2025 ✈️ updates
December 15-early January 2026 not in town

2023 updates
Hey I’m Xin, or people call me Negma/Najma (depending on what Arabic dialect you speak)
I’m now living in Beijing with my boyfriend and my 🐈 Mussa
I’m doing one of the “bullshit jobs” as categories by the best selling book. And that’s partly why we are hosting and traveling to connect to actual human, and to the world.

Pre 2020
Been in Egypt for a year then Jerusalem another year doing my Middle Eastern studies . So bear with me if I start to taking about the life and conflicts there non stop.

I’m not a great traveler in the sense of visiting tons of regions and I’m more into getting to know the culture, history or political dynamics (if possible) of a place

So our conversations can get a bit political, but no worries we can def avoid touching the heavy stuff if you don’t want to.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Long story short I started as a surfer and CS is, in my eye the best way to know a new country/region and its culture.
I’m basically interested in everything, history, politics, art, music, or the society in general.

My hosting journey starts when I was in Jerusalem , a crazy expensive place for me and for so many travelers. So I decided to offer my couch(literally) and i did want and still want, to chat will ppl about the land and the story there.

I believe ppl can always get inspiration from others experience. So nice to meet you.

Interests

Writing, photographer, (not a pro though
violin, guitar player, or anything with strings maybe.

• writing
• photography
• drawing
• music
• guitar
• violin
• snorkeling
• dance
• activism

Music, Movies, and Books

Currently: What do you know, people change but the following are 2021 updates.

Patti Smith, Antarctic Monkeys
Mashrou3 Leila, DAM, Jadal, Le Trio Joubran
habibi funk

Mostly sociology/history/physiology like Originality of totalitarian, the ministry of Utmost Happiness, Rashid khalidi, Ilan Pappe & Avi Shlaim

Le grand bleu, Oliver Kitteridge , West Beirut
And a lot more.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

2024, Have the best view of middles flying above us in Masafer Yatta, Palestine, where there’s no shelter in the village, and continue picking olives the next day in Jordan valley under the harassment from guess who

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach and share
I can’t stop talking about the middle eastern countries/regions I’ve lived in, if you are interested at all.
I can teach you my mother tongue which are Chinese mandarin and Cantonese, but it’s not quite realistic to learn a language in a couple of days, so
I can rather talk about how to survive and enjoy/explore the most in Egypt, Palestine or Israel

Learn
Anything really.
Debunk some most popular misunderstandings about your country/the area you care about—it’s beautiful to be able to erase prejudice against “the other” by connecting to the world .

What I Can Share with Hosts

If ur interested in the Middle Eastern/Chinese cultural n language,
photography n music/ food / languages or... or stories
I sketch a bit.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Palestine, San Marino, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Egypt, Israel, Palestine