When first given the task to read this book I thought I would be really bored. I could not fathom that salt could be connected to history in any interesting way. Man was I wrong.
I always knew that China was ahead in technology but I did not know they were that far ahead. It is weird how salt played such a role in China's history. I thought it was kind of weird how they revolved their lives around salt. It was cool how salt led to a lot of discoveries for the Chinese, like the digging of the mines. It was really neat how they discovered the art of pickling through salt. Over all I learned a lot from this chapter, it was very interesting. I think it is interesting how salt is in a lot of different things, like gun powder, food sauces, and so many other things. We still use salt for all these things today.
Who would have known that what the Chinese were doing so long ago would be used so frequently in the world today? I wonder how the Chinese were so much more efficient than the rest of the world? The Chinese are still ahead of the world today, some things never change. If this book keeps going this way it will be quite interesting.
3 comments:
I thought that this book was going to be stupid beyond belief when I started it too. I wasn't too pleased with it, but I could not believe what salt had to do with the growth of mankind!
I was amazed too that they came up with so many discoveries. They were so far ahead then, and I think they are now too. I'm afraid of them becoming so much more powerful than the U.S. Salt just will remind me of how we are going to lose.
I agree the book is interesting in that i knew very little about the chinese. Salt shocked me how vital it was to civilization 800B.C. and later.
I didn't realize iron was also a major part of chinese economy. It was exciting to see what the chinese did to continure their production of salt. This book so far is not just information, it enhances my respect for the chinese and their great discovery.
Most kids struggle with trying to wrap their mind around the salt-history connection, which Mr. K is able to pull off with this text. That's why we read it. Unfortuantely many kids feel they ought to be "entertained" while reading something of historical value, which is not my primary concern with this assignment. So when other people complain about "Salt" it just shows their ignorance. Glad you seem to like it so far.
China gets brought up quite a bit here actually. It's not an area we talked about yet, but from the blogs I get the idea that you studied about it in English while reading Buck's book? Good observations in your post on the Chinese at any rate.
China had the bennefit of being more techno-advanced simply because they've been around twice as long (4000 years) as the west. That said, they fell behind in the 1800's and are still playing catch up to the rest of the world even to this day.
Mr. Farrell
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