Tag: china

Out of the wok and into the fire

This is about the ‘prison’ in Sidi Bishr.

It was near a square (Mohummed Nageeb) facing the corniche.  Potentially, it is a good area, except that the official refuse collection does not keep up with the amount of rubbish that accumulates.

I was sharing an apartment with my new Chinese friend who told me it was a clean, beautiful, fully furnished and working apartment.  The main attraction of this flatmate was that he use to speak to me in Arabic, seemed passionate about his studies and tried to enjoy himself in Egypt (back in 2014).  Sadly, this was no longer the case.

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Chinese New Year

One of the Modern Standard Arabic teachers asked if we would be interested in attending the Chinese New Year party.

The Romanian woman was not interested, but I was.

However, I expressed my concern that perhaps the Chinese might have a problem with a British person attending (perhaps I still remembered the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia or perhaps it was the Opium Wars that bothered me).  I was reassured by the teacher that my attendance would result in the opposite effect.

She was right!  From that point onwards I never felt alone in the centre and I enjoyed practicing MSA with them 🙂

The most significant contact I made was a Chinese student from the Faculty of Arts (Literature).

After the party, some of the Chinese took me outside with them (to the corniche).
I was nervous, but I had no other friends in Alexandria and wanted to exploit every opportunity.

I got to know some of them a little better. They seemed so soft, friendly, open-minded and attractive.

During our walk-around, I noticed some Egyptian boys talking about us, but I was not certain.  As we walked by, one of them asked if I was Egyptian, so I told them that I was not.

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