The Romance Beyond Expectation

On November 28, 2022, I embarked on a journey to teach in Egypt. The ten-hour and ten-minute journey was destined to be a wonderful trip and a new chapter of my life was about to set sail.

Egypt - City

On the way to "home", the light pink sky and the setting sun really amazed me. Most of the Egyptian buildings look plain from the outside, but the inside is amazing. The city looks gray and yellow, but the interior is brightly decorated, and the interplay of light and shadow in an entry door could give you kind of fascinating sensory joy.

Egypt is "half desert and half sea", where the desert, rivers, lakes and seas, temples and palaces coexist. When I really step onto this land, I find that different natural landscapes and the historical relics that spanned thousands of years are all there to be appreciated and admired; How I marvel at the beauty of nature and the wisdom of the Egyptians.

Egypt - People

It is said Egypt's architecture and landscape are the embodiment of a low-saturation aesthetics, then the free and happy Egyptians under the light of the sun and moon are the city's strongest colors. Egyptians have thick eyebrows, which give you the illusion of a tough personality, but once you talk to them, you can feel their sincere warmth and gentle friendliness.

As a volunteer Chinese language teacher, the Egyptians I am very familiar with are my colleagues and students at the school. When I taught students online in China, they would always ask, "Teacher, when can you come to Egypt? We welcome you to come." The first offline class felt like meeting online friends, and I had so much fun with the students that they gave me the Arabic name "Farah", which means "pleasure, joy", because I love to laugh.

The most impressive one was a girl named Ming Yu and a boy named Aum, and they invited me to play ping-pong with them after school. These two students were really good at ping-pong and I found it interesting that they could express and learn some Chinese vocabulary more confidently while playing ping-pong.

I have many good memories from the two months. John and Sia sat with me on the grass and sang Chinese songs at lunchtime; Shimo showed me around the campus; my housemate Mu Tianze and students Hai helped me look for my lost phone; some students showed me around Cairo; the Egyptian teacher Tan Xia helped with my teaching; the girl Habiba gave me homemade accessories at the end of the semester. And friendly strangers said hello with smiling faces in front of the camera.

It is these wonderful experiences that make millions of volunteer Chinese language teachers like me, devote ourselves to the field of international Chinese language education. May this cause advance farther and further!