By Alexander Chen
“Learning history can make people wiser.” says Alexander Chen, a 9th grader in Bellevue High School, during his presentation “World History and Chinese History” in Bellevue Library, on June 24.
It was a 90+ degree afternoon, 61 children and parents quietly listened to Alexander inside a meeting room. He started by talking about the 4 ancient civilizations, and shared with audience a pattern he learned, that long lasting ancient civilizations need rivers to feed its people, and natural geographical boundaries such as mountains and seas to defend them from invasion. In chronicle order, he took his audiences to a history ride. At each major stop, he compared what happened in the world and in China during that period, ranging from war, religion, economics and culture. When talking about Chinese history, he chose to state the historical names and events in Chinese. The last event in his talk was the breaking of Soviet Union. Looking at the audience with a smile, he ended the presentation by showing and reciting a poem from Mao Zhedong “数风流人物, 还看今朝!”
