SAN FRANCISCO—Giovanni Vassallo, an executive coordinator at UCSF, is also the president of Bay Area Friends of Tibet, where, for the past 10 years he has been trying to educate the public of the truth of the situation in Tibet, the human rights conditions there, and also to support Tibetan culture and the idea of freedom in both Tibet and China.

Mr. Vassallo has a unique background. When he was 10 years old, his father, an Italian American from Sicily, sent him and his brother to a monastery in Nepal to study Tibetan Buddhism. They took vows to become monks during their one-year stay in Nepal. After coming back to the Bay Area, they lived in Forestville where their father had a monastery.

Referring to the the Tibetan dance [Tibetan Dance of Praise] that Shen Yun Performing Arts portrayed on stage, Giovanni said: "I liked it very much, I like the mountains, Tibet is a beautiful land and snow mountains and I really enjoyed the performance and seeing the Tibetans in a happy relationship with the Chinese people and I really enjoyed seeing different ethnic groups presented here today at the show because it shows a dream of what we really dream what would be like in the Tibetan region as Chinese and Tibetans working together as one nice happy family."

Giovanni says he did have not a lot of opportunity to see classical Chinese dance.

"This is one of the first times, and I really got to enjoy seeing it, the acrobatics are amazing, the colorful costumes are really visually arresting, and of course the story I really enjoyed it. Of course I think I felt a lot of connection with the part that really also focused on the Falun Dafa persecution, because these kinds of things are happening also in Tibet as well," he explained.

He continued saying that the Chinese communist regime is still "doing these things, same kind of persecution things even to their own people; you realize sort of the larger problem we are facing."

Asked about what else impressed him, he replied that it must be the last one—the spreading of the Buddha’s teachings [The Buddha's Teachings Spread Far and Wide]. "The truth, you know because without the truth we are living a lie not dealing with the genuine facts, or the genuine article, so we want the real truth, the actual truth to flourish and spread widely. That’s why I think, I liked that the most."

With reporting by NTDTV.

Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company will next perform at Fort Worth's Bass Performance Hall Aug. 4 and Aug. 5, 2010. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Original article: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/39784/