Question 1: Reflection on a pair of classmate’s recollection of their experience in the GCC session

I was unable to interview more than one colleague in time for this assignment, I was able to interview Mohamed Sayed and I found a lot of his answers to be pretty interesting. In Sayed’s responses to my question he mentioned multiple times the unique opportunity he had to interact so much with people from other countries. He mentioned that he hadn’t interacted with many people abroad and had never travelled outside of Egypt, so the experience was new to him. In particular, Sayed noted how finding common interests and common ground on modern issues were enjoyable for him, and I think I would have had a similar experience. It seems like this was a great opportunity to interact with people from a different culture, with different values than your own and try to work past that and connect with the person on the other side of the screen. What interested me the most in Sayed’s responses was that he mentioned there was a transgender person in his group; I have never interacted with a person from that community and I’m sure I would have had a lot of questions in my head (whether or not I would ask them all would be a matter of my confidence in the moment and my feel for how comfortable this person was speaking about the subject). I think there is something wrong with having a hundred opinions about a group of people without ever having interacted with that group, I mean just logically it wouldn’t make sense to have an opinion about a movie for instance if you have never watched it. However, because of the climate of the modern world I have opinions and predispositions about trans people ghasbein 3anny, so meeting someone from that community for the first time would have been an incredibly interesting experience for me.

Question 2: Cohen’s Tourist Typology (CTT)

I found this whole tourism question to be much more thought provoking than I would’ve expected. Reading through the link about CTT and hearing Sayed’s thoughts about it, I thought about tourism and travelling and what those words really entail for the first time maybe ever. I realized that, when I think about travelling or touring, I almost never think about the local population. In the rare moments I think about travelling extensively, it is under the context of travelling with loved ones. I see travelling as an opportunity to experience a new environment with people you cherish, but when I say environment I really mean the physical environment. The weather, the sights, the architecture, this is what I think of when I think about travelling to another place. There are a few exceptions to this rule in my head, as there are particular places that I want to visit because of a particular aspect of their culture. For instance, it is a dream of mine to stay for an extended period of time (a few months) in Seki, Japan, b/c it has a storied history of bladesmithing, which is an interest of mine. But aside from one or two similar examples, I think of travelling in a way that now seems insensitive now that I have thought about it extensively.

Anyways, to answer which type of tourist I am, I would say I would be something in between an explorer and an individual mass tourist, as I would want the flexibility of deciding what I want to do and when, but also the familiarity of a tour guide.

Question 3: International Student’s Perspective on my AltCV

I showed my AltCV to my Nigerian friend but he didn’t have much to say about it. He did, however, mention one thing: that he is absolutely shocked that I have any melanin in my family. He was very shocked to hear that my grandfather was Nubian and very dark skinned, and so was his family. We don’t know much about the actual heritage of my grandfather’s family, as they lived in Cairo for his entire life, however their features are very consistent with the lower Nubia area which is nowadays considered part of Sudan. My cousin actually looks like he could be Nubian, he is also quite dark skinned (but not like our grandfather).