Eleven thousand people sat shoulder to shoulder in Matthew Knight Arena on Friday, gathered collectively to witness a once-in-a-lifetime lecture opportunity from Tenzin Gyatso — his holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. @@http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography@@ @@http://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/his_holiness_the_14th_dalai_lama@@
As the ceremony began, those in attendance sat anxiously on the edge of their seats, watching the red and yellow-robed monk’s every movement while several more watched in real time online. Minutes passed. People fidgeted in their seats. Finally, under the collective gaze of thousands of students, faculty and the general public, Gyatso approached the front of the stage to begin his speech.
A blanket of silence fell over the stadium. Somewhere in the audience, a baby wailed.
With his first words, the 77-year-old man shattered the anticipatory tension that hung in the air. Softly, slowly, he began his speech. Each influx of his voice intimately addressed the crowd gathered before him — not like a professional speaker domineering the podium, but rather like an aged man in conversation with a close friend. Even without a microphone, his message would have carried loud and clear to gawkers hundreds of seats deep in the comfortable silence generated by absolute awe.
However, for some on campus, his message rings false.
“He is kind of an enemy to Chinese,” Fengyi Zhang, an international student from China said of the Dalai Lama. “If he’s here we cannot get angry or something … but we still feel uncomfortable.” @@http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/fengyi*zhang@@
Zhang’s reaction to Gyatso’s visit was primarily of political discomfort. Although on an ideological scale he disagrees with the Lama’s teachings and political objectives, he didn’t feel overly threatened by Gyatso’s appearance. However, within the UO Chinese community, Zhang says that there are others who feel more strongly about the issue. A friend of Zhang’s, who declined an interview with the Emerald, skipped classes on the day that Gyatso appeared on campus. Should there be any further involvement between the UO and the Buddhist monk, she plans on transferring schools.
Visits from the Dalai Lama to schools across North America have also warranted more substantial consequences from the Chinese government.
According to reports from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, three months after hosting His Holiness for a speech in September 2009 and presenting him with an honorary degree, they were dropped from the Chinese Ministry of Education’s list of accredited universities. @@http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/honoring-the-dalai-lama-may-have-cost-the-u-of-calgary-its-accreditation-in-china/21079@@ @@http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=26552&t=1@@
For Chinese students at discredited universities, this generates uncertainty regarding the value of their degrees and their future job security in China.
Tulane University in New Orleans plans to host Gyatso as the commencement speaker at their graduation ceremony on May 18. Michael DeMattia, a news editor at the Tulane Hullabaloo, reports that tensions are high regarding the possible Chinese denunciation of that campus as well. @@http://tulane.edu/phonebook.cfm@@
“We don’t have any confirmation on whether their degrees are going to be blacklisted,” DeMattia said. “Many of the Chinese students are concerned that they won’t be able to find employment after they graduate, regardless.”
In contrast to the Dalai Lama’s appearance at both Calgary and Tulane, Gyatso’s visit to the UO appears relatively low-key. Instead of presenting Gyatso with an honorary degree, which according to Dave Hubin, the assistant to University President Michael Gottfredson, have only ever been bestowed upon four or five recipients, Gyatso received the still prestigious, albeit more-common Presidential Medal. In addition, his lecture was an optional event for students in comparison to his appearance at Tulane’s commencement – an almost obligatory event for graduating students. @@http://distinguishedscholars.uoregon.edu/node/4@@ @@http://dailyemerald.com/2013/05/10/the-dalai-lama-visits-eugene-at-last/@@
Kaiping Zhang, a UO Business and Economy librarian who moved from China to the U.S. in the ’80s, believes the prominence of the event presents an important distinction. Considering that Gyatso’s appearance was unlikely to anger the relatives of Chinese relatives, as his appearance at graduation likely would, she believes that the Chinese government is unlikely to respond to the Dalai Lama’s speech. @@http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/kaiping*zhang@@
“I don’t think the university has to worry about it,” Zhang said. “On the whole, it’s not going to be controversial, and I don’t think it will affect Chinese students.”
According to Hubin, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Presidential Medal specifically because his ideals of global peace and inter-religious unity reflect those of the University as a whole.
“It’s a tremendous event in the university’s history, and I am glad we are able to bestow the Presidential Medal,” Hubin said.
When making the decision to present the Presidential Medal to Gyatso, the UO was unaware of the possibility of its degrees being blacklisted by the Chinese Ministry of Education.
“It played absolutely no role in our decision,” Hubin said.
Though Hubin said that he is uncertain of the likelihood of the UO being blacklisted, for some students, the mere appearance of the Dalai Lama on campus brought up concerns about the UO’s future involvement with the Tibetan activist.
At the moment, Zhang remains unconcerned about the safety of his UO degree in China. In his opinion, merely attending the same university where the Dalai Lama appeared is not enough to anger the Chinese government. However, he claims that if the UO displays the intent of aiding Gyatso in what Zhang believes are misled political attempts, he will seriously reconsider his choice of American universities.
“America is a kind of like freedom country, so people can do anything they want because it is legal,” Zhang said. “Even though I feel uncomfortable, we cannot stop things like this.”
