New York Trip12/16/2019 I think the play was absolutely great. It was one of the best play I’ve even seen. I believe that the main message conveyed in the play is that humanity is able to unite together regardless of country, race, gender and sexual orientation after a tragedy. It is also about putting personal prejudice down in order to help the greater good. I found it interesting that they included the task of saving animals. The advantage of musical play is that it is easy to understand and engaging. Music is universal. It doesn’t require too much knowledge to understand. Therefore, people from all backgrounds can listen and participate. A musical play is also short, that it compresses all the essential information in. Therefore, people have less time can also gain a lot of knowledge about it. Also, acting brings out the emotional and touching part of the story. I was sad when the woman talked on the phone announcing her son’s death. I was also very impressed by how only 12 actors can play both the roles of villagers and travellers, because it was so clever and easy to understand. However, there are many disadvantages of the play too. There would be much more details involved if it was a book: I remember in the documentary they were talking about combining two reporters into one. However, if it was not compressed, I bet there’s more interesting fact and small stories that are fun to read. Also, if the story is a book, I will have a chance to review any part that I miss and reread the book if I have time. However, I don’t think I’ve ever go to the same play again because it's far away and expensive.
The most important thing I learned is that remembrance is important. There are many layers to that. First, it was really important for the Jewish people to remember their identities, because it made them unite together and actively helped each other. Remembrance is also about love, because with love those people overcame harsh conditions and love brought them hope. It helped survivors overcome the fear or anger. At last, remembrance also let us, students who have not experienced the tragedy learn about what happened in the past, so that even when survivors past, the history still remains. Before I came to the memorial I thought that the Auschwitz concentration camp was inside Germany. However, I found out that it was actually in Poland. I think it is really important to know the truth because it has a different meaning to it. Being in Poland, people who were evicted from their own home were enslaved and killed in their own country. It was a great shame and tragedy. This is timely revenant because there’s still anti-semitism movements and speeches around the world. This is still a problem when it shouldn’t be. Therefore, I think it is absolutely for everyone to learn about the history before developing any hatred. The art I picked is the memorial square with victim's name in it. I think it is a really beautiful art because the lights and water surrounded it. Specifically, I think it is really creative to engrave victims’ names and have the light shine from inside to outside. The water is deep inside the center, flowing. I think it means that although so many people were lost, they are always within our hearts, as the water flows, their memories, and our memories to 9/11, will be flowing in others’ minds and history as well. The history will be passed on, generations after generations. The light around victims’ name have a similar purpose; their influences will always be lights that inspire people, warn people and always let people remember. The combination of water and light is brilliant. Because after I saw it, I just couldn’t forget it.
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Religious Service12/1/2019 I went to a church for the religious service this time. The full name of the church is St. John’s Episcopal Church. The church believes in Episcopalian and is a member of the Anglican Communion. According to my research, Episcopal churches are between Catholic and Protestant. However, the church I went to last year was a Protestant church called South Church.
Since both of them are churches, they have a lot of similarities. First of all, both of them believe in God as a savior. Therefore, they both provide Bibles in front of the seats for people to read. There were crosses in front of the room. In both services, the celebrants referred information in the bible, either presented as direct quotes or the interpretation of the quotes. Although they were tough for me to understand, I concluded that the general information was both about believing that God can forgive your sins if you choose to believe in him. Of course, both churches simplified some language to tell bible stories so that kids could understand, and I found that interesting. Later on, both churches mentioned some current events and linked them with God. Last year the Father talked about the polarization of politics and asked people to unite together under religion. This year, the celebrant mentioned the school shooting and how it changed a lot of parents’ lives. Because of that, she said, a lot of people shut themselves off. She encouraged us to open up, be awake but keep alert. I think this is a really good message because not all people are bad people. Although there are a lot of similarities, I believe I observed more differences. The whole tones of two churches are completely different- in the church, I went to last year, it was super casual. People could shout “Amen” in the middle of the talk, or raise their hands when they were passionate. However, the church I went to today was more serious- there were more people but much quieter. Inside of the architecture was a lot of religious decorations. A few children were holding crosses, and there were colorful glasses like those in Europe. Even the songs in two churches were different. In the church I went to last year, it was like a rock band that performed. The band was wearing jeans, and the songs were modern. However, in this church, there was a formal choir that sang religious songs that were hard to understand. They were dressing quite religiously, too. All of the songs were beautiful, and the entire service was so sacred that I didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. The ethnic components were quite different, as well. In the church last year, the majority of people were black and Hispanic. In this church, however, all of them were Caucasians. There was definitely more engagement in last year’s church, but this church has more clergies. I read Vox’s Secularism article. I found it quite interesting to read because religion has always been an area that I don’t know a lot about. Seeing the objective data is very nice. I don’t know whether I agree or disagree with this article because I don’t know much about religion and its importance in American society. However, I am suspicious about whether religion matters that much in a person’s life. I think it has to do with the country you live in and the environment you grow up in. For example, I’ve spent most of my time in China, and religion isn’t that prevalent there. Therefore, growing up without religion, I find myself doing pretty good now. I do not feel the “loss of morality” or “community,” as the article suggests. However, I do understand and agree that if religion has always been a part of the family or community, it is indispensable. Therefore, it really depends on individual families of whether religion is important. I think it is quite interesting how this article separates being “spiritual” and being “religious”. There is still a lot of unsolved quests and puzzles in the world, so being spiritual makes sense to me. Also, I believe the reason family and friends rank higher on the community chart is because they are tangible, but religions require a deeper and more comprehensive understanding. |