By Musaib Alavi.
Life brings tears, smiles and memories. The tears dry, the smiles fade but the memories last forever. Going back through the time of being an exchange student at U.S.A always bring great memories to my mind. The joy, the laughter and moreover the experience of bridging the cross cultural gap among diverse cultures of the world with your own was a life changing one. As i recall all those memories, the first one that comes to my mind is the Independence day celebration of my country at U.S.A.
I’ve always enjoyed traveling and having experience with different cultures and different people. But it’s also a wonderful thing to be able to benefit and enable research, not only in our country but around the world. It was like a dream come true when I was chosen as a cultural ambassador of my country to represent my culture in the USA. It was all due to Global UGRADE Exchange Program that gave me this opportunity. After our orientation at Washington DC we all bid farewell to our fellow Pakistani students and set off to our states. I along with my 4 friends namely Mohammad Umer, Mohammad Kashif, Mohamammad Farhan and Azeem Sarwar came to Emporia State University Kansas. We had missed our orientation because we were at DC at that time so we were on our own to explore new horizons and make new friends. We were warmly greeted by the OIE officer Ayesha who showed us our dorms and also helped us complete all the necessary requirements.
As the day was Independance Day of my country I planned on celebrating it with my dorm mates because i wanted them to be a part of my culture and also to let them know about Pakistan. We brought a cake and i called all the members who were present on my floor. They whole heartedly accepted my request and joined us. They were really glad to be invited and when we played our national anthem they stood up in respect for it. We showed them pictures of some of the beautiful places of Pakistan like Neelum Valley, Saif-ul-Malook jheel etc that really fascinated them a lot. The part that hit me the most was their open mindedness to learn new things about my culture and their deep interest in knowing about my culture too. I still remember a girl from South Korea said to me that “You have recently moved in and now you are celebrating the independence day of your country.. Wow you are so patriotic.”
There were people from Japan, Austria, South Korea, USA, China, Paraguay, Syria and Malaysia and it felt so good because i was sitting with people all around the world who were so open minded and friendly in sharing their culture and learning from ours and i learned that if you take different mythologies from different cultures, the names may change and the story lines may vary but there is always something in common.
This has been one of the best memoirs of my life and i only wish if i could go back in time and live that moment and time once again. I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh but i never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.
Reproduced with permission from Musaib’s blog.
