An Anthropological Study of El Fishawy Cafe

Built in 1771 AD, and where Naguib Mahfouz, and many other famous socialites frequented much of their lives, El Fishawy Cafe is open 24/7, with people staying there through the night until morning, with smoke hanging from the mirrors and wafting from the ends of hookah pipes, coming out in bursts as laughter is, also, carried around. It is also known as the mirror cafe, as it is ordained with beautiful, old, mirrors, as well as chandeliers.

Groups of friends sit there, chatting merrily through the night, as do couples, lovers, and families. Unlike the nightlife of most of the developed Western world, it is not dominated by friend-oriented groups trooping to clubs or bars, but it holds groups of friends just as much as family with their children, lovers; all groups of people. We arrived at around 10PM and stayed until about 1AM, with little children no bigger than five years of age who’d be gazing around with their large, innocent eyes. Old, national, famous Egyptian songs would be played by various men with their various instruments – the oud, guitar, or just by strumming their fingers to a beat on the table tops, singing in groups or solo at tables, while the rest of the people listened. At one point, the entire cafe was singing and clapping along to an old Egyptian folk-song.

As the smoke of shisha wafts around, and trays of tea with mounds of sugar and mint leaves go around, I looked around- at the content, sun-kissed faces, and felt that this was truly a unique place. Perhaps an anthropological study would even be sufficient here, and no doubt would produce copious and interesting amounts of information. What are the norms in this cafe? If we see it as a meeting place of all sorts of people, what values and norms are suspended once you enter here, and which ones replace it?

It was an extremely chaotic place – with young boys coming through asking for money, or selling beads and the like, other slightly older boys would come through holding at least 15 books all piles up, carrying it with their hands linked underneath them and the books leaning on their chests, likewise trays of tea and hookah pipes would be swinging around by the very comfortable and obviously very-used-to-this waiters, with people dodging left and right. A waiter put down a drink on our table, and we mentioned to him this wasn’t ours and he said “I know.” After he was done fixing the fan on the wall behind us, he picked it up and swung off again to the drink’s destined table- and so, it was almost as if there was a new set of certain values and norms that had been set in place in this very place, with its mirrors, chandeliers, and laughter. Perhaps the study of human behavior in this segmented part of Egyptian social life could reflect certain values and ways-of-life of the Egyptian common man. There was some form of order to the chaos.

In this cafe, the people seemed drunk – but not on the alcohol that many Western societies drown themselves in after the sun disappears for the night, but on حياة (“haya”, Arabic for life), on friendship, on family. On hookah and sweetened mint tea, or drinks of رمان (“roman”, Arabic for pomegranate). A single policeman seemed to have been stationed there, in his smart, ironed-white uniform, and even he, had a lingering smile on his sun-kissed face, as he gazed around. One could sit there and let many hours slide by, just be observing the like. At least, that’s what I did. And so, this is a place of warmth, laughter, with its own customs and norms. One of the oldest cafes in el-Hussein area, one that has hosted kings, princes, movie stars, and the like.

As I was not able to capture a representative video that night, here is one on YouTube that captures much of the cafe’s essence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuGhtPvfWb0

Egypt’s “McDonaldization”

41490573_328932277871259_4195525368439898112_n — El-Moshir Tantawy Mosque in Cairo. Eloquently encapsulating religion’s meeting with modernity.

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

It should be no news to many that China-Egypt relations have been improving and increasing in the past years. Sisi came back from China last week, to discuss the FOCAC cooperation (China-African cooperation). The bilateral partnership is being strengthened by many projects the Chinese fund in Egypt, including creating Chinese language schools in Cairo, the Northwest Suez Economic zone, indeed, the new capital of Egypt is being funded largely by China. From a more macro view, Africa-China economic relations is an increasingly beneficial relationship, with China often funding infrastructure projects in return for resources for their rapidly growing consumption.

Beyond the international relations, political discussion, culturally I have seen very interesting developments in regards to China-Egypt relations. However, the racism prevalent in both countries is both sky-high. As a biracial person with a Chinese mother, I have spent my middle school and high school years in Shanghai, and often return to see my mother. This last time I was there, a couple of weeks ago, I experienced horrible remarks regarding black people that I will not repeat here. In Egypt, I am constantly mistaken for Japanese. A cab driver once translated what he was trying to say (which was objectification) into Japanese and handed me his phone. I stared at the Japanese on his phone before stuttering out “I’m Chinese” in poor Arabic. And so on and so forth.

Political sensitivity, “PC culture” (Political Correctness) is not a luxury developing countries can afford. This is something that I believe developed countries should take into account. It almost seems as though once a country largely pulls itself out of masses of poverty and corruption, they forget the authenticity of humans – it becomes individualistic, the race to make the most money, get the best car, the best house, the most charming spouse, etc., seems to be the entire point of life. Not that I know what the point of life is, nor does anyone else for that matter, but I am as certain as I can be that that is not it.

In these developing countries, people are the most important. Human connection. Having clean water, some shelter, food, and health. In Egypt, bread is literally called “Aesh”, the word for “life”. This isn’t the case in the other Arab countries. Yet, paradoxically, developing countries like Egypt and China also experience higher rates of racism and oblivion to racial ideologies and thoughts. It is yin and yang- there must be a give and take for everything.

At the end of the day, I hope China-Egypt relations will continue to flourish and will not turn sour. I suppose China is Egypt’s new papasito, after Russia and the US. Let’s hope China will be a benevolent papasito. I saw a few Chinese people walking near me yesterday in Ikea, precisely in the bedroom section (I knew they were Chinese because they were speaking Mandarin), and I thought, ah, they must be struggling with being in a country where they can’t speak the language. This, I’ll admit, was a presumptious thought on my part, because later on I saw them again, and one of them was yelling down the phone in rapid Arabic, with a strong Delta accent. I hope to see more of this, everywhere- one of the positive results of globalisation. Things brings me to my second point of focus.

2. “McDonaldization”

The second point of focus I’ve been pondering upon regarding Egypt today is its “McDonaldization”. Originally coined by sociologist George Ritzer, the term is rather self-explanatory, referring to the rapid spread of McDonaldization globally. However, more deeply, and more importantly, it refers to the homogenisation of cultures due to globalisation. Some would argue it isn’t the homogenisation of cultures, but the Westernisation of cultures. This is a point of contention many argue within academic circles and the public sphere. There has been, up until recently, largely a Westernisation of cultures. However I believe the rapid dispersion of things like China Town, Korea Town, Japan Town, and restaurants of all around the world popping up around the world might be showing a shift to the homogenisation of cultures. It is simply too early to say, although we must be aware of ideological simplifications, such as the clash of civilisations theory, or the theories of the Edward Said-ians (the “West vs the Rest” notion is oversimplified and arguably outdated in today’s post-modern society).

Being in Ikea, I forgot for those two, stressful hours, that I was still in Egypt. Indeed, being in the complex in New Cairo – Festival City Mall – surrounded by fast food restaurants, clothing stores like DeCathlon, Toys R Us, and TGIF (not to mention McDonald’s itself, KFC, Costa coffee, etc) – I could have been in Los Angeles, New York, London, or Shanghai.

If I were driving by in a car, it would just look like any of those cities, just with a few more covered women. Another experience I had that shows this “McDonaldization”, or homogenisation of cultures, or perhaps the intertwining of cultures, was the boy who took care of the camels in Giza, one of which I was riding, and who was wearing a galebeya* with a sports cap – this strange and awkward juxtaposition perfectly captures this sentiment. As more and more of these places pop up, completely derived from any cultural authenticity, perhaps this is creating a new culture – a global culture.

*traditional Egyptian dress wear.

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 50 story+ buildings, and as someone who grew up moving around and has grown somewhat immune to new sites (relatively speaking), it wasn’t the sheer magnitude of it that had me in awe. It was it’s beauty. It was truly beautiful, and I’m not sure how they built it. It was unique. How on earth did we these structures, some 4000 years ago, and now, in 2018, with self-driving cars, Sophia the robot, Tesla flinging cars into space, China’s wechat’s monopolisation of everything, AI, etc., we cannot figure it out? We now have the tools of the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the enlightenment, and so on and so forth…

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In this day and age, science is our religion. Those that question, how do we know what we know, are called “flat-earthers”, marginalised and shamed, similar to previous eras whereby doubting God would cause you marginalisation and ostracisation from society, and being name-called “Devil worshipper!”. Of course, the degree to which the marginalisation is drastically different, as no longer burn or drown those that question our systems of beliefs. All the recordings we have found of the beginnings of homo sapiens, has shown that systems of beliefs come and go. There was a time when we believed in the rain and sun gods, there was a time where we believed the sun rotated around the earth, where we believed we were the center of the universe. Today, we believe these to not be true, however our mistake is being arrogant, and most of all, hypocritical, by believing we have found the unshakable Truth. If we can see, through history, through artifacts, through recordings, we would know that we have never found the unshakable Truth with a capital T, but only some form, some distortion of truth. Yet we forget this. Our greatest mistake is we do not learn from our past. Otherwise we would understand science cannot be Truth with a capital T, and to believe otherwise is arrogant. Have we really answered any of the fundamental, real, questions? These are what I believe to be some of those questions…

What is consciousness?
What are dreams?
What is “death” (or as it is more commonly phrased, what happens after death- although this is already assuming there is an “after” death and that death is somehow a definitive phase- which we do not really know)
How are we here?
Why are we here?
Do we have a creator?

And so on…

The evolution of warfare, shows a seemingly incredibly progression in human society. We used to fight each other with sticks and stones –> swords –> guns (evolution of guns) –> tanks –> planes –> drones —> ?

The word progression is key here, because, so what? We have found ways to become more efficient at killing each other. To communicate with each other quicker through ICTs (information and communication technologies). For me to be able to use this platform to reach out to people I otherwise would not have. But so what? Does it answer any of the fundamental, real, questions? I’ve found more and more that we are merely stuck in our own dimension, on our little blue planet, yet we think this is everything. We need to zone out more often. If we don’t understand consciousness, or how we have self-awareness, we do not even truly know how we built drones. As Nietzsche theorised, we must engage in a mindset that goes beyond good and evil. This is because everything is relative.

If everything is relative, then, the belief that we have progressed is logical if we compare it to where we are before, and our measuring stick is defined by our success now relative to our success before. However, if we see progression as obtaining authentic, true, fundamental understanding of ourselves and the world around us, have we really come so far?

Going back to the pyramids — we do not even truly understand how we built those pyramids thousands of years ago, with many skeptics going so far as to theorise that aliens created them. This is laudable – on the one hand, most constantly proclaim that “we are at the peak of humanity!” acting as if we’ve “almost figured out the secrets of the universe”, yet on the other hand, we do not address the fact that despite paper-less planes, we do not understand how they built pyramids.

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During my first trip to Cairo, I visited the Pharaonic Village in Giza, Cairo. I highly recommend it to anyone going to Cairo. It is basically a historic park, where they replicated what life looked like “back then.” They replicated a poor man’s house, a working man’s house, and a rich man’s house. They had people working the fields, women kneading doe, as we went down the boat on the stream. I was the only one on that boat, which had loud, almost cringe-worthy (at least for me, a self-proclaimed introvert) touristic music (you know the type). They also had a few small museums, relatively empty, and dark. I was one of the only people in that entire village.* My tourguide was a kind, relatively young man, who, at the end of our tour, spoke to me and urged me to be careful traveling alone as a woman in Cairo. When he showed me how they mummification of ancient Egyptian people’s, including the removal of all internal organs, which would then be tried and then placed in separate jars, and the people still living would leave plenty food, and gifts, for the poor, so that they could have them in the afterlife. I asked him, if they saw that the food never disappeared, and stayed there, why did they keep on believing those in the afterlife could receive it? He laughed a little and didn’t say anything.

*Side-note: this was in 2017, in 2018 the tourism in Egypt is already steadily picking up and will most likely continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

It was during my visit to the Pharaonic village where I learned of the two main theories on how they were built. It is not just the sheer size that baffles people but also the unique shape of a pyramid does not render it easy to be built. Both theories maintain, first, that it was on the backs of thousands of slaves. The first, they would build square-shaped slabs on top of each other, from widest to smallest, and then build structures on the side to add the limestones to make it in the shape of the pyramid. The second theory, maintains that they built slowly increasing upwards-structures around a center they had first built, dragging limestone up that way. The third maintains that they built one structure on the side, where they’d carry limestone up. Each of these do not explain it very well, or in detail, but I took photos of mini-structures inside the small museums that will most likely do a better job of explaining:

Theory 1:

Theory 2:

Theory 3:

Regarding my personal trip to the pyramids, a female tour-guide I had for the first day took me (I discarded her after that and never used another tour-guide again – personally think it’s much better to do things on your own, own time, free of their wiry ways of taking you to their friend’s stores to make money and their incredibly overpriced charges), and I went on a camel, whose name, apparently, was Bob Marley, and the young man who was taking care of him was called Jahid. Jahid would sleep, eat, and live with the camels. He and Bob obviously had kindled a very close relationship.

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Also, contrary to another popular belief- camels are not slow; he slapped the back of the camel I was on and it galloped forward – I had to hold on for dear life. The reason they are considered slow is because they must work and respect the desert, maintaining their energy. There is no need to be quick, or rash, or hasty, in the desert. So me and Jahid talked, and played music for each other. He had on a sports cap, but a long robe. The greeting of traditional religion and mass consumerism. What a sight. At one point, when he had my phone and was taking a picture of me on Bob the camel, he picked up a large rock, and told me to put up my hands. I was a little alarmed, but I did as he said. This was the result.

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One cannot speak of the Giza pyramids without speaking of the Great Sphinx of Giza. This was more beautiful, to me, intrinsically. I’m not sure why, it just was.

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Similarly to the pyramids, there are many theories as to how the Great Sphinx was built, which I will not go into here. It has suffered much deterioration due to time, however many believe the statue’s nose was shot off by Napoleon’s troops, others believing it was destroyed by Sufi Muslims in a protest.

One can wonder what the Truth with a capital T is.

I write this from Abu Dhabi on my layover flight from Shanghai, where I was writing my MA dissertation and spending time with my mother, to Cairo. How surreal.

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 when visiting a new place. I’d wear dark clothes so as not to be see-through in any way, and would not be showing much skin. However, different mosques have different regulations. The mosque of Amr ibn al-As, for example, the men near the front door wanted me to wear a long-purple robe (a strange assortment to give out to one entering a mosque, I know; I felt like an elf), although I was already wearing a headscarf and black trousers with a black, long-sleeved blouse. Another mosque (I can’t remember which- perhaps Al-Azhar mosque?), gave me a thick, heavy, brown robe – which I wasn’t too pleased considering the 40C degree heat. The mosque of Muhammad Ali was less strict, allowing me to enter with my own clothes and headscarf. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun was one of the other ones I remember quite well. Each of these three rather well known mosques in Cairo each had their own unique set of design.

Islamic art is dominated by Islamic geometric patterns, which may overlap or form tessellations, as it is often believed in Islam to depict God, the Prophet Muhammad, relatives of Muhammad, and so on – is blasphemous, or to depict anything resembling God, or with a soul, that is, a human or non-human animal is similarly, also blasphemous, although to a lesser degree. This is called Aniconism, which is against the creation of images of sentient beings. This has resulted in geometric patterns dominating Islamic art, as well as half-formed figures such as wings without a body, and the arabesque. This can be seen in the shapes and architectures of the mosques.

20770208_10155597360021112_6182882477878493540_n — Mosque of Muhammad Ali

20729348_10155597360001112_101751761034667853_n — Mosque of Ibn Tulun

40402841_344302152979140_2227742696838004736_n — Mosque Amr Ibn al-As

40493902_311985442684925_5760580905294888960_n — Al Azhar Mosque

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 he captures the colours, smells, and the atmosphere of Cairo in many of his novels. My favorites are that depict Cairo very strongly are Khan al-Khalili, Adrift on the Nile, Children of the Alley, Cairo Modern and of course, arguably his most famous work, the Cairo trilogy.

(to see list of books written by Naguib Mahfouz, see https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/naguib-mahfouz/200620/).

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The cafe scene depicted in many of his books is a strong part of Egyptian society. Where one goes to escape the corruption and desperation of nihilistic tendencies, as graduates realise they are unable to get a decent job or the ones they want without connections, as nationalistic individuals realise their fate has been placed in the wrong hands, or religious zealots lose their faith in God- many of the day to day troubles are forgotten in the smoky, hashish filled, cafes, with little cups of coffee or Egyptian tea (the one with no milk, occasionally mint leaves or sage, and usually many spoonfuls of sugar). Laughter fills the cafes, it is a place where, for a moment, we can truly be in the present.

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Throughout the day, one can hear the calls to prayer resounding from the mosques, the أَذَان (pronounced “adhan”) in Cairo. Five times a day. Although we don’t really understand what time is, we have, in some way, captured it to some extent- by being able to accurately get on a flight at the right time, meeting a friend at a cafe at said same time, and so on. The calls to prayer are, for me at least, incredibly calming, placing our stake, some sort of hold on reality , despite being infinitely small in the grand scheme of things, some order to the chaos, and that all is good and constant. Here is a beautiful video I found on YouTube that captures that essence, in a call to prayer taken in Giza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMxUGB-lSqo

Particularly in today’s political climate, it’s important to understand Islam before judging it by the media that survive on the deviants and extremes of society. In 2010, the Egypt’s Ministry of Religious Endowment decided to have a single Islamic call to prayer resound from downtown Cairo, which will then be transmitted through thousands of mosques. This is because it was said before, when each mosque used their own muezzinine, or callers, there was chaos and lack of unity. Many were unhappy about this change, as often times, change meets resistance, and many cling on to familiarity, confusing familiarity with a stubborn righteousness, perhaps in the attempt to feel we have control over the otherwise chaotic universe.

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 full of musical shops. Not realising the word for tabla in Arabic was “tabla”, I had the image of a tabla on my phone, which I would gingerly show men* as I walked down the street.

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Finally, one young boy took my phone, and began to walk away with it, while motioning for me to follow him. Alarmed, I immediately began following him, preparing myself to sprint after him if he decided to bolt with my phone. He brought me to a little shop where there was a round, little old man sitting inside, with a pair of spectacles hanging around his neck, and he was happily talking away in Arabic on the phone. The young boy and I awkwardly waited there (he still had my phone), before the little old man hung up the phone, looked at me with smiling eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and said (in quite good English) to me, “Good Morning!

It was a great feeling to find someone who could speak some English, perhaps the first for a few days. “Good Morning!” I replied back to him happily. Soon enough, he and the young boy had invited me in for tea at least three times. I could no longer refuse. So there I was, sitting in a store with this round little old man whose name I can’t remember, drinking hot tea in little plastic cups with no milk, chatting away happily. He asked me many questions, and had me write my email down on a piece of paper. Ah, the difference between the Instagram, Twitter, and FaceBook dominated first world! At one point I was on the phone talking to his brother who lived in England and his brother’s wife. Finally, he led me to another shop, where they sold tablas, and where I, according to him, got a tabla for supposedly much cheaper the original price.

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My experiences in Egypt are filled with stories like this. The kinds of stories that only happens in a country free of the burdens of the everyday rush, the 9-5, the commutes, the competition of who-can-make-the-most-money-the-quickest; it is a society where human connection, a conversation over some tea, under the golden haze of the sun that is only quite so golden in Egypt, and عيش (“aish”, the Egyptian Arabic word for “bread”, literally meaning “life”- this is symbolic of their society and views), is everything. It wasn’t long before I had fallen in love with the Egyptian sun, their aesh beladin (Egyptian flatbread) ,طعمية (“ta’ameya”, Egyptian falafel made with fava beans) , and the Egyptian people and society itself.

One of the nights that trip I found myself at a concert of Ghalia Benali, the Tunisian singer who is extremely influential in the Arab world for contemporary Arabic music. It was set inside a huge mosque, with babies, grandparents, families with members of all ages there, spread out across the grass. Some had brought stools. By the time it was the end of the concert, people had stood up on stools to see her better (some brave individuals even stood on the backs of chairs). Everyone clapped to the tune, as, in that moment, we were all connected, through the same vibrations that coursed through our bodies, our hands clapping in the same movements harmoniously.

*Men due to the fact that most of the people on the streets in Egypt are men. There are many factors due to this. As a religious, military state, where women do not enjoy the freedoms such as they may in the US or UK, or other democratic Western countries, the men are often sauntering in the street, gazing at you. This is also due to the destitute state of the economy currently, rendering many bored out of their minds everyday.

Greatly Misunderstood

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“Boy on Dirt Road.” Taken in downtown Cairo, August 2017.

“Greatly misunderstood” was one of the most prominent, recurring thoughts that occurred to me when I first went to Egypt. Alone, armed with a few months of self-taught Arabic as well as a one month intensive course at SOAS, I arrived in Cairo in July of 2017. Something had propelled me to go to one of the four most ancient civilisations of our world, alongside China, the Harappan civilisation and Mesopotamia. The country of the pyramids, of camels, of heat, of pharaohs. But Egypt was so much more than that. Not only a strategically important area in the region, with it’s history of battling the Sinai over Israel, but also connecting the African continent to the Middle Eastern world, while also at a crossroads between Europe and Africa.

I had constantly been warned of going to Egypt. My experiences showed me a kindness of people’s that didn’t have much – as Egypt’s economy is suffering even more so after the 2011-2013 Arab Spring(s) than before. Tourism has inevitably taken a massive hit in the country due to the current political climate, and tourism accounts for around 13% of the Egyptian economy. Taxi drivers, shop-keepers, and the like each would bring up the degree to which the economy has suffered since the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Egypt is currently a military state. There are tanks on the street, military checkpoints every few blocks. However, I saw people approaching the policemen on the street, asking for help with parking their cars. The police would be sitting on pulled up chairs by the side of the street, holding little glasses of شاي (“shay”, meaning: tea) with no milk. The second or third time I arrived in Cairo, I had forgotten to bring USD currency with me. The reason why I needed USD was due to the fact that they only accepted USD to purchase a tourist visa at Cairo International Airport, and I had foolishly arrived with Chinese Yuan (RMB) and the Egyptian Pound. This is one of the ways they get USD into the country, and the rules were therefore rather strict. I found I was unable to purchase my tourist visa without USD. Panicked, I ran to the ATM in the airport. Alas, it was broken. Not knowing what else to do, I hastily approached a police officer. His sun-beaten face quivered with the slightest hint of a smile as I frantically explained to him the issue. Once I was finished, he motioned for me to follow him. He went up to the desk where they would issue visitors their visas, yelling at them in rapid Arabic. The young man behind the desk looked at him a bit crossly, then, without so much more as a nod, beckoned for my cash. Once I had gotten my visa, I thanked the policeman. It was then that he looked at me, smiled, and said “welcome to Egypt.”