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World renowned castles and buildings could become ghost towns and dessertified archaeological relics along with the passage of time, such as Coliseum of Rome or 楼兰古城 on the Silk Road.  Past capitals became poverty stricken declining cities struggling to keep young people from moving out such as: Troy, Athens,  洛阳, 开封.  On the other hand, new metropolitan cities sprang up from small fishing villages that didn't have a resemblance of a city merely two hundred years ago.  The list of such cities include Los Angeles, Las Vegas, 上海, 深圳. 
  
What used to be the rivers that bred civilization are getting deserted and river used to run through those areas are now running dry, such as Tigris, Euphrates, 黄河, 白洋淀.  While all those were going on, what used to be frontier rivers are becoming breeding ground of newly prosperous or semi-stagnant densely populated areas such as: Wabash, Ohio, Mississippi, 长江, 珠江.   
  
Looking at the floods of migrants moving out from your home province 河南, our common home province 安徽 or my home province 贵州, those migration paths remind people that their motives of those travelers are somehow connected to the motives of Mexicans moving towards US and Canada.  Immigrants usually move away from places when water and fortune run dry, just like hot air always move to the region of cold air when the insulation walls are removed between them.  Similar motions happen when dyes leaking out of wrapping bags and submerging into the surrounding water.  In the similar motion, floods of refugees fled their countries torn by wars and chaos.  Such is the second law of thermodynamics, and such motions all have arrows pointing to the same direction as the arrow of time. 
  
Second law of thermo dynamics, along with theory of relativity and quantum physics seem to be describing many of the proverbs from different countries and regions.  Such proverbs include:  there is nothing new under the sun; every great man started out as a bandit; history is a set of lies agreed upon; imagination rules the world; we are all but stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep; 文化大革命, 十几年来一次; 富不过三代; 分久必合, 合久必分; 皇帝轮流做; 三十年河东, 三十年河西; 否极泰来; 福兮祸所依, 祸兮福所伏.  Don't you feel this is great that after learning this many years of science, scientific theories led us to believe if you totally follow that line of thoughts, you and I are about to believe in miracles and citing this thing called Bible so much." 
  
Wise Guy noticed how much his friend has changed to cling to this religious thing and said: " I guess this is another effect of living in the West. I did notice how much more Bible that you have cited.  I used to read more Bible than you did when we were in the university, even though I have never for a minute believed in the divinity of Jesus". 
  
 David smiled and said: "it is funny that you brought up the topic of religions" while looking around for a church like building in downtown Seattle.  "My parents' house used to be located next to a shrine.  But I would say it was more difficult to find nearly as many religious buildings in China as it is in US or European countries.  See there is a church over there, and there is another one, and yet another one there.  The multitude of religious building is not all of the differences between the West culture and the Eastern culture that we grew up in.  The power of church is expanding much faster in this society these days as more and more wondering souls looking around seeking divine guide, help and consoling.  There are definitely more crosses and grand church buildings erected along the interstate highways after 2000 especially after 9/11.  Conservatives call this movement as claiming back America for Jesus Christ.  Such thing is not new under the sun either, you know." 
  
Wise Guy said: "Well, I am not really big on this religious thing, like 90% of the Chinese.  Back in our great socialist motherland, everybody is busy making money and becoming a business man.  We have little room for Gods and religions." 
  
 David said: "In fact, I doubt that Chinese culture or history have given as much room to religion as Europe, Middle East, West Asia or North Africa where Christian battled Muslin and Israelis for the last two millenniums.  Just like people outside of China will never be able to understand obedience to parents or emperors "孝道", "伦理", "三纲五常", it was very hard for me to understand the role of religion in these people's life when I first got here.  To give you an example, I won't be able to make Westerners understand why Chinese historical figures such as 岳飞, 宋江 would be consider heroes at their time with the way they died as they did.  In the same manner, I think it will be forever difficult for Chinese to truly follow the preaching of Christianity.  Although it could be a fad to pretend to be Christians for Chinese folks living in US and take fundamental religious teaching at their face values instead of studying a little further to become mildly educated in Western culture." 


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