Silk Road simulation #swindled&hustled! :)

Overall, I feel like I have learned a lot from today's silk road simulation. I noticed that the silk was more than just a route for trading and intact was is a series of dealings that happen in a common area between China, India, Malaya, Turkestan,  Greece, and the Roman Empire. I was also not very surprised when I realized how unsafe the whole process was. As a representative of Turkestan my group was the center of most trading between China and Malaya and Greece and Rome. Although this may be, it didn't safe my group from getting robbed. A member of my group was fooled into a deal and gave the money before anything could be formally arranged, and the person just took the money and walked away. From this I learned that dishonesty would have been common amongst the people trading in the silk road. Then once the language and money barrier was broken with a translator and a banker did not help anybody! The banker was constantly bribed and some of the translators were being robbed. In the end only the corrupt and clever made it to the top with the majority of the money. I believe this shows reason for a nation to conquer another because if I was China or Rome and got my money swindled I would not just sit down and forget about everything after the bell rings. NO, I would have raised an army and marched on over to whichever nation took my money, and would have taken it back! In the end though, I would not say that the silk road completely detract from the societies that participated in it and I believe it was beneficial to a certain extent. Despite all the fuss, my group was successfully able to purchase weapons by selling some horses, and this was a win for me. So basically, I learned that even a broken system for trading could carry out tasks of several nations to a certain extent (where at least somebody is happy); but the real question is, for how long did this last?

This simulation was amazing. I felt like I was learning a lot about trade through the silk road, while simultaneously having a good time with it. The pros are mostly made up of the fact that it was a fun and intuitive learning experience and I recommend we definitely do this again. The cons were consisted of the fact that it teaches you things in an indirect way. I feel like there would have been situations in this simulation that could have lead be to a different understanding of the silk road trade. For example if everybody I had traded with were extremely honest and saw my deal through, until the end; I would have been lead to believe that the silk road was a fantastic trading system. So this brings me to the conclusion that this method of learning could work for other things but not all, but today was excellent in sending the message and we should definitely do this again.