We have so many days in our lives that we always remember as our golden memories. It is a bitter truth that none of the days from the past can be felt in the present or future. It is a great thing that our past also fades away with the passage of time. And we are lucky enough to forget the worst memories that we ever had. In parallel, we always have our desires to carry our beautiful moments. For that purpose, human beings were invented to save our feelings, moments in written forms that led human civilization into another stage. Interestingly, our knowledge and history started from the moment when humans started to write something on stones and bones, and finally, the paper format brought a revolution in this sphere. Keep aside, I am not going to write about these history books, but I want to share such a beautiful memory from my initial days in China before the COVID-19 pandemic. Today that is an evergreen memory of my abroad life with new friends and new life here in China.
The most significant and impactful advancement in saving our moments is the invention of the camera, and now easy access to smartphones with cameras has made a world of photos and videos. With the help of this technology, we have made our life at such a level that we can enjoy it with a greater time span than ever. Now we can easily move to our early life events and memories with the photos and videos we have taken already. The event that I am going to share is the International Cultural Festival of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was arranged by the International College of the university, and all the participants were from various countries of the world.
I was very lucky to have so many friends from different countries from different parts of the world. It was the first time I lived outside of the country, and it was also the first opportunity to interact with different cultures and different people from around the world. Though there are many foreigners noticed in Bangladesh in recent days, before 2019 or 2015, there were very few foreigners who visited Bangladesh. Even though it is the 8th largest country in terms of population, many foreigners do not know about Bangladesh, and many think it is a part of India! Fortunately, the situation is changing nowadays with massive exposure of the country.
The International Cultural Festival is a yearly event that is organized by the international college of the university for cultural exchange and making the international students feel better and provides a great opportunity to get to know different cultures and countries' social and national values and it helps to be united altogether with a brotherhood that has no barriers.
It was the first time for me to know about so many countries' cultures, dresses, foods and their country's symbolic things that represent the nation on the world stage. Many countries prepared their stalls with the foods which I love most and shared their most important facts about their country. And the most attractive part was the cultural program staged by the representative of the students from that country.
They performed their dance, sang songs, and many more. But I loved the dances from different countries students with their different body language and body movements, which are truly difficult to perform. The dance and their songs were so thrilling as they tried to find out the best from their culture. Though the students were not professional, their dedication and practice made them awesome to do the performance. All the participants, including Chinese students, enjoyed the cultural program.
Among all the performances, I loved the performance from the students from Tajikistan who performed a dance and song during their marriage ceremony that was so enjoyable. Their dance move with their songs was brilliant, and we all enjoyed it a lot. We also have participants from India and Pakistan, though Bangladeshi culture has so many similarities in social values and in many cultural sectors.
Among other countries, the dance from African countries like Rwanda and Nigeria was so pleasurable. And the dance from Sri Lanka was also very beautiful. we have also enjoyed and tasted the coffee from Africa, Biriyani from Pakistan and Golab jamun from India. The funniest fact is that I have tasted a fried woodworm from a Chinese booth that tasted like a strong, muddy flavour. It was my first and probably the last to taste some bizarre food item for me. I would never try to be so curious about such kind of foods anymore.
In conclusion, this day was a fantastic day to learn about other cultures and their tradition. Like I had a 'Tilok' on my forehead for the whole day that I got from the Indian booth. I hope such an amazing day will be there again as after the corona, no more cultural festivals will be arranged on the campus where I am living very close to that.
I hope you like the photos from my memory that are evergreen in my mind. I often miss those beautiful days that make me happy and bring a touching smile to my face. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments, and I will try my best to answer them.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention. I will catch up with you at the next one.
Wish you a great day!
