Initially, I had planned to interview members of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) to gain insights into controversy of the Dalai Lama presence and to elucidate the process of meeting with the school board . After contacting one member of CSSA, I received his verbal rejection of my interview request. Consequently, I sent an official interview request to the CSSA general email account in the hopes of receiving an official rejection, even an automated one. However, I never received a reply to my email.
Therefore, I decided to cover the controversy by briefly introducing the conflict between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government and by illustrating the controversy in a more objective way, namely by presenting the whole story as told by different voices on both sides with as little bias as possible. The B-roll that I used contained mostly video clips of the Dalai Lama demonstrating how his public image on the international stage compares to most people portrayed by media. To offer an alternative perspective of the controversy, I used the clip of a news release with a spokesperson of the Chinese government as a counterpoint.
In the process, I discovered that by seeing the Dalai Lama’s image in mainstream media only, I had not initially understood the profound, historically informed conflict between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government. I can imagine that most students in China have encountered the same problem and, by not realizing the underlying purpose of opposing, lacked the impetus to advocate China’s unification.
Aura Location: