Reflection 4

This week we saw a lot of great presentations by other groups. One thing that really blew my socks off and made me really excited for the trip was the presentation by the group on the sights to see in different cities. At one point in time I belive they mentioned seeing a three thousand year old tower in Shanghai and I found myself laughing in my head. Not because the architecture was funny or anything like that, it was just the absurdity of thinking about the fact that there has been a continuous chinese culture for the last 5,000 years. From an american perspective that is certainly absurd, given our country is a spritely 243 years young, and Germany is even younger (though you could possibly make a few mediocre arguments about the Holy Roman Empire counting to the idea of a german state). This presentation really helped drive home a level of respect for the persistence of Chinese culture.