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Should a city try to preserve its old, historic buildings or destroy them and replace them with modern buildings? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
22/M/Japan>>> TOEFL CBT 267 (5.0)>>> University Student
Personally, I love modern buildings and want to live in such buildings. But on the other hand, I want old, historic buildings to be presereved as they are. My home town is Tokyo, until I graduate my high school, I lived in the big city. And as you know, the city was completely destroyed by the United States during the Second World War. I don't intend to complain about them. But by the war, it is true we lost many historic buildings in the city as well as thousands of lives of its citizens. After the war, our grandparents' or parents' generation struggled very hard to restruct the city. As a result, Tokyo has become one of the largest cities all over the world. And as I grow up in such a city, I love modern buildings very much. For me, modern buildings seem to represent the power of human, so when I herad the news about the terrorism in the United States, I was very shocked. I think WTC, World Trading Center, is the world's most popular modern building. And it represents not only the power of the United States but the power of the mankind's technology itself.

By the way, as I have said above, the United States destroyed my home town during the Second World War, but they didn't attacked one of the most old cities in my country. They didn't attacked Kyoto. Kyoto is the most oldest city in my country, and the city has many precious historic buildings. They are very beutiful and represent the spirit of us, Japanese. Americans didn't attack the city because they also appreciate the value of the buildings in Kyoto.

I love the United States and I think what Americans do is correct. I even think that I want to be the citizen of the United States in the future. But at the same time, I love the spirit of old Japanese, that is the spirit of "Samurai". I must admit that we, Japanese idealize the image of Samurai too much. They might be just a group of gangsters. They kill people or even themselves when they made some mistakes with the long, sharp knife, called "Katana". But I still love the spirit of Samurai, it might be just a product of our imagination or illusion, but I want to have the spirit as one person. And I think we, Japanese succeed the spirit in the form of variety of sports or other activities such as "Ken-do", "Jyu-do", "Sa-do" or something.