Three Cups of Tea：Final Thought

   Three Cups of Tea is an interesting and profound book that taught me some important life lessons and virtues. The main character, Mortenson, has to face many difficulties and problems. But in the end, he always came up with an effective solution.

   After his failure to scale K2, the impoverished Korphe villagers offered him, a stranger, scarce and precious sugar, and gave him warm wool blankets. They asked for no money or fees for the treatments and they were glad to help him. This is the correct way to get along with each other. In human evolution, we have the same common ancestors. Therefore,we should care, understand, and support each other more.

   In life, when we promise to do something, we must keep the promise and work hard to make it true. Only by this method can weget the full trust of someone else. As a Chinese proverb states: A promise is worth a thousand ounces of gold. Mortenson is a typical example. When building the Korphe School, he needed to construct a suspension bridge first so that men could carry the materials in. In addition, Haji Mehdi tried to prevent the building of the school. These problems were all tackled in the end, and Mortenson constructed the school just as he promised. Mortenson earned the trust of the villagers in this way.

In the book, Mortenson was in love with two people at different times. First with Marina Villard, and afterwards with Tara Bishop. However, Marina changed her mind,and, in the end, she abandoned Mortenson. The reason was because they didn’t have the same interests. Mortenson was passionate about education and his vow, whereas Marina’s interest was something else. But Mortenson and Tara got married after only 6 days because they had the same interests, and their marriage was successful. What does this mean? When I choose a girlfriend in the future, I should select one that has interests similar to mine. This can probably guarantee a permanent love between us because we can understand each other and encourage each other in what we are doing.