The children sitting around a tall rectangular table listen attentively to a Chinese artist as he shows them how to turn clay into an elephant. "You take this piece of clay and form it in a circular shape. Then you stretch it that way," Chinese artist Du Shao yong tells them, as the elephant slowly takes shape in his well-practiced hands.

“When you finish, you put wooden sticks through his stomach to help the clay stand upright," he adds in Chinese. An Arabic translator swiftly tells the children what Du just said.

The children’s clay workshop is one of several Chinese-Egyptian cultural activities that are organized at the Talaat Harb Culture Center in Cairo until Aug. 13. Du was invited by Egypt's Cultural Development Fund, affiliated to the Ministry of Culture, and the Chinese Culture Center in Cairo to hold clay workshops to teach the craft to the Egyptian youth.

“It is my first time in Egypt. I feel lucky that I am here to introduce the Chinese way of pottery-making to the Egyptian children,” Du told Al-Monitor. “The Egyptian civilization is one of the oldest in the world — especially in pottery-making and use of clay. So it is important for any Chinese pottery artist to make Egypt his first stop to introduce Chinese pottery to the Arab world.”