The Silk Road Class Activity

From this classroom activity, I learned that the Silk Road was not a straight pathway from Rome to China, rather, it was a lengthy process of transporting goods riddled with deceit, fighting, thievery, and inability to communicate.  Oftentimes, as we experienced, morals were thrown aside in favor of greed.  The Silk Road seemed to be both an asset and detriment to the societies that were involved in it.  On one hand, the Silk Road brought merchants to their settlements were the merchants could buy goods from.  These societies received goods that probably would not have come there had it not been for the strong desire to trade between two large empires.  On the other hand, the Silk Road was a cesspool for deceit and thievery.  The currency converter had money stolen from him.  Also, our group increased the value of our money by telling him that we had less money than what we actually had.  Our translator seemed to be using his talents mainly for his own benefit.  We also had some pests trying to sway us from one source of horses to another.

I think this simulation worked well.  Apparently, we have not changed much from our ancestors of the Classical Era, which is a little disheartening.  Regardless of that, this was a fun and informative activity where we could see the reality behind the Silk Road.  The Silk Road was always regarded as a pinnacle of trade and interaction in years past, but this activity made the flaws of the Silk Road extremely apparent.  The pros of learning this way is that I do not tend to look more to pros of the Silk Roads than the cons.  I would have still thought of the Silk Road as being a great bridge between two different societies with crime sprinkled here and there.  This activity showed me that the Silk Road did allow trade between Rome and China, but it was nowhere near perfect.  We did not have enough time to finish this activity, so I would have liked to seen how military conquest would have come into play, as well as increased thievery.  I think we should do this activity again because it was both fun and informative, but I think that we should include even more circumstances that would affect the interactions between the societies (like trading and war).