Tokyo meets the world: Egypt

I had not been to Japan before becoming ambassador here, though I had visited other countries in the Asian region and was posted in Australia from 2010 to 2014. Everything I knew about Japan [before arriving] and everything I’ve experienced are two completely different things. Egypt has a team of Japan specialists for helping us understand Japanese culture, behaviour, manners and etiquette, and how the traditions of Japan have affected the country’s development. But everything you hear before arriving doesn’t prepare you sufficiently for what you’ll encounter when you’re actually living in Japan.

I am very lucky because I’m representing a country that’s highly valued in Japan. Ancient Egyptian civilisation has a lot in common with Japan in terms of values, habits and traditions. We are both countries with great histories and impressive achievements over the centuries, and people in Japan have been very welcoming of my efforts to enhance our relations. [Those relations] go back to 1864, when the Ikeda samurai mission stopped in Egypt on their way to Europe and even posed for a photograph in front of the Sphinx and the pyramids. This history has made it quite easy for me to try to develop our relationship further, on levels from the political and economic to the cultural and educational. Over these four years, I am very pleased to have achieved great successes in all these fields.

I think we’re very lucky to have our embassy in Daikanyama, one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods in Tokyo. It has its own cultural and architectural charm, and with the Meguro River nearby, it’s a nice place to be in during cherry blossom season. The small shops, boutiques and cultural venues in Daikanyama are interesting, and we are very close to Shibuya too, so it’s great for those who like nightlife and shopping. We have a little bit of everything.

The embassy itself represents ancient Egypt, with Pharaonic statues at the door, the façade like an ancient temple and a little museum inside. With this, we hope to contribute to the culture of the neighbourhood. Tokyoites stop in front of the embassy to take photos on a daily basis, which makes us very happy. Maybe seeing the symbols of our culture and civilisation will one day lead these people to travel to Egypt.

Yes, schools here teach ancient Egyptian history from an early stage, so it’s great for the students to come to the embassy and see for themselves the Sphinx, statues of ancient Egyptian kings and queens and other things they’ve read about in books. Before the pandemic, we used to invite schools to the embassy for open days. I had an agreement with the Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, to bring students from Tokyo metropolitan government schools over every month. 

Entire classes – 30 or 40 children – from one or two schools would come to spend a day at the embassy. We have a small museum with replicas of ancient Egyptian statues, and we showed the children a video comparing life in modern and ancient Egypt. Many people still associate Egypt with crocodiles in the Nile, camels walking around in the streets, oases in the desert – that’s the stereotype. But Cairo is the largest capital in Africa, and we are now building a new smart city called the New Administrative Capital, which will be constructed in cooperation with Japan and will host the tallest tower in Africa and the biggest business district in Africa and the Middle East.

Egypt has also started adopting aspects of the Japanese education system. Some of our schoolchildren are studying under the same system that’s used in primary schools in Japan, a system called tokkatsu (‘special activities’, or non-subject activities such as cleaning, lunch and independent discussion). This will be applied across 200 Japanese-Egyptian schools in Egypt, and about 50 schools have implemented it already. Japanese experts – headmasters and directors of Japanese schools – are present in Egypt to supervise the management of these schools.

The impetus for this came when the [Egyptian] president visited Japan in 2016. He was very impressed by how in Japanese primary schools, students are responsible for their own class, cleaning, holding class board meetings and coordinating together to build up their sense of responsibility, in addition to regular education. I think this shows how the essence of the Japanese character is built from an early age. We admire this system very much, and were the first country in Africa and the Middle East to implement it in our schools. We show videos of this to the Tokyo schoolchildren who come to visit the embassy, and many of them leave impressed both by the ancient Egyptian architecture and modern Egypt and the system of education that’s similar to their own experience.

Yes, many of the visiting students send us letters and drawings afterwards. They go back home and speak to their parents, sharing their experiences at the embassy and then writing us about how their family is now interested in visiting Egypt and would like to go there as soon as possible. We believe [initiatives like this] are essential for doing diplomatic representation in an innovative way – in a way that’s successful for our country by bringing the people of Egypt and Japan closer together.

Well, there are some places that serve Egyptian food, though not yet to the extent that we’d like to see. Some Egyptians who have lived in Tokyo for many years are active in this field, but on a very small scale. Only about 2,000 Egyptians live in Japan, so the community is not that big in comparison to countries such as Australia, the US or Canada, where you’d find a lot of options for Egyptian cuisine. The supply is limited in Tokyo, but you can still get dishes like grilled lamb and molokhiya (jute leaves cooked into a soup or stew), an Egyptian dish introduced to Japan some two decades ago, though it’s eaten a bit differently in Egypt. 

There are many similarities between Egyptian and Middle Eastern cuisine in general, so you might find similar flavours in Lebanese and Turkish restaurants. But I think we’ll see more Egyptian restaurants opening in Japan, because more and more Japanese people are looking for new flavours and appreciating ever greater varieties of cuisine. I’d advise the Egyptian community to open more restaurants here!

I think the Games were organised quite smoothly, despite the many fears posed by the pandemic. Now, with the number of vaccinated people increasing and people’s awareness of the pandemic and the virus becoming ever more robust, Japan is doing very well comparatively and the measures taken are working. Japanese people are complying with the necessary precautions to a great degree and understand their importance, and the readiness of people to wear masks – even since before the pandemic – is a great help.

Tokyo might want to ease up a bit from here on. We should try to cope with the virus, since we can’t put our everyday lives on hold and just surrender to the pandemic. We have to work towards opening things up again. Egypt opened up to tourists last July and successfully organised a very safe tourism season, with visitors coming from several European countries, spending a week or two on holiday and returning home without any trouble. We just have to adapt to the situation at hand while applying all the relevant safety procedures to avoid spreading the virus. In any case, people are increasingly aware of how to protect themselves and others, so I think life in the city can go on relatively smoothly until we can finally overcome the threat of the virus. Interview by Masashi Takahashi, coordination by Hiroko M. Ohiwa