently features music and dance performances, and during important festivals, men and women of all ages dress up to celebrate. This free, open community gathering has long since become an important tradition for Melbourne’s Polish community to carry on its culture and strengthen bonds of friendship.
This particular Sunday (5 July) gathering was exceptionally wonderful. Melbourne’s Falun Dafa group was invited to perform exercise demonstrations, waist drum performances, yangqin solos, guzheng solos, and female vocal solos for those present. Audience members, while enjoying Polish cuisine, were also immersed in traditional Chinese arts; the colourful and varied performances added a rich atmosphere of cultural exchange to this sunny afternoon.
A Polish Falun Dafa practitioner served as MC for the day.
Worth mentioning is that the event organisers of the Polish community also specially designed a “Falun Dafa Culture Festival” poster for that day’s gathering, highlighting the themes of “conveying the beauty of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” and “working hand in hand to build a friendly community,” and featuring lotus flowers symbolising purity and elegance, allowing community residents to more directly feel the harmony and beauty of Falun Dafa.
Photographed the Exercise Demonstration on Their Phones — Community Resident: “I Want to Follow Along and Learn to Practise the Exercises”
“I really, truly enjoyed today’s programme very much; they deeply moved my heart and made me feel very touched,” said Lidia Wiktorowicz, who works in healthcare, happily. She and her friends all felt very happy — “Today I spent a truly wonderful time.”
“I really love activities like this that showcase the characteristics of different ethnicities and cultures,” she said. “My favourite parts were the solo singing, and also the yangqin — that music was very soft and very beautiful; the melody has been lingering in my mind the whole time. It really is very beautiful and very pleasant to listen to.”
Wiktorowicz heard about Falun Dafa for the first time that day. “I took materials introducing Falun Dafa, and also recorded some videos on my phone and photographed the exercise movements — when I get home I want to follow along and learn to practise the exercises.”
She said that Falun Dafa’s cultivation principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” are “wonderful, truly beautiful” and that “everything they presented today was very impressive.”
“I hope that in the future there will be more activities like this, and I also hope that more people can come together and appreciate these wonderful performances,” she said.
Polish-Australian Resident: “The Falun Dafa Group is Truly Wonderful”
Polish resident Dana Bialczak first heard about Falun Dafa when she watched Shen Yun for the first time last year, and was deeply moved by this world-class visual spectacle. This year she watched Shen Yun’s brand new Melbourne programme once again. On the day, upon discovering that the group performing at the community hall was actually a Falun Dafa group, Bialczak was filled with pleasant surprise.
“Today’s programme was so beautiful, so wonderful — it was truly relaxing, truly colourful and varied,” Bialczak said in praise; the performers’ costumes were very beautiful, she added, especially suited to this kind of occasion.
She said that from this “Falun Dafa Culture Festival” she felt kindness, friendship, and teamwork.
“They are a really wonderful group — truly outstanding, especially the instrumental performances,” she also said, adding that today’s performances were very wonderful: “Every single programme I liked.”
Finally, she sincerely said to the Falun Dafa practitioners: “You did a truly wonderful job — please keep working hard.”
Community Member: “The World Needs ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance’”
Community member Krystyna Teper and a group of close friends also attended that day’s gathering; they all greatly appreciated the cultural tradition of kindness and selfless friendship that the Falun Dafa practitioners displayed.
“I think we need more of the ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance’ ideals. Today’s world needs to restore traditional values, because people have already lost respect and tolerance for one another. Especially young people — going out and seeing a neighbour without even saying hello — this makes me feel that society today is completely different from before.”
Seeing the Falun Dafa practitioners on stage freely expressing their faith, Teper and her friends were very happy. They greatly loved the lotus pendants inscribed with “Falun Dafa Is Good” and wore them as earrings. Teper said: “That symbolises love and peace.”
The Polish community is one of Australia’s long-established European immigrant communities. After World War II, large numbers of Polish immigrants and displaced persons came to Australia, with many settling in Victoria and gradually establishing churches, community centres, and cultural organisations. The Polish House hall in Melbourne remains an important gathering place for the local Polish community to this day.
Every Sunday, people sit around tables together sharing the flavours of their homeland, carrying on their culture through music and conversation. From postwar immigrants rebuilding their homes, to today inviting people of different ethnicities to gather together — what this community centre bears witness to is not only the passing on of the torch of Polish culture from generation to generation, but also the multicultural exchange and endless vitality of Melbourne.
Translated and summarised from Epoch Times (Chinese edition), 5 July 2026.
Read original article