What it's like to walk in someone elses shoes (if even for a moment in time)

Tonight was an amazing night, full of culture, insight, and intellectual conversations. My friend Laura, who is training to be a doctor in Cambridge, had a birthday dinner party tonight. Of which I was not too sure of at first, but quit enjoyed myself. I was in awe of how so many people of different races and cultures could all be in one room at the same time, while having such thought provoking conversations. There were about 10 different cultures represented tonight, including Czech Republic, New Zealand, America, Germany, China, England, Afghanie, etc.
Plus they were almost all medics, training to be doctors. I think the best conversation I had tonight was with this girl Barbara and her husband who were from the Czech Republic. We were talking about what it was like personally to live in 1989, when they became a free country (away from the communistic country of Russia). They were saying that at the time of their independence, there was alot of confusion going on all around them. All of the sudden, one day they were communistic and the next, the westernized world came rushing in. They said that by the western world coming in, it brought in some bad things with the good things. When they were a communistic country, things were more simple, they felt more like a community (due to everyone having something in common-communism), and they weren't flooded by loads of choices. They also said that when their country was communistic, that alot of political people were being murdered, because the communist were afraid that they would rise up and get a protest or rebellious group going.
I also learned tonight from a Japanese girl that alot of the Japanese people view their culture as being more superior to the rest of Asia, and that they tend to look down upon alot of the other asians. They view themselves as being seperate from the rest of Asia (due to the huge distance between them- 6 hour flight). I love living in Cambridge, because of nights like these, where lots of international students gather to converse about the different lives that they had back home. I also love even being able to put myself into someone elses shoes for one night both inspiring me and changing my view on certain things. I highly recommend talking to more international students/people whenever you get the chance. Learn from and expand your mind about the world and the people in it!!!