Building bridges between China and Egypt

It's hard to imagine that Mohamed Jihad, a young man from Egypt, could perform a traditional Chinese tongue twister in such an articulate way.

Learning Chinese

When Mohamed was choosing his university major, he initially intended to apply to the English department. His mother, however, offered him different advice: "You've known English since you were young."

"Look, everything, including what we buy, is made in China, so choosing the Chinese language should be helpful for you."

Thanks to his mother's wisdom, Mohamed embarked on his journey of learning Chinese. Mohamed graduated from Ain Shams University in Egypt with a degree in Chinese in September 2019, and then pursued his master's degree in broadcasting and anchoring from the Communication University of China.

When Mohamed first began studying broadcasting and anchoring in Chinese, he often found himself confused – what is the lower abdomen (dantian)? How does one sink qi to the dantian (abdomen)? During that time, Mohamed practiced how to open his voice, reciting tongue twisters, and even performing xiangsheng (cross-talk comedy) and reciting guankou (rapid-fire storytelling). After a while, his classmates were astonished to find that he had become the best Chinese speaker in the class.

After graduating from the Communication University of China, Mohamed became a foreign expert at the China International Communication Group, focusing on the dissemination of Chinese culture.

He says that, in the past, he used to strive for every word and pronunciation to be standard, but now he rarely considers pronunciation: "Because what people want to hear is not how standard the pronunciation is, they want to hear if the story is true and if it can attract them."

Explaining China to the world

After learning the operating model of shared bikes in China, Mohamed shared his thoughts on how Egypt could emulate this on his Facebook account, tagging the Egyptian Minister of Transport. Two days later, he saw the official account of the Egyptian Ministry of Transport reposting his thoughts, commenting, "Great idea, looking forward to implementation."

A year later, Egypt's capital began implementing the "Cairo Bike" sharing project as a pilot for addressing traffic congestion issues.

"We learn a lot of things from China. The power of humanity lies in its unity," Mohamed says.

"I think China can really set a very good example for the whole world in this respect."

During his studies in China, Mohamed says he could feel the friendliness of the Chinese people towards Egypt and their enthusiasm for learning about foreign cultures.

In July 2023, when Mohamed graduated from the Communication University, he wore Egyptian pharaoh attire to receive his certificate on stage. The photo of him wearing the pharaoh attire soon went viral.

Many Chinese people began to learn about Egypt and pharaoh clothing. This gave Mohamed the opportunity to tell Egyptian stories to Chinese audiences and he subsequently changed the name of his Chinese social media account to the "Egyptian Pharaoh."

Mohamed says he is continuously working to build a bridge that allows his Egyptian friends to better understand China: "If I can be this bridge, it would be a great honor; truly, a very, very significant one."