Dalai Lama-Rama!

[periluna]

From April 11th-15th, the 14th Dalai Lama visited Seattle for a series of community events. Thanks to John I was able to score one of the limited number of tickets set aside for UW students, and on Monday the 14th I went to Hec Edmundson Pavillion to hear the Dalai Lama speak. While waiting for the program to begin my friend Morgan asked why, if

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[anonymous]

Seahawks Stadium is a giant echo-trapping chamber, and its PA isn't exactly top shelf, so when combined with the Dalai Lama's non-American accent, only one in three words could be understood. Everyone hung on them regardless. You'd hear him deliver a handful of indecipherable phrases, then there would be a moment of group clarity at the end of sentence, like so: "...annamha, huhay...dehatogaa...and therefore, we must all practice compassion!" Everyone would cheer loudly, both for what he had to say and (I think) because they were so excited to understand him. (Liberal guilt was kicking everyone pretty hard; I doubt anyone in attendance likes to think of himself or herself as a "welcome to America, now speak English" type of person, so we strained very hard to bridge the gap

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[periluna]

Sorry you had trouble understanding the Dalai Lama, that sounds frustrating. The stadium we were in was pretty small and had perfect sound, but I still missed a fair amount due to his accent. Haha I love your assessment of the audience, sounds spot on :) The majority of the audience at the event I went to were undergrad college kids (with the occasional grad student or professor thrown in). During the hour we were all sitting there waiting for the event to begin I had fun listening to the students talk-- you think WE don't know much about the Dalai Lama....wow. Comparatively, my Wikipedia-gleaned knowledge is enough to write a definitive biography.