She Chased a Dream in China—and Found a Husband

An invitation others turned down sent Egyptian journalist Jehan Al-Gharbawy on a journey that would inspire her travel writing, introduce her to China beyond its famous landmarks, and lead to an unexpected ending: marriage to her fellow traveler.

Cairo - Before Egyptian journalist Jehan Al-Gharbawy ever set foot in China, she had already seen the country in her dreams.

The images were vivid, though their meaning became clear only later, when she found herself walking through the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, surrounded by the people, colors and places she had imagined before seeing them for herself. China had long occupied a special place in her imagination. What she could not have known was that the journey she was so determined to make would eventually change her life in a way no travel itinerary could have predicted.

At the time, Al-Gharbawy was working at Al-Ahram, one of Egypt's leading newspapers. An invitation to visit China had passed from one journalist to another, with each declining for a different reason. One colleague had a conflicting trip to Washington; another was unwilling to travel without a full daily allowance.

For Al-Gharbawy, the refusals were difficult to understand. How could anyone turn down the opportunity to visit a country she had dreamed of seeing?

Rather than let the invitation disappear, she decided to make her own case. Taking along books she had written on travel and satirical literature; she arranged a meeting with a senior representative of China's Xinhua News Agency in Cairo. Her pitch was that China could benefit from a different kind of Egyptian journalist: someone interested not only in official events, but also in the country's everyday life, changing tastes and younger generation.

She proposed writing about fashion, restaurants, interior design and the habits of contemporary Chinese society. The resulting stories, she argued, could reach Egyptian readers long after a conventional news report had vanished from the headlines. She also pointed out that, as a younger journalist, she had many professional years ahead in which to build lasting connections between Chinese and Egyptian media.

Looking back, she wondered where she had found the audacity to make such a pitch. But it worked.

The Xinhua representative agreed to recommend her for the trip, with one condition: she would pay for her own airfare, while her Chinese hosts would cover her accommodation and arrange the program.

She accepted immediately.

The dream had acquired a destination. And, as it turned out, a future she could not have imagined.

The barefoot journalist on the Great Wall

Al-Gharbawy arrived in China with the curiosity of someone determined to absorb as much as possible. Her approach to travel was not to stand at a distance and admire the view, but to step into unfamiliar surroundings, observe the people and allow the unexpected to become part of the story.

One of her most memorable encounters came on the Great Wall.

She had arrived wearing sandals with nine-centimeter heels, an impractical choice for the steep steps and uneven terrain. As the climb grew increasingly uncomfortable, she decided that the simplest solution was to take off her sandals and continue barefoot.

The improvised manoeuvre attracted attention. Other visitors pointed, whispered and laughed. Then a Chinese journalist approached and photographed her, capturing an Egyptian traveler making her way across one of China's most recognizable landmarks without shoes.

Al-Gharbawy later turned the incident into a comic account for Al-Ahram. The story included not only her determination to reach the summit, but also the certificate commemorating her achievement. What might have remained an embarrassing travel mishap became a small piece of personal folklore.

She also imagined a place for the photograph in Xinhua's extensive archive, which preserved images of encounters between China and other countries. In her characteristic mixture of earnestness and self-mockery, she connected her own picture to historical photographs documenting Egyptian-Chinese friendship, including images associated with Chinese demonstrations in support of Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Perhaps, she suggested, her barefoot appearance could represent a more informal kind of friendship between two peoples: warm, unpretentious and free of ceremony.

The joke carried a serious point. Al-Gharbawy could take the history of a place seriously without taking herself too seriously. She was not simply collecting landmarks or producing a record of an organized visit. She was turning experience into stories that Egyptian readers could enter, laugh at and remember.

That sensibility would become a defining feature of Jehan Loves Travel (Jehan Teheb El-Safar), her book of travel writing and humorous observations. Its China chapters move between tourist encounters, cultural surprises and the small details that make a foreign country feel alive. In one episode, she tries on an emperor's robe; in another, food becomes a source of comic culture shock.

The traveler is not presented as an all-knowing guide, but as a curious observer willing to be surprised—and occasionally to make a spectacle of herself.

Shanghai, a love song and the life behind the skyline

For Al-Gharbawy, China was never only a collection of famous sights. Her writing returned to the people, customs and emotions that give places their meaning.

In an article for Erem News titled Shanghai: The Land of Love and Good Fortune, she approached the city through music, using the songs of Teresa Teng, the beloved singer whose voice has resonated across Chinese-speaking communities, as an emotional entrance to her account. From there, she moved towards Shanghai's illuminated skyline, modern buildings and cultural traditions surrounding love, marriage and good fortune.

It was a telling choice. Shanghai could easily have been portrayed as a symbol of China's economic transformation—a city of towers, commerce and technological ambition. Al-Gharbawy was interested in another dimension: how people live, what they celebrate and the traditions they carry into a rapidly changing urban world.

Her account moved between modernity and custom, treating the city not merely as a destination to photograph but as a society to understand. Music and popular culture offered a route into that society that statistics and official statements could not.

A photograph in Jehan Loves Travel captures the same instinct. Its caption reads: “Walking the streets of Shanghai in Egyptian clothes.” Al-Gharbawy stands in a busy commercial street surrounded by Chinese signs, shops and pedestrians. She remains visibly herself, an Egyptian journalist in unfamiliar surroundings, while the city unfolds around her.

The image is unremarkable in the best possible way. It records a traveler participating in the life of a place without pretending to become someone else. Cultural exchange, in this view, does not require a grand declaration. Sometimes it begins with the willingness to walk unfamiliar streets, pay attention and discover what feels different—and what unexpectedly feels familiar.

Her published reflections also looked beyond China's best-known destinations. In China: The Land of Opportunity, she turned her attention to Chongqing, the vast southwestern municipality known for its mountainous landscape and striking urban development. The article reflects her continuing interest in the contrasts between nature and dense city life, and between the cultural character of Chinese cities and their industrial and commercial ambitions. The material available does not by itself establish that she visited Chongqing, but it does show how her interest in China extended beyond a single trip or a handful of iconic landmarks.

Across these accounts, her China is not one fixed image. It is a country encountered through landscapes, food, music, changing lifestyles and the daily lives of its people. That variety gave her travel writing its texture—and helped turn a long-held dream into a lasting personal connection.

Yet the most consequential encounter of her journey would not be found in a guidebook, a newspaper column or a photograph of a famous landmark.

It was travelling alongside her.

The fellow traveler who became her husband

On the original trip to China, Al-Gharbawy was accompanied by an Al-Ahram deputy editor-in-chief who was also her direct supervisor at the time. She remembers him as a pleasant and enthusiastic companion, someone who shared her appetite for discovering new places.

They spent time in restaurants and streets, visited tourist attractions and bought gifts. They accumulated photographs and memories of a journey that had begun with her determination to secure an invitation other had declined.

At the time, these were the ordinary pleasures of travelling with good company. Their significance became clear only later.

In recounting the experience, Al-Gharbawy delivers the revelation with the comic timing that runs through her travel writing. They had been so happy together on the trip, she recalls, that she married him.

The line works because she does not turn the story into an elaborate tale of destiny. There is no need to manufacture a cinematic encounter or claim that a single moment changed everything. The relationship emerges through the shared experience of travel: the meals, the discoveries, the photographs and the simple pleasure of spending time with someone whose company made an unfamiliar place even more enjoyable.

The journey had begun as a professional opportunity she was unwilling to surrender. She had persuaded a representative of Xinhua to give her a chance, accepted the financial condition attached to the invitation and travelled to a country she had long wanted to see. Along the way, she gathered stories that would find their way into her journalism and her book.

She also discovered that travel could produce a story more personal than anything she had set out to report.

China was the destination she had chosen. The man who would become her husband was part of the journey. The ending was not something she could have put in her original pitch.

When a journey becomes part of a life

In 2026, Egypt and China mark 70 years since establishing diplomatic relations on May 30, 1956. The anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect on a relationship shaped by diplomacy, trade, investment and cultural exchange.

Al-Gharbawy's story approaches that relationship from a more intimate direction.

There are no negotiating tables in its most memorable scenes, no trade figures or official communiqués. Instead, there is a journalist determined not to let an invitation slip away, a pair of high heels abandoned on the Great Wall, a song that opens a window onto Shanghai, and an Egyptian woman walking through Chinese streets in her own clothes. And there is the travelling companion who would eventually become her husband.

These details are modest, but they show how a distant country can become part of an individual's life. China was first an imagined destination, then a place to explore and write about, and finally the setting for a personal turning point she could not have anticipated.

Her experience also offers a reminder of what cultural exchange can mean beyond official programs and institutional ties. Diplomatic relationships create opportunities for people to meet; journalism helps carry their experiences across borders. But it is the people themselves who give those encounters their lasting meaning.

For Al-Gharbawy, the journey produced more than professional contacts or published stories. It gave her a way to write about China through humour, music, culture and the details of everyday life. It also left her with a memory whose final twist is impossible to separate from the country where it began.

She had chased a dream to China because she could not bear to let the opportunity pass. She returned with photographs, stories and a deeper curiosity about a country she had long wanted to know.

And she came home with a husband.

Sometimes, the most important part of a journey is the one that was never on the itinerary.