The Asian Studies Department of Rice University in Houston, Texas hosted a seminar entitled "Falun Gong as a Cultural Revitalization Movement - A Historian Looks at Recent Events in China" on October 20th, 2000. The speaker was Professor David Ownby from University of Montreal, Canada. More than sixty people, including Chinese and Western scholars, university professors, students and a number of Falun Gong practitioners, attended the seminar.
Professor Ownby holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, and specializes in Chinese history and culture. Since last year, he has focused much of his research on the study of Falun Gong. Dr. Ownby is not a Falun Gong practitioner himself. However, he has read all the books by Master Li, attended a number of experience-sharing conferences, and interviewed a large number of Falun Gong practitioners.
At the very beginning of his lecture, he said: "It is very difficult to describe Falun Gong in a few words, just like we can not adequately describe what a Baked Alaska is by saying it is a dessert made of starch and cream? The fact that I chose the analogy of Baked Alaska to describe Falun Gong is an indication of how highly I think of Falun Gong." In his lecture, Dr. Ownby described the events around Falun Gong from a historian's point of view. He then listed what he considers to be the major characteristics of Falun Gong, the first of which as being profoundly moral. As a renowned scholar of China and Chinese history, Professor Ownby unintentionally clarified the truth about Falun Gong when he went over some of the accusations that the Chinese Government has made against Falun Gong, and explained why they were not true. He also highlighted the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government.
After his prepared lecture, Dr. Ownby conducted a Q & A session, and answered a number of questions posed by the eager audience. His answers were always thoughtful, objective and fair to all. At the end of the seminar, the audience members showed their appreciation to Professor Ownby with a round of warm applause.
After the lecture, Ms. Denell Wiseman, who works at the Rice Library, announced that she was holding a viewing of Master Li's 9-day videotaped lecture at a nearby community center. A number of people were interested in attending the lecture and learning more about Falun Gong.
This kind of seminar inspires academic researchers and scholars to do more study on Falun Gong. As a practitioner, it is easy to see that Falun Dafa is going to bring a brighter future and a new culture to the entire mankind.
A Houston Falun Dafa Practitioner, 10-24-2000
