1.) First, I’d like to say that both The Cairo House and The Bridegroom were very enjoyable and engaging reads for me. Obviously there were differences with Cairo House being a full novel as opposed to The Bridegroom being a set of short stories. I would say that I learned more from The Cairo House and the depictions of Gigi. That is partly because I had learned about Chinese culture prior to this class, but it’s also because Serageldin makes Gigi quite relatable and down to Earth while also discussing the political struggles and cultural struggles as well. The Bridegroom was also an excellent read because many of the common cultural characteristics of Chinese culture came out throughout those short stories. Some of which I knew about, others however, I did not, and those were fun to try to figure out and learn about. Both of these fictional stories gave insightful looks into both of these cultures, and I feel that the fictional reads are better looks into the every day common culture of these places over a non-fiction book.
2.) Secondly, I have found the course as a whole to be very beneficial. It was quite disappointing that we were not able to continue this class in person, but the discussions have still been beneficial. The knowledge that I gained about Islam was particularly good about this class for me being that prior I had almost no knowledge in that area. There were also some things about China and their culture that were brand new to me and were interesting to learn. Lastly, I think that the fiction stories were one of my favorite aspects of the course, and when we were in person the discussions were particularly good because they allowed us to collaborate and discuss our perspectives on the cultures we were reading about.