Week offers information to students about China

Hilary Heintz/Exponent Photographer TEA TIME: Tea is poured Thursday at the Japanese Tea Ceremony, a part of International Awareness Week.

By Yuri Victor
Staff Writer

During International Awareness Week, students demonstrated a form of meditation that is illegal in China.

The Chinese government banned Falun Gong more than two years ago.

Since then, China has targeted more than 100 million practitioners. This has resulted in more than 10,000 individuals being placed into labor camps without trial, more than 1,000 individuals being put into mental hospitals and more than 390 individuals dying, including a child that was eight months old.

On April 6, while listening to Chinese music and wearing T-shirts with "China: Stop Persecution" written on the front, the Falun Gong club taught the audience stretches for the Falun Gong meditation.

"It's a tradition of Chinese practice meant to help acquire peace of mind," said Jikun Wei, a graduate student in Health Sciences and a member of the Falung Gong club.

"We want to try and raise awareness about this persecution and the human rights abuses involved. We want to appeal to all kindhearted people to take action and write congress."

This was one of the many events that helped expose students to different international cultures, throughout the week.

"We emphasize culture and the Falun Gong group was allowed to share an aspect of the Chinese culture, " said Michael Brzezinski, the director of the Office of International Students and Scholars.

After eight days of food, dancing, music and more, the conference ended Saturday with the International Food Bazaar and "Broken Wings," an international movie from Lebanon.

"We had people turn out for everything. I think expectations were met. We had students and community involved with the event," he said.

Ranking first in international student enrollment among all public U.S. colleges and universities, Purdue provided the opportunity for students to experience this diverse culture in one week.

"I think it's really neat. It's interesting to get to know people from all around the world. It helps you understand different cultures better," said Celia Byrnes, a junior in the School of Pharmacy. "I talked to a lot of people from countries I didn’t know anything about. Seeing it and talking to people, you remember; learning about it in school, it doesn’t really sink in."

This is the second year of this annual event. Brzezinski said he is happy with how the conference has progressed and looks forward to next year.

He said, "I hope in the future we can build upon this good start, have greater student participation, international student participation and get the whole Purdue community involved."

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