Please note: This article is as of 2018!
Text and photos by Ehab Gouda and Mary Lai
Egypt: Dragons on Nile
The first attempts to get Dragon Boating going in Egypt have been undertaken some 12 years ago, but due to several reasons they weren’t very substantial and finally almost nothing was achieved. Since nearly two years a new development is spotted, and this one looks promising, although it is torpedoed by the Egyptian Canoe and Kayak Federation.
China and Egypt have the world’s oldest civilizations and they share special historical ties. Egypt is proud of the River Nile, which is one of their most ancient civilization symbols, and the dragon stands for both, superior power and benevolence in Chinese culture.
Racing the powerful Dragon on the amazing river Nile perfectly signals the bond of the two countries, and so on October 3rd, 2016 the first River Nile Dragon Boat Festival was kicked off as sportive and cultural event. Twelve teams including four professional groups from China, Egypt and European countries joined the race.
The Dragon Boat Festival is organized by the China-Egypt Friendship Association, a non-governmental organization in Cairo, with the cooperation of the Chinese Embassy and the Cairo governorate.
About two month later, December 17th, 2016 marked the grand opening of the Dragon Boat Academy at the Royal Muhammad Ali Club in Giza, Cairo. The project, developed in collaboration between the Egyptian and Chinese governments. There exists a forty-year friendship between Egypt and China. The ties between the two countries are strong and have been particularly built up in recent years.
The large community of Chinese expatriates in Cairo has become deeply intertwined with the economic, social and cultural landscape of the city. In addition to the immense amount of business conducted in Cairo, the Chinese community has demonstrated a commitment to sharing its own cultural history with Egyptians while simultaneously integrating elements of Egyptian culture. Cairo has witnessed a myriad of events, such as the Chinese New Year celebration held at Azhar Park, in which the Chinese and Egyptian communities have engaged with one another to learn from each other’s cultural backgrounds.
Ehab Gouda, president of the Egyptian Friendship Association in Hong Kong and founder of the Dragon Boat Academy, and Mary Lai, President of the Sino-Egypt Friendship Promotion Society, have been instrumental in the long project to build up a program of dragon boating in Cairo.
In thinking of the significance of the Nile in Egypt’s long history and the dragon boat’s importance in Chinese culture, the idea to merge the two in the form of a Dragon Boat Academy in Cairo was born, as with the Dragon Boat Festival on Nile before. The project was begun two years ago by the Egyptian Friendship Association in Hong Kong, with Ehab Gouda at the core.
Royal Club Mohamad-Aly offered the ideal space as a home to Egypt’s first-ever dragon boat academy, given its historical presence in Cairo. The beautiful club, located in Giza with a prime position along the Nile, has a rich cultural history. The owner, Dr. Maged Farag, first bought the land for the club in 1988 and immediately saw the potential to be used as a public space. The land once witnessed a space for a museum and research center. The architecture and the activities offered too have been historically themed around the medieval period in Egypt. Given the club’s commitment to enlivening Egyptian history, this seemed a perfect venue for the dragon boat academy to make a space for itself.
Dragon Boating presents a great opportunity for groups to gather together and work on team building, whether as a family activity, a class outing or perhaps a professional retreat. Vodafone and P&G for example have both recently visited the academy as part of team building retreats. At the start of February 2017, a group of young girls spent a day at the Royal Club Mohamad-Aly working on building up their skills as a team. The group came as part of the 3D Academy, a program that functions as a compliment to school for Egyptian youth and helps them to develop positive skills through a variety of experiences. The girls spent two hours on the water and came back both exhausted from the hard work and reenergized from the team effort spent powering through the Nile together. The group chose to take on dragon boating as a way to tackle a new challenge as a group and improve their teamwork.
Now, with all the above high-level efforts where two countries want to show their strong bonds and friendship by combining culture and sport in a so joyful activity as Dragon Boating, the Egyptian Canoe and kayak Federation has nothing better to do, than trying to prohibit the events! – Even if the canoeists have some legal grounds because in Egypt there is no National Dragon Boat Federation yet providing a roof for such events, why can’t they just once say: “Hey great, somebody wants to do Dragon Boating, can we be of help?” – Wouldn’t that be a different approach instead of always building up barriers, as done before in other regions?
What Ehab and Mary have initiated is great and hopefully they stick to it and go one step further to establishing the Egyptian Dragon Boat Federation. Please feel encouraged by this magazine and keep us informed. To all the teams and club out there, who are thinking to travel for paddling in different surroundings, others than at home – why not once to paddle on river Nile? – Doesn’t that sound cool?
So the call goes for DRAGONS ON NILE !!!
Contact Ehab and Mary via facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DragonBoatEgypt/
