At the Temple of Yu Fei in Hangzhou, China, a student approached me to practice her English. She pointed to a nearby tree and proudly told me that it was over 700 years old. We were standing outside of a temple built in honor of a twelfth century military hero, but I wasn’t aware that I was standing on the precipice of history until that moment. I gazed at the calloused bark and realized that the tree was older than my country.
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