QQC #3

We all remember having to take those long, dull history classes- what is the point? Where will this knowledge ever truly affect our lives? I present to you here a concrete reason: we cannot prevent that which we do not know. Oft said is the phrase "history repeats itself," but is this true?

In Three Cups of Tea, the bombing of the World Trade Center sparked a terrible influx of hate-mail to Greg Mortenson because, in the majority of the public's eyes, he was aiding terrorism. "The terrorists were Muslim, so all Muslims are terrorists," their flawed logic concluded.

An elderly woman mailed Mortenson with a very different opinion. "I'm old enough to remember this nonsense from World War II," she wrote, referring to the downright racist hatred many Americans felt for the Middle East, "when we turned on all the Japanese..." Through a parallel she drew between World War II and the War on Terror, it is made apparent that history does indeed repeat itself, and that if people do not take the time to learn it, to realize the cause and effect of this long chain of dominoes calle Life, then we will suffer the repercussions.

My humanities teacher told me that she was on the bus and heard the ignorant solution of someone who was either clueless or truly racist. One man to his friend suggested that any and every Muslim be put into concentration camps as a solution to terrorism. As a student fresh out of a World War I and II unit, my immediate reaction was "Wouldn't that be just as bad as what Hitler did to the Jews?"

Her solemn response was "Exactly."

QQC #2

As I continued reading Three Cups of Tea, a book that, for the most part, highlights how the religion of Islam is not an evil thing as most Americans believe, I found it odd that, on page 110, there was a quote that clearly delineated one of the major differences between our cultures. Mortenson is being described a religious pardon that allows a married man to be temporarily "married" to a different woman, and thus be sanctioned by Allah to do certain things that are usually reserved for spouses only. "Mortenson asked if Balti women... could also be granted muthaa.
"No, of course not," Changazi said, waggling his head at the naivete of Mortenson's question..." At first I wondered why this was in the book at all- was it not rather counter-productive to the positive image the author had worked so hard to portray of the Muslim world? As I thought it through, I realized that it was honest. Because this small snippet was included, the book became that much more credible in my eyes. Instead of preaching all of what we Americans know as false and biased, it showed a grain of truth in the disparity between men and women in Muslim culture.

QQC: Chapters 1-3

Quote: "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

Question: How does this apply to the story?

Comment:
In all of this section of the book, the portions that really stand out to me are the quotes used to introduce each chapter. The very first one invoked vivid imagery in my mind, brought back memories of truly seeing the stars for the first time. "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." I was walking to the bathroom late one night on a camping trip, picking my way carefully across a prickly field of rocks and weeds, for I had foolishly forgotten to slip on a pair of shoes. Cursing myself under my breath, I shook my hair out of my face. As I looked upwards, I was struck dumb by the sight before me: the sky was so swollen with stars that it was not the deep, velvety black that I was accustomed to, but blue. There were so many stars that it was almost an artificial twilight, sans sun. To this day, it remains one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

The quote also applies to the storyline of the book- a destitute village, conceivably in its darkest hour, finds hope in the form of a scruffy mountaineer on his last legs. Even when things seem terrible, good can happen.