Some other place...

I wish i'd paid more attention in human geography. My geography teacher, Mr Hardcastle, divulged a bit of chinese history into his geography lesson. I heard the word history and almost instantly fell asleep. The one thing i remember is him saying something about the Chinese almost discovering the 'Americas' before Columbus et al and what a different world we'd be living in if they had come across it. How might they have interacted with the indigenous people i wonder? This teacher was always exposing our lack of knowledge on current and world affairs - "what's the most important story in the news this week?" He would ask us in turn - go around the class - and everyone would groan- "what the hell has this got to do with geography sir?". And now twenty years later - here i am wanting to return to that lesson and to ask some questions about chinese history and chinese culture and the technologies they were already making use of. Sometimes - actually quite often - i have to remind myself - it pays to listen!