Blog
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The Boy Without a Future
Khan al-Khalili, a major historic center and one of the many beautiful aspects that collectively create what we know as Cairo. Located in Islamic Cairo, this سوق (pronounced “souq”; market in Arabic) is today largely focused on tourists, with overly repetitive mini pyramids, mini pharaonic gods, stores of chandeliers, stores of hookah’s, stores of papyrus paper posters,…
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Alexandria, The Pearl of the Mediterranean
Cities are stories, telling tales of expansion, degradation, conflicts, riots, natural and man-made disasters, of leaders, of change, of persecuted people’s, of cultural, political, of socio-economic histories. Alexandria has many tales on her skin, that would take years to hear and understand wholly. Alexandria tells tales of the mixing and overtaking of different cultures, of…
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Dancing Dervishes
Whether you believe there is a God, Gods, or that there is nothing else other than us, or that everything is just waves, vibrating on some form of energy, or that there are infinite other realms, or that we are merely simulations – whatever it is, they are all attempts to understand the universe around…
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Egypt’s “McDonaldization”
Those that waft between places gain the gift of being able to see the changes more clearly than those who are in that place everyday; the incremental changes steering clear from their attention. I want to focus on two points in this post, of things that are, by late 2018, quite prominent and relevant: China-Egypt Relations…
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The Pyramids: Built by Aliens?
The first thing many think of when mentioning Egypt is the pyramids. One of the world’s seven wonders, I’ve heard countless stories of how the sheer magnitude of the pyramids shocked people to their core when they first laid eyes on them. However, for me, having grown up in Shanghai- where there are countless splayed…
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يا مسافر (Lone Traveler)
During my visits to Egypt, I often visited many of the mosques in Cairo. I am not a Muslim, but I brought along my own headscarf in respect of their religion. After all, do in Rome as the Romans do. This, I’ve found, is really the only mantra one needs to take heed in…
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The Egyptian Cafe
For those who don’t know Naguib Mahfouz, he’s often considered the most influential writer of the Arab world, having won a 1988 Nobel Prize in literature and having produced over 30 novels and over 350 short stories. He is, of course, Egyptian. One of the reasons he is so well known is due to how…
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My Heart is in Sinai
Why was I, a nihilistic agnostic, going to Sinai, the land connecting the Middle Eastern world to the continent of Africa; where Moses supposedly received the Ten Commandments, one of the most significant places amongst the Abrahamic religions? Beyond religiously held importance, it has been a politically strategic area in the Arab-Israeli issue. Connecting Israel…
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Things Are Not What They Seem
The second time I visited Egypt was one week after I had left – that’s how long it was bearable for me to be away. I wanted to find a tabla (Indian drums) for my aunt, who lives in Oxford and loves playing the tabla. I found myself walking along Muhammad Ali Street, chaotic and…
Amanda Tapp 