Writing POC 101

Egyptian Characters - @miracleboi

As an Egyptian Muslim, a lot of stories on Wattpad succeed in pissing me off.

Not only do I find ninety percent of those stories cringe worthy but also make me sigh at how uneducated some people could be, it's a shame.

If you're aiming to include an Egyptian character in your story, I hope this might assist you in some way. If not, maybe you might be inspired enough to add one in.

Let's start off by Egypt's location.

Many people mistake Egyptians for Arabs and that's not exactly true. Arabs are usually used to refer to people living in the UAE. Egypt is in north Africa thus giving us the label of North Africans.

And this is the part where I really get pissed off. Cursing all American movies out there, (I have nothing against Americans or American movies - just specific producers), Egypt is not a big blob of sand. Deserts do occupy a specific percentage of Egypt, but most of our lands are occupied by cities.

We have our capital - Cairo. Famous tourist cities like Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan. Countryside like Al Sharqiya. Personally, I was born in Al Sharqiya but my parents moved to Cairo when I was at a young age.

Second off, the weather.

Egypt is usually referred to having a hot blazing weather which is partially true. It depends on which city you live in. Mainly in the summer, the sun burns at a range of 25-35 Celsius, on extreme days 40C. In winter, it ranges from 12-20C.

It hasn't snowed except for twice in the past ten years. Well, I wouldn't call it snow, since it was literal ice falling from the sky and it hurt really bad.

Thirdly, let's delve into character's appearance.

For God's sake, not all of us are black.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against black people, many of my friends are. If I look at my own skin colour, I'm the palest shade of white. What many people aren't aware of is Egyptian's diversity.

You could find a person with chocolate brown skin, pitch black hair and forest green eyes and guess their nationality? Egyptian.

Racism isn't a big issue in Egypt due to that, if I would list off an estimate of Egyptian's skin colour : 50% Brown, 30% Black and 20% White, also respect the fact that they could have blond, ginger, brown or black hair. Also multi-colored eyes.

After that, we have customs.

Mainly Muslim holidays like Eid and Ramadan. We also celebrate Christmas and New Year (the christians). We also have a few milestones of wars we won, like sixth of October where we won against Israel and Twenty fifth of January, where we overthrew Mubarak in 2011.

Not all of us wear the stereotypical​ Egyptian clothing. It depends on your social class and your financial situation. High class and middle class rock normal jeans, shirts, suits and dresses.

Lower classes might go for jeans as well and some prefer the stereotypical clothing.

Then comes the language.

All of us speak pure Arabic, the one used in the Quran. Yet, when it comes to day to day conversations, we use slang Arabic or Egyptian Arabic. It's ​based off Arabic but a lot of syllables are pronounced differently.

Now, the second language is English and the third is usually either German or French - varies according to preferences but, usually universities acquire German. But, be aware that not all of us are lucky enough to receive a perfect education. So, some people are satisfied with their first language and a minimum amount of English, barely to get by.

Now to break some stereotypes.

-You are now aware that Egypt isn't mainly a desert, we do not ride camels and we do not live in tents. We have cities and normal civilization with malls and technology.

-Egyptians aren't mainly black, be diverse by maybe adding in different unique characteristics.

-Not all Egyptians are Muslims. The main religion is Islam but there are many christians.

-Egyptians aren't terrorists. Terrorists are different. Check the dictionary, I'm sure my name isn't there.

-Egyptians aren't closed off and rude. One thing I'm sure of, we adore foreigners and always give them special treatment. We basically spoil them.

-We can speak English for God's sake.

-Egypt is filled with other nationalities like Syrians, Malaysians and Saudi Arabians. I even have a friend of mine at school, who happens to be from Kenya.

-This is mainly for Muslims, but we're not perfect. We won't judge you for swearing or thinking perverted thoughts because guess what, we do that too.

-We don't have a prince or a princess or anything like that, we have a president.

I hope that helped in some way! Don't hesitate to PM me any questions, I'd be more than happy to converse with you. :)