In Egypt, taking in ironing for a living is a job for real men -- and in a city famous for colorful characters, one Cairene has really put his foot down.
Mostafa Mohammed Safiha, 63, uses his left foot to do the ironing. It's a family tradition, he says. He learned to do it that way at his father's knee -- literally so -- when he was only nine.
The iron itself is at least 160 years old, handed down from one generation of men of iron to another.
"I was taught by my father who was taught by his father," says Safiha proudly in his modest home in the low-income Cairo district of Bab al-Shaaria. He has no intention of switching to modern equipment and methods of ironing that his contemporaries find convenient.
"This iron," says Safiha, pointing to the antiquated object under foot, "presses harder and irons better and faster."
Ironically, as it were, his antiquated technique and rudimentary equipment are what have drawn a lucrative clientele of locals and foreigners, who delight in watching him ply his trade -- by plying his iron over laundry with the speed and grace of a Nile sailing vessel.
And what an iron it is: an enormous chunk of semi-circular metal weighing a whopping 33kg. That's all there is, except for a crude handle. That's all there is and that's all he needs. Besides a gas stove and a piece of cloth.
He heats the iron on the stove for about 10 to 15 minutes, removes it and runs rag cloth across the scorching hot bottom side with a practiced hand. He places a strip of wood atop the iron to protect the sole of his foot from the heat.
And he's all set. With one hand he grasps the handle, while using the other hand deftly to flip and adjust laundry. Actually, he has two irons, using one at a time, while the other sits on the flames of the stove waiting to go into use once the other begins to cool.
Safiha'a foot drives the iron back and forth with breathtaking speed across caftans and trousers, skirts and shirts which he lays out on a low wooden table covered with sheets.
To the oohs and ahs of spellbound onlookers he puts on a special demonstration of high-speed foot ironing. Picking up a pair of badly wrinkled trousers, he whips them onto his work table and, left foot clamped firmly on red hot metal, he's off.
In less than two minutes, he snaps the pristine trousers off the table and proudly shows off a flawlessly crisp pressed seam.
This is not just a way to make money, it is an art, he insists. And considering the amount of effort involved, Safiha also regards this as a healthy form of physical exercise.
He has a steady flow of patrons who take particular delight in his old-fashioned methods and keep him busy in his tiny, simmering room 12 hours a day, while mournful Arab music wails in the background from a battered stereo.
A couple of years ago Safiha raised the price of ironing a shirt or trousers to around half pound or US$0.10 -- in order to keep up with inflation.
He hopes that his four sons will continue in the footsteps of their forefathers when he retires.
But they are less than enthusiastic. So his sole daughter is usually on hand to help out any way she can, except for getting involved with actual ironing.
After all, that's a job for a man -- a man of iron.
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘INVESTMENT’: Rubio and Arevalo said they discussed the value of democracy, and Rubio thanked the president for Guatemala’s strong diplomatic relationship with Taiwan Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City on Wednesday where they signed a deal for Guatemala to accept migrants deported from the US, while Rubio commended Guatemala for its support for Taiwan and said the US would do all it can to facilitate greater Taiwanese investment in Guatemala. Under the migrant agreement announced by Arevalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at US expense. It is the second deportation deal that Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration. Arevalo said his
‘SOVEREIGN AI’: As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for having computing power of 103 petaflops. The governments wants to achieve 1,200 by 2029 The government would intensify efforts to bolster its “Sovereign Artificial Intelligence [AI]” program by setting a goal of elevating the nation’s collective computing power in the public and private sectors to 1,200 peta floating points per second (petaflops) by 2029, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The goal was set to fulfill President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision of turning Taiwan into an “AI island.” Sovereign AI refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce AI using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks. One petaflop allows 1 trillion calculations per second. As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for
STAY WARM: Sixty-three nontraumatic incidents of OHCA were reported on Feb. 1, the most for a single day this year, the National Fire Agency said A total of 415 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) occurred this month as of Saturday, data from the National Fire Agency showed as doctors advised people to stay warm amid cold weather, particularly people with cardiovascular disease. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a low temperature warning nationwide except for Penghu County, anticipating sustained lows of 10°C or a dip to below 6°C in Nantou, Yilan, Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as areas north of Yunlin County. The coldest temperature recorded in flat areas of Taiwan proper yesterday morning was 6.4°C in New Taipei City’s Shiding District (石碇). Sixty-three nontraumatic OHCA