BEIJING, Sept. 27,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report
from chinadaily.com.cn:
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."
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SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn