Turning

before the ceremony
ceremony

I came across these pictures of a wedding in Shanghai of my former neighbor in Kimball. The images are a juxtaposition of past and future in the present. The guys that used to run around the hallway making a lot of noise are all grown up. Fond memories of always seeing people hanging out or working in the hallway at 4am outside my door... of the "Asian Christians" dropping by to try to recruit me... I even went one time, but probably argued too much about why I believed in all religions during the walk to and from the sermon thing, and couldn't understand how people could only see one Truth. Contrast these goofy memories to these images. My mom once said that a wedding day is filled with so much hope for the future. What does the future hold, when the American-born children of immigrants are settling indefinitely in China?

All civilizations rise and fall... and maybe rise and fall again. Hm, what does the future hold. Remembering sitting around in the tea shop with a friend contemplating that the Bush era could be the turning point for the U.S. Of course, people think that is a ridiculous sentiment. Which makes me think it is even more likely. :P There's that drawing of a timeline of history with the relative power of civilizations, China and India being the earliest major powers. And now the two are both rising again.