This is the translated version from a chinese article.

A police band from Alexandria, Egypt, had been invited to Israel for a cultural exchange. Yet, lost in translation, they boarded the wrong bus and found themselves stranded in a remote village deep in the Israeli desert. This village, barely a speck on the map, was bleak and desolate, its air heavy with isolation. The only café for miles around was run by Tina, a gracious woman who, upon the courteous request of the band’s leader, generously offered to host them for the night. Beneath the moonlit dunes and within the framework of the town’s humdrum existence, the presence of this foreign ensemble stirred something long dormant in Tina—a spark of passion, buried under years of routine. As the night wore on, she and the bandleader sat together over drinks, exchanging stories of their lives. Her voice, colored by sorrow yet imbued with a quiet intensity, carried the wistfulness of a tender, melancholic murmur.

This marked the opening scene of one of my favorite musicals, The Band’s Visit. The stranger the beginning, the more indelible the ending often becomes. Though it ran on Broadway for only a year, it swept through the world’s major theatrical accolades in that fleeting time. Several autumns ago, I embarked on a pilgrimage to New York’s Broadway to witness its final performance. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre stood quietly on Manhattan’s 47th Street, its facade glowing faintly under the autumn rain, illuminated by the soft shimmer of neon. Modest in scale, unpretentious in design, the theatre displayed only a humble poster on the street—depicting a group of Arab men in police uniforms and a middle-aged woman, arms outstretched in a dance. Above them, in elegant script, hovered the title: The Band’s Visit. There was no extravagant stage, no bombastic music—only long, deliberate pauses and a wry, self-deprecating humor, each character enveloped in their own palpable solitude.

In the English dialogue, softened by Israeli and Arabic accents, Tina’s slow narration transformed gradually into a haunting, melodic lament.

Umm Kulthum and Omar Sharif
Came floating on the jasmine wind
From the west, from the south
Honey in my ear, spice my mouth

Friday evening, Omar Sharif
In black and white
And blurry through tears
My mother and I would sit there in a trance
He was cool to the marrow, the pharaoh of romance

Sunday morning, Umm Kulthum
Her voice would fill our living room
The ship from Egypt always came
Sailing in on radio waves
And the jasmine wind, deep perfume, Umm Kulthum

And the living room becomes a garden
And the TV set becomes a fountain
And the music flows in the garden
And everything grows

The song titled “Omar Sharif” in the musical draws its name from Egypt’s most legendary actor, a figure who has come to embody the world’s romantic vision of modern Egypt, standing as a beautiful bridge between the Arab world and Israel. Tina’s voice, imbued with a magic that seemed to suspend time itself, gently led the introspective and composed bandleader into a graceful dance. In that moment, they forgot their cultural differences, casting aside the ideological and political divides that separated their nations. Music, cinema, the yearning for love, and the experience of solitude stripped away the labels that the world had imposed upon them. For this fleeting night, they were simply a man and a woman: she, singing of her fantasies of Egyptian life; he, captivated by the rare allure of the foreign—both equally beautiful and true. Omar Sharif, who had once filled Tina’s life with boundless fantasies, seemed now incarnated in the bandleader before her. Both were elegant, gentlemanly, their Arab faces framed by distinctive beards. They shared similar tones, the same profound gaze, and, curiously, both hailed from Alexandria. In this moment, Tina’s long-held dream had become the most exquisite reality of the night.

Alexandria—this city, immortalized through countless literary portraits—should, in my imagination, be as elegant, romantic, and classical as Omar Sharif himself. The very name of the city, steeped in legend, continued to summon me to visit.

Yet, as I drove from Cairo to Alexandria one crisp morning, the image of elegance was shattered by an immediate, swirling defiance.

Heading north, trucks, motorcycles, cars, and donkey carts hurtled along the highway, their haste palpable. The piercing whistle of passing trains tore through the air, stirring up clouds of yellow dust. A thin film of sand blanketed the road, and it felt as if we were galloping across the desert, or perhaps it was the Nile itself, impatiently rushing out from the heart of Africa. The driver wove continuously between lumbering trucks, my gasps of alarm met only with his bewildered glance. The convoy of vehicles was punctuated at intervals by pedestrians casually crossing the highway. They emerged from villages flanking the road, strolling with a calm indifference. Whether it was a young man herding sheep or an elderly woman leaning on a cane, their disdainful glances at the oncoming traffic served as Egypt’s most effective traffic signal. In a country where road rules were a distant memory, chaos had become the natural order, rendering my fears almost comical.

I turned my gaze to the window, attempting to regain some composure. Behind the tall date palms lining the road, patches of verdant farmland occasionally flashed by. These fields, nourished by the fertile silt carried by the Nile’s northern tributaries, formed a delta fanning out like a leaf, a symbol of Egypt’s ancient abundance and its timeless antiquity.

As we neared the tip of this fan-shaped delta, the view gradually broadened. The anxiety, frustration, and tension that had marked the beginning of the journey began to dissipate, giving way to a sense of calm and pleasure. The desert and oasis fell away behind me, and after passing the final checkpoint, a wide river suddenly unfolded before my eyes. On one side, reed beds flourished along the banks, while across the river, dense, low-slung buildings stretched from east to west, gleaming in the sunlight, as if forming a vast, unbroken fortress.

“Welcome to Alexandria!” After nearly three hours of silence, the young driver finally spoke, his voice filled with excitement, as he made a sharp turn at the end of the road.

This “great river” was the Mediterranean. A straight stone causeway extended from the inland to the sea, dividing the deep waters from the shallow bay. From a distance, the bay resembled another great river, running perpendicular to the Nile. If the sea had once been the terminus of an ancient road, modern Alexandrians had now forged a new path at its very edge.

As I stepped onto the seaside boulevard leading to the hotel, its insignificance on the map belied the overwhelming sense of oppression it conveyed in reality. To the right of the avenue, a dense cluster of buildings, many remnants of the British and French colonial eras, rose in somber grandeur. Though these structures now lay in disrepair, their once magnificent facades and ornately carved decorations still whispered of Alexandria’s former ambitions, its fleeting power, and the struggles of a city caught in the tides of the New World. In the 1950s, Lawrence Durrell lived here, bearing witness to Alexandria at the height of its modern splendor. In his Alexandria Quartet, he depicted the city as ancient, cruel, built upon the unforgiving sands and ocean. Yet, compared to the immense sweep of ancient Egyptian history, the Alexandria Durrell observed seemed almost naïve.

The city’s oldest past lay just across the eight-lane road, to my left, above the gentle azure of the Mediterranean: in 332 BC, Alexander of Macedonia, Greece, conquered Egypt and chose a small fishing village in the empire’s north to establish a new capital, naming it after himself. Though originally conceived as a military stronghold, under the Ptolemaic Greek dynasty, Alexandria became the grandest city along the Mediterranean coast, celebrated for its population, wealth, commerce, and artistry. At that time, it could well have been considered the greatest city in the world.

Now, as the twilight of its ancient splendor neared, Egypt limped toward the final chapters of its glory and legend.

Though summer had fully settled in, Alexandria was spared the searing heat. The cool breeze from the Mediterranean caressed the afternoon air with a refreshing gentleness that revived my spirit. The atmosphere was astonishingly clear and moist, a cherished retreat for southern Egyptians seeking respite from the oppressive heat. As I continued walking south along the boulevard, the buildings on my left appeared worn and dilapidated, their walls scarred by the slow erosion of time. Windows were shattered or missing altogether, leaving only tattered curtains fluttering in their place. People sat outside the roadside tea houses, gazing out at the Mediterranean and the lively boulevard. In modern Alexandria, these tea houses and cafes seemed less concerned with comfort or quietude. The men and women who frequented them immersed themselves in the relentless noise and congestion of the streets. The haze of shisha smoke, mingling with the strong aroma of tea, blended with the scent of exhaust and the whistle of passing trains—it was Alexandria’s own spiritual stimulant. The city throbbed with a raw, undeniable energy, its decay laced with an unyielding street vitality. Amidst the crumbling facades, opulent hotels emerged here and there, standing perhaps as a deliberate counterpoint to the detached aloofness of Western materialism.

To my right, a three-kilometer stretch of beach extended along the boulevard to the southernmost tip of the crescent-shaped bay. On workdays, the beach teemed with Egyptian women in black robes and men stripped to the waist. Modern Egyptian life, forged by a succession of external influences, carried a deep-seated pragmatism. In that moment, the call to prayer from a nearby mosque merged with the sound of the waves and the laughter on the breeze, stripped of religious fervor, simply part of the city’s pulse.

“Welcome to Alexandria!” A middle-aged man seated by the roadside greeted me with a phrase that had become all too familiar in recent days. The people were warm, chatty, and eager to offer directions, always pointing towards the same well-trodden alleyways. At the end of these alleys, someone invariably waited to ask for a dollar in return.

“Lighthouse!” As I politely waved off his spirited directions, the man hurried to catch up with me, gesturing toward a beige fortress nestled deep within the harbor. “Lighthouse!” he repeated, as though this single word encapsulated the breadth of his English vocabulary.

I thanked him and quickly pressed on. During my time in Egypt, I had come to realize that, amidst the relentless fervor of local enthusiasm, the best defense was a courteous but early detachment.

“Lighthouse!” he called out again from behind, his voice rising with a strange mix of excitement and resignation, like a sailor spotting a beacon after days adrift. The echo of his tone hung in the air, fervent and forlorn.

I continued toward the fortress, weaving through the cacophony of a bustling street market and crossing a dust-laden construction site, until Qaitbay Fortress loomed before me, imposing and unyielding. In the midday sun, the outer walls glowed with a golden mist, rising from the sea’s humidity, transforming the fortress into something of a mirage. Built in 1480 by Sultan Qaitbay to defend Egypt from the looming threat of Ottoman incursions, the fortress had been intended for a mission it would never fully realize. Yet, from its completion until Napoleon’s invasion three centuries later, it withstood countless skirmishes with surprising resilience. Despite its military origins, my heart was drawn not to the fortress, but to the Alexandria Lighthouse—the once legendary monument that had stood where Qaitbay now reigned. Constructed in 283 BC, the lighthouse had been revered worldwide for its commercial and cultural significance. Before it was ultimately felled by an earthquake in the 14th century, it had been the third tallest man-made structure on earth, surpassed only by the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Pyramid of Khafre.

As the lighthouse had fallen, the fortress had risen, resolutely closing the door to its past.

I approached the entrance, my steps quickening in anticipation. The vast courtyard and the towering stone bastion filled me with awe. The entrance to the bastion was marked by a half-open wooden door, beyond which no light escaped. As I neared, the darkness that lay beyond that door seemed to invite a sense of pilgrimage, as though I was not simply entering a fortress but embarking on a journey into a grand and romantic history. It felt as if, just beyond that barrier, lay a convergence with a radiant past—a past that could be accessed with the simple push of a wooden door.

Beside the entrance, a plaque boasted, in bold letters, of modern Egyptians’ immense pride: the stones used to construct the bastion had been salvaged from the ancient Alexandria Lighthouse. Though the fortress differed in form and height, it shared the lighthouse’s essence, a testament to its rebirth after centuries of destruction. In my mind, I could easily imagine the bastion as the lighthouse reincarnated, standing once more in the tangible world.

My earlier understanding of the lighthouse had been shaped by descriptions in Ibn Khordadbeh’s Book of the Countries, where he noted that the structure stood 135 meters tall, with a mirror at its peak, through which one could see as far as Constantinople across the sea. Inside, the lighthouse contained 366 circular rooms for habitation, and so wide was its ascent that a person on horseback, or two riders side by side, could make their way to the top without the need for stairs. Rising from the shoreline, its base washed by the waves, it once stood as a gateway to Egypt, through which all ships passed.

When the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited the lighthouse on his return journey from Quanzhou in 1349, he wrote: “From this vantage, the lighthouse appeared to have collapsed on one side. It was a quadrangular structure with numerous rooms, perched on a promontory extending into the sea. Three of its sides were surrounded by water, while the fourth was connected to the city. To reach it from land, one had to approach from within the city itself.” By the time Ibn Battuta set eyes on it, the lighthouse had already been damaged by successive earthquakes. Yet, as evidenced by the ancient geographical records and travel accounts, descriptions of the Alexandria Lighthouse—whether in its prime or ruin—remained strikingly consistent, passed down by merchants, fleets, and those who longed for a glimpse of Greek-era Egypt.

It had once been a land of wealth, openness, freedom, and romance.

Upon entering the bastion, I was struck not by the gloom or confinement I had expected. Instead, the nearly ten-meter-high atrium flooded the entrance hall with sunlight, illuminating the stones’ warm, polished texture. It reminded me of Alexandria itself—grand in name but gentle in both history and life. Flanking the hall were two winding stone staircases, leading upward and merging into a broader flight on the second floor, which continued to the uppermost rooms. According to ancient records and surviving Roman coins minted in Alexandria, the original lighthouse had been composed of three sections: a square concrete base, an octagonal tower in the middle, and a cylindrical lantern room at its summit. Today’s Qaitbay Fortress, with its square design, resembled an enlarged version of the lighthouse’s base.

As I ascended from the first to the third floor, each stone wall was punctuated by windows, appropriately sized, adorned with intricate Islamic-style wooden latticework. The Mediterranean breeze flowed in continuously, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of the sea, as if I were standing within a lighthouse submerged beneath the waves. The clamor and heat of the city dissipated, replaced by the cooling embrace of the ocean air. On the third floor, a massive door opened onto the surrounding walls, and stepping out along the ramparts, I found the scene before me stripped of its Egyptian haze. What lay beyond was a jarring, dizzying clash of contrasts: the city’s buildings, stacked and sprawling inland, were punctuated by satellite dishes and mosque minarets, like an army of foot soldiers and cavalry newly landed on the coast, vying for space. From this elevated vantage point, the city overlooked the vast bay, its perfect arc resembling an Arabic scimitar or a crescent moon cradled by the sea. The immense bay, so large it felt almost overwhelming, was teeming with countless small fishing boats. Painted in vivid colors, they sparkled in the sunlight, making the Mediterranean seem as though it were adorned with a tapestry of brilliant stars.

This bay cradled the very essence of modern Alexandria’s existence. Amidst the economic turmoil that gripped Egypt, nature had become the simplest and most direct recourse for Alexandrians. For men of all ages, fishing had remained their only means of securing sustenance, an age-old pursuit in a city whose fortunes had long ebbed and flowed with the tides.

Yet historically, this very bay had been the original stage upon which ancient Alexandria had asserted its dominance over the known world. Its broad, crescent-shaped form had created a natural harbor, transforming the city into the Mediterranean’s most significant commercial hub, from the Ptolemaic era through the height of Roman rule. Spices and silks from the East were brought by Arab traders to Alexandria, then shipped to the Roman Empire in the West, each step along the trade route adding another chapter to the annals of commerce. A canal, originating in Alexandria, linked with the Canopic branch of the Nile, enabling goods to move from the ocean into the desert, seamlessly connecting Eastern products with Western wealth within Egypt’s borders. It is no exaggeration to say that during the Greek and Roman periods, Alexandria was a veritable treasury of Mediterranean riches. Its residents luxuriated in a dazzling array of exotic goods from across the world: silverware, ceramics, wine, olive oil, perfumes, glass, textiles, paper… A vast world was contained within this crescent bay, making Alexandria a grand palace of international splendor.

I recalled a Greek seafarer who had lived in Alexandria, and who had authored the now-lost Voyage in the Erythraean Sea, a work that described a maritime route beginning in Egypt and extending far beyond. Departing from Alexandria, his journey had taken him southeast past Dar es Salaam, along the Arabian coast, through the Persian Gulf and around the Indian Peninsula, until finally reaching the region he called Tynes—possibly modern-day China. It was the first recorded mention by an ancient Westerner of approaching China by sea. Greek residents of Alexandria, following this maritime Silk Road, imported vast quantities of Chinese silk. In time, silk became a symbol of status, adorning the wealthy and draping the gods of

Greek mythology in their resplendent robes. Alexandria, as the gateway to this flow of riches, had once stood at the heart of a world both distant and intimate, where the silken threads of trade intertwined with the cultural and commercial ambitions of empires. The city had thrived as a beacon of wealth and knowledge, bridging continents and centuries, embodying the complex and shifting legacy of its namesake, Alexander the Great.

Yet as I stood atop the walls of Qaitbay Fortress, looking out across the glittering bay, that golden age felt far removed, a shimmering relic lost to time. The grand palaces, the bustling harbors filled with exotic goods, the scholarly debates in the Library of Alexandria—all seemed like echoes, faint but persistent, carried on the Mediterranean breeze.

As I gazed at the small fishing boats before me, it seemed as though I had traveled back to the ancient Greek era of the bay, once a magnificent scene of sails unfurled: merchant ships of every size and provenance docking in the harbor, their towering masts forming a forest against the sky. These vessels might have braved the waves of the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, their holds laden with pearls and ebony, awaiting offloading. Others might have sailed from Quanzhou in China, passing through India, their colossal junks carrying silks, ceramics, and spices, while their crews darted between port and deck, eager to return home yet curious about the distant world. Some ships might have been ready to set sail around the Mediterranean, infusing Alexandria with a confident, vibrant cosmopolitanism, as languages and faces from every corner of the world mingled in its streets and harbors.

Looking toward the summit of Qaitbay Citadel, where a tall flagpole, reaching into the heavens like the spire of a lighthouse, bore a colossal Egyptian flag that fluttered majestically in the sea breeze. Legend held that the highest point of the ancient Alexandria Lighthouse had once been adorned with a vast mirror that reflected the dazzling sunlight by day. Beneath it, the cylindrical beacon burned with an eternal flame through the night. Thus, by both day and night, ships entering Alexandria’s harbor could spot a gleaming point of light from afar—a brilliant flash in the daylight and a warm orange glow by night. For sailors and merchants on their maritime voyages, this beacon in the Mediterranean was the most eagerly awaited sight. They would stand on deck, scanning the horizon, longing for that flicker of light, which symbolized not just a city but the very heart of a new world, and the waves crashing against their hulls would whisper of homecoming.

At that moment, a small fishing boat drifted into the shadow cast by the fortress. The fisherman, pausing in his labors, lifted his gaze and met mine. With a shy smile, he waved generously and greeted me, “Welcome to Alexandria, the city of heroes!” Like the millions of ordinary people within this city, he understood that a confident welcome was the best introduction. Compared to other Egyptian towns, Alexandria exhibited a more open and curious disposition toward foreign visitors, its enthusiasm unburdened by reserve. I wondered whether this openness was a remnant of the Greek and Roman mindset, for Alexandria’s history had been shaped by endless minglings of blood and race. Perhaps in these small exchanges, the prosperity and openness of their ancestors found echoes in the present.

Or perhaps it was the bay itself, stretching its arms wide to embrace the sea and the world, that fostered this enduring spirit of acceptance among its inhabitants.

Behind me, on the glittering surface of the sea, a distant merchant fleet slowly emerged through the mist. With the opening of the Suez Canal, ships from China, South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Southern Europe could now traverse the ancient maritime Silk Road with greater ease, moving between East and West. Although Alexandria was no longer the crucial hub it had once been, its grandeur faded by time’s hand, it still stood, grounded in its illustrious past, striving to maintain its connection with the world. The sailors on those decks had no doubt glimpsed the flag fluttering beside me and the majestic city that dominated the bay. Whether they cheered in excitement or felt a pang of solitude was known only to the sea. Yet I knew that if they understood the legend of these waters and the significance of this city, their wandering lives would already be a source of pride.

The bay remains open, and Alexandria, as warm and welcoming as ever, endures. The beacon on the Mediterranean dims, but it is far from extinguished.

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