To celebrate Teacher Li's public lectures in Pasadena and Los Angeles last year, the Southern California Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference was held on February 20, 2000 on the campus of Caltech. Although it was raining that day, about 100 practitioners and interested people from Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Diego and other places attended the conference.
After practicing the five sets of exercises under the ceiling of the big circular auditorium where Teacher Li gave one of his lectures last year, many practitioners, including several western practitioners, talked about their moving experiences of practicing Falun Dafa in another auditorium. The morning speeches were in English, and the afternoon speeches were in Chinese with simultaneous English interpretation. A scientist from San Diego gave an introduction to the current biological research on pineal gland and the third eye.
Before the conference, an official from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles asked Caltech to cancel the conference that was sponsored by the Caltech Falun Club. Caltech did not bow to this demand, and as a matter of fact, sent two security officers to keep the order of the conference.
Several months ago, Caltech also refused China's request to remove the webpage of Caltech Falun Club.
After the conference, a westerner wrote to the organizer of the conference, "Congratulations on a wonderful program on Sunday! I attended the English session, and found it to be very interesting and informative. I have been on your mailing list for some time, have read about Falun Gong in the NY Times and LA Times, but your program really served as my formal introduction to the practice." He also expressed his interest in learning more about Falun Gong.