Tumen Ekh and the Long Song-Day

Yesterday I went by myself to see a performance of the national song and dance ensemble of Mongolia, "Tumen Ekh," meaning, literally: "The Very Best." So I took their word for it.

The show started out with a Buddhist Tsam dance. This involves elaborately dressed mascots pumping their fists in a "rah rah rah" fashion to a steady drum beat. No, seriously, these Buddhist dances form the basis for your basic mascot field prancing. I especially liked the huge mask that looked like a dead deer. That, and the one that looked like a smiling, cross-eyed Spongebog Squarepants.

Then they brought out the vocal stylings of a Khoomi long song singer. I will admit the backup band played a mean Morin Khuur (two-stringed cello) while this guy formed an O with his lips and uttered strange guttural peals with his vocal cords. More than a few in the audience could be heard snickering to themselves. It looked funny and sounded alien. How else to respond?

Next, a master Morin Khuurist belted out a frenetic Mozart piece (I think it was Ode to Joy) that was the highlight of the evening. She played the entire piece using only one of her two strings. Simply rocking.

A drum and bass shaman did a throbbing number onstage, looking revealingly like a dirty hippie in Lithia Park (in Ashland), fire-dancing or communal drumming.

Then the folk dancers bolted onstage and gave a rousing choreographed shuffle that brought back memories of my dancing with the Scandinavians folk dancers in high school. International folk dances have pretty much the same flavor all across the northern hemisphere, I suppose. The Mongolian version used double-joint moves, though, and for good reason because...

...next was the contortionists. All I will say is that despite what I was seeing, it was hard to suspend disbelief. I was waiting for the smoke and mirrors to clear out of my view. In either case, I couldn't help but wonder if any of these girls ever freaked themselves out when they first saw their butt in their face, their legs seemingly bending the wrong way, maybe experiencing some flatulence or belches at the wrong moment.....? Oh, it's something to be seen. The nearest place to see it in the states is at Cirque de Soleil in Las Vegas. So go. Now.

The show was over in about an hour. UB had a break in the clouds and late evening sunshine poured through. It was heavenly, if only for the walk home. I love Sunday in UB. Mongols are out of town. Cars are sparse and lazy. Children dominate the scene. I can actually feel like living a sane life in a sane city.

If only for a day...

SIDENOTE: when I went to Manzir Khiid, one of my students, Ayush, explained that before the Communist rape and pillagery, "over 400 monkeys used to live here." I corrected her ("monks") but it made my day. Later, in a souvenir shop, I bought a weird-looking monkey-doll made of sheep hair. I thought, "How can I beat three bucks for this?"

Monkeys, indeed.

Theatre of the Absurd

So at church today I may have seen a teenager mortally wounded by a Tae-Kwan-Do master. But first, why was I even at church today? Well, my host mother and the two younger kids came home last night from three weeks of camping, so I figured I�d cook them French Toast in the morning. The kids looked exhausted. They didn�t even take a shower before bed (or, for that matter, before church). They ate my French Toast without much thanks (I suppose that�s what a parent must feel like) except Davaa few grunts of �Za.� So I was up in the morning and had nothing better to do. So I went to church.

The first half was the same old Rockin� Out to Jesus Christ Clap Your Hands deal. Then, after the sermon, a contingent of Koreans decided to put on a show for the congregation. The first act was, oddly enough, a Tae-Kwan-Do demonstration. At first they just pumped their fists in the air and grunted. Then the younger ninjas broke a single board with their bare feet. This was all amusing to the congregation, seeing such silly nonsense happening on the altar. Then the tykes cleared out and the master ninjas decided to do a few moves, break a few double boards. They brought three normal, healthy-looking teenage boys onstage who didn�t know a thing about tae-kwan-do. They were instructed to get on their hands and knees in a row. The plan, I THINK, was for the master ninja to take a flying leap over the three teenage bodies and smash two boards in half with his feet. Well, I don�t think the master had quite enough space to do this maneuver, because for whatever reason he just ran really fast and tripped over the three kneeling teenagers. At first, I had to ask myself, �Wait, was this a comedy routine?� But that thought soon vanished as the kid on the far right keeled over with a horrible expression on his face, gripping his ribcage. The amusement collapsed. This kid was seriously hurt. In fact, just judging from the pain-O-meter on his face, his lung had collapsed. But Koreans with their face-saving quickly tried to divert everyone�s attention to something else. The master ninja was sensible enough to pick the boy�s body up and carry him off the stage.

They tended to the boy in a corner. A few people rushed over to see how he was doing. A few Koreans pushed their camcorders in his face. Probably five minutes later he was carried out of the church on someone�s back, his body lying limp and comatose.

In the meantime a Korean dance with shiny fans was happening onstage. Some people clapped. Most just looked in the direction of the wounded. How could this happen in a church? Why were they showcasing violent activity in front of a congregation of Presbyterians? It was like a magic show where the magician puts knives into the box with a lovely lady inside. Only when the box doors open up, the women has actually been impaled. Real accidents like this happen. Tae-Kwan-Do isn�t just a form of dancing.

So I don�t know if the boy died. He�s in for a world of pain either way. Cracked ribs. Internal bleeding. He took a direct blow to his side (unguarded) from a master ninja who was about to break two pieces of wood with the same foot that hit him. I think everyone was praying for him after that.

Well, after the fan dancing, they decided to give us some Korean theatre. This was really the theatre of the absurd�a combination of mimes and 80�s robot rock. I finally figured out they were telling the story of the creation of Earth by God, the fall of man (he drank booze, smoked cigarettes, and listened to music with headphones), and a shortened version of the Passion of Christ. All of it in pantomime, set to throbbing 80�s synth-rock. The �devil� character had the black make-up straight from KISS, complete with conscious attempts at flexing his biceps. The children (who usually spend their time playing outside in the playground) came in for this show. And good thing, too, because the symbolism was so simple, the story recycled for the umpteenth time, that it went straight over most of the adult�s heads.

Just another day down at the local Christian church.

a note on comments

This is a message to those who have gone through the trouble of signing up with Blogger just to post comments on this site. I am grateful for the comments, however I currently can't view my own blog-site in Mongolia. So I'm just posting blindly and hoping that everything works out. I'll read your comments when I return to more saner computers. In the meantime, the best way to make a comment on my posts is to email me at <misterchuck@hotmail.com>

Thanks for reading.

Of Motoring, Monasteries, and Mammoth Tour Buses

So on Friday my students took me to Manzir Khiid, a Buddhist monastery about 35 miles from Ulaanbaatar. They wanted to take me to Gachuurt, where they would show me the �Mongolian hotel� that features concrete yurts and a replica of a fountain built in Chinggis Khan�s era. When was this �hotel� built? 1740? 1933? Nope, 2004. No thank you.

So we went to Manzir Khiid. The first part of the day was lovely. For the first time in months the coal-smoke from the power plants blew away from UB, not into it. I got to sit in front, on the left-side. Most Mongolians buy Toyotas from Japan, which means the steering wheel is on the right-hand side. This makes it nerve-wracking when the driver wants to pass. He pretty much had to inch his SUV out until we were fully in the left-lane just to see if any cars were there. And, if you�ve been reading my earlier posts, Mongols just LOVE to pass.

***

Manzir Khiid is nestled in a valley among healthy looking fir and birch trees. This meant you had to pay to go there. At the gate, the ticket-lady squinted and saw me in the passenger seat. So it would be 500tg for the Mongolians in the car, and 2000tg for the �Yellow-Head.� I�ve come to understand foreigners in UB are all called �yellow-heads,� even if we�re brunette. Anyway, it is this �dual-pricing� system that will eventually lead to Mongolia�s ruin. First off, a country like Mongolia (like Greenland or Tibet) will be mainly reliant on tourist dollars to float their boat in the next ten or twenty years. After 20 years they will have constructed a 300-foot tall statue of Chinggis Khan in downtown UB (and will once again rule the known world). But until then, tourism is their crook, as nasty as that will be.

Second, it�s basically racism. I knew it was racism (felt it, too) when the lady squinted at me. She was judging me by the color of my skin, making me aware of my race, making me aware of the consequences of that (quadruple the fee for the �yellow-head�). I�m not good at definitions, but that sounds like a pretty good definition of racist discrimination. When Mongolians visit Yellowstone National Park (they never will, they only want to go to New York City and our Capital City), but when they do, they will be utterly confused when the park ranger demands $10. �What? No discount for our Asian faces? Look, Mister Ranger, look at the color of my skin�do you really think I can afford ten bucks to enter your park?� Quite frankly, it makes me feel unwelcome in this country to be judged in such a way. Many Koreans live in Mongolia, but they are charged the same as Mongols because there�s no way to tell they�re not Mongols. Even just the touristic Japanese aren�t charged triple. And it�s not like in China, where only foolish foreigners are charged twice what they should be paying. This �dual-pricing� system is government mandated. If you don�t pay the price according to your skin, then you can�t enter this temple, this national park, this cinema. The only way to change this form of racism is to politely decline. Don�t go to Mongolia. But if you do, let them know that you feel unwelcome every time they pull this crap on you. And when you return, write a thoughtful letter to the Mongolian Tourism Board (don�t address it to their Parliament�they�re busy deciding on how tall the Chinggis Khan statue should be).

***

After a lovely hike up to the monastery, and watching Mongolians huff and puff up a meager slope (UB Mongols aren�t known for walking any further than the distance between their house and their car or bus-stop), I got to witness another reason Mongolia�s tourism industry is all wrong.

I was staring at the white two-humped camel that a man was trying to get people to ride when a huge, red, heavy-duty tour bus pulled into the parking lot. The name on the side summed it up best: Rotel Tours. Rotel being a combination of �Road� and �Hotel.� About 15 sweaty, stinky German tourists disembarked and beelined for the museum. The bus would only stay for 45 minutes. These tourists had boarded the bus in Berlin only two weeks ago, for all I knew. The Rotel looked like it could handle just about any terrain. The first half was your typical tour bus with large windows. The last half was cabin-space. I imagined these 50 and 60 year old wealthy Germans sleeping bunk-style and had to laugh. They looked so bent out of shape, so sleep-deprived. And I thought: this is the future of Mongolians tourism. Forget about the hassle of rounding up a private Jeep, dealing with the inevitable Mongol breakdowns-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. This bus was made for long pit-stops. It was the equivalent of a half-million dollar motorhome cruising America. In Mongolia, a motorhome wouldn�t last two seconds. But the Rotel bus was the answer. You would have all the luxuries of the tour bus: see the countryside from an air-conditioned cabin, don�t meet/talk with locals, have guides explain everything until you wished he�d shut-up, never have to make eye contact with anyone you don�t want to, never stray from the itinerary, be back on the bus in a half hour, lunch will be provided courtesy of Whichever Restaurant Will Serve Us Food We�re Familiar With (plus one OPTIONAL side-dish of local food�sniff and pass to next person.)

Anyway, if this whole racist issue isn�t resolved, I certainly would rather hide on a bus when entering a national park. Better to pay all my money upfront to the tour provider, to keep locals out of the tourist loot, to make sure none of those nasty Mongolian geezers buy booze with my hard earned money.

If the Mongols want to judge my skin, they won�t get my greenbacks.

Blame the French

A wicked case of the watery diarrheas hit me last night with a fury. Never have I ejected so much bodily fluid in such a short time. I feared the worst, but today my fever has gone away and now I'm OK. It was bound to happen. I shove spoiled food items down my throat on a daily basis. I drink questionably bottled water. Most of what I eat has been cooked, allowed to reach room temperature, and then (maybe) reheated. But I bet it was that slice of 2000tg French Flan I ate yesterday. It's best to blame the French for everything.

Mmmmmmm...will somebody send me French Toast in the mail?

New Adventures in High-Fly

On Saturday it was the usual wake-up from Davaa ("Eat! Eat! Come! Come!") ushering me out the door, telling me that we were going to have a picnic next to the Tuul River with his church group. I had plans, but what the hell. I'll gladly go somewhere that has a place to swim. Of course, true to Mongol fashion, we left the apartment at 10 AM but didn't actually make it out to the picnic spot (a mere 10 miles away) until 1 PM. A lot of bickering at the church, an adventure to get a key copied at the Black Market, scrambling together transportation (as always, demand far exceeds supply of working wheels in this country).

In Mongolia, you always eat before you swim. That is the general rule, and it has its consequences (at least 50 people drown in the Tuul River per year). So we had a filling meal of coffee and various bleached flour bread items, offering a feeling of fullness, but no real nutrition (we wouldn't have it any other way). Then we jumped into the frigid Tuul. The current happened to be strong from recent rains, so there wasn't much swimming, just a bunch of tumbling and struggling.

Then it was time for the Mongolian style of Barbeque (which more closely resemebles slow roasting meat in a crock pot) called Khorkhog. First you build a wood fire around a pile of stones. Then, when the stones are red-hot, you place them in a steel, vacuum-sealed kettle, along with scraps of meat, potatoes, and carrots. Once all the ingredients are inside, close the lid tightly and place this pressure cooker back into the fire pit, flame-cooking it for 30-40 minutes.

Be careful when opening the highly pressurized kettle, many Mongolians have scars from Khorkhog "incidences." In fact, it's more like a minor bomb going off. But, once the lid is opened and most of the scalding water trapped inside is ejected into your face, it's time to eat! I'll be honest, this method of cooking mutton is by far the tastiest. The meat actually tasted like roast beef, though everything else had the distinct mutton tang to it. Once again Davaa says something and everyone laughs at me and I haven't the faintest idea what the hell is going on or what they're saying, but I eat everything up like its no big deal. Oooohhh, look at that! A non-Mongol who eats meat and potatoes! Soooo strange!

*****

Later that night I decided I was tired of spending my evenings huddled around a book or my notepad, so I called up the 2 other American students on the same program as me. We meet up at the British Pub and are instantly befriended by Ted, the 35 year old perpetual grad student. He is working on his Masters thesis in Mongolia, basically piggy-backing off of someone else's Fulbright Scholarship. Now here was a guy full of contradictions. First, he asked Dan if he lived in Michigan. Dan just goes to grad school there, but Ted grew up there. Later, after a few more shots of Jim Beam, Ted tells us he was born in Kentucky. He also tells me my plan to raft 30km of the Tuul River by myself is preposterous and un-doable. No, the better thing to do, he says, is buy a few inner tubes, a six pack, some rope. Tie the tubes together (one man to one tube, an extra tube to carry the Budweiser) and float the Tuul from Gachuurt to UB (about 10 km). This is his idea of adventure in Mongolia ("Let's do exactly the same thing we do in the States, only do it in Mongolia! What respect for the country we'll show by rafting their rivers like the drunk Americans that we are.") Brilliant idea, Ted. Sets a good example. Anymore ideas?

Ted also spoke eloquently about the relative safety of Ulaanbaatar. He compared it to Mexico City, where everyone had guns and drugs. Here, they can't afford guns. Mongolians don't know what heroine is, or cocaine. They might know what Meth is, but they don't sell the ingredients here. So, Okay, Mongolia is a safe place, right? Well, I thought so until Ted pulled out his six-inch knife and said "I don't take any chances, though. If they want my wallet, they can have it. But if they want my life, they'll have to fight me for it." A mere two seconds later, after I speculated that my host family was probably more worried about my safety than I was, he said "Mongolians over-react and are too paranoid."

Here's another golden nugget. Ted wanted to come back to Mongolia to write his Ph.D dissertation someday. He would write it about the rampant alcoholism in the country. He said this while stumbling over the sidewalk, foaming at the mouth.

So I have a character for my next story.

******

Yesterday I went to see "La Boheme" at the State Opera House. The House is magnificent and top-notch, though a bit small. The Liberty Theatre in Astoria is actually bigger, with a better chandelier. But this one, it was obvious, used to entertain Royalty. The only thing that made the whole experience completely weird was the low attendance. Out of 500 seats, only 40 were taken (for a box office revenue of about $200). When the show ended, it sounded like a high school tennis match and one of the athletes just made a comeback win. Tinny applause. Ironically, I think there were more performers onstage bowing than were in the seats clapping. But no matter, this entire production is sponsored by Germany. Losses are expected. The State Opera is just another service subsidized by a rich nation so Mongolians can skip out (most in attendance were "yellow-heads," as we're called).

After the show I ate the best danish tasted so far in Asia. Not surprisingly, it was at an Austrian-run bakery. I've also realized I've been missing out on big sandwiches with cheese and meats and mustard.

And real coffee...

So the beat goes on��

On Friday I called up Degi, my other contact in Ulaanbaatar (the director of DIAMANT Foreign Language Institute, a German outfit), and she said ��Oh, do you want to come on a weekend trip with us? We leave at 2 PM (in 2 hours) and it costs $150. We��ll visit Karokurum and pristine volcanic lakes.�� I said sure. Then she told me to call the driver��s cell phone, who was sitting right next to her. I asked him if there was enough room for me. He debated it with Degi for a few minutes (like I said, Mongols like to talk) and then said it would be really crowded with me along. I said that��s okay, maybe I��ll---and then he hung up. That��s the thing with talking to Mongols on the phone. If you say ��OK�� then they take it to mean ��Goodbye.��

The good news is that I made contact with Dan Leon, another American ICE participant. I know what they tell me: DON��T associate with Americans. But, first of all, this isn��t Europe. Americans are about as scarce as peanut butter here. Second, I don��t know any Mongolians who would want to see a traditional song and dance performance with me. Nor do I know any Mongols who would sit at a bar and shoot the breeze about being a foreigner in Mongolia with me. So that��s final. When the students get back from this weekend trip, I��ll try to figure out the UB Nightlife that I��m missing out on, a couple of fellow countrymen in tow.

Yesterday I went on a mass walking and exhausting tour of three museums in UB. First I stopped by the post office to buy some stamps and more post cards. It seems that the first batch of postcards that I sent out from China ended up in a Chinese fortune cookie. To those of you who were part of this first batch, please have patience and I will send out new one here in a few days. The mail is terribly slow here. I still haven��t received any mail, though Davaa never really checks the PO Box, always saying ��Margaash�� (tomorrow). ��Tomorrow�� I��ve been told is a meaningless word in Mongolian. It��s overused.

Anyway, so I started at the Mongolian Natural History museum. This was packed with all sorts of stuffed animals. Most of them weren��t very spectacular (the stuffed deer was an insult). Though the stuffed snow leopards were probably the closest I��ll ever come to the real thing (they��re dangerously close to being extinct��and yet poachers still bag a few every now and then right under the Mongol Authorities�� noses. It��s a profitable trade, so Mongols can��t really enforce the endangered species laws.)

The highlight was the intact Tarbosaurus skeleton, found in the Gobi Desert in the late 80s. It��s basically a T-Rex type, with razor sharp teeth and puny, worthless arms. The other highlight was the excavation of the fossilized remains of two dinosaurs fighting. One was a velociraptor, the other was a protoceratops. While the world is literally exploding all over the place and everything is being covered in a thick layer of debris, these two dinos still want to bash each other��s brains in. Sounds very human-like to me�� Next I ventured over to the Mongolian History museum, which had better organized exhibits with more English captions. The cost was 500 tg, about 50 cents, to enter. If you wanted to take photos inside, you had to pay $10. Thirty bucks to videotape. The same went with the Natural History museum and every other museum in UB. I guess since the price for admission is so low, they make money on the snap-happy. But still��ten bucks to take photos of their poor exhibits in bad lighting? You��re better off just buying a few postcards for a buck.

Well, the History museum was informative at least. I learned that one of the Mongol Khaan��s sent a letter to Pope Innocent the IV, pretty much declaring the Pope was to bow down to the Mongol Army. Nevermind the Mongols had yet to reach Italy, or even Istanbul, really, before they had to retreat.

Next, I walked to the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts. Once again a man approached me from behind, saying ��Hello?�� ��Helloooo!�� I just ignored him. He asked, like always, ��You speak English?�� I just shook me head and said, ��Je ne compris pas.�� He moved on to more docile targets. It was always the same story with each one of these losers. Their house burnt down and they need some assistance. They knew enough English to say this much, at least. The rest of the story was written out on a scrap of paper that was translated for them for about 100 tg. Despite this, Mongolians generally don��t pester foreigners. If you say ��No,�� ever if you say it softly and without conviction, they will say ��Sorry�� and move along. If you were in China and said ��No,�� you would be in for a battle the next ten minutes.

The Fine Arts museum had lots of Buddhist art of OK quality. Most of it wasn��t that old��maybe 100 or so years at the most. The true highlight was downstairs in the Art Gallery. Student work was on display. Some of it was truly ripped off from an Art History book, but some of it was truly awe-inspiring. A lot of it was Abstract Expressionist, but always with a hint of the steppe in it. Horses were a popular subject matter. But why not Soviet architecture? And I kept hoping to see an artist with a sense of humor. None could be found.

Today I hit up the Monastery Museum (an old Buddhist temple converted into a museum by those Russian Overlords who wanted an example of how foolish Religion can be). I��ll have to agree with the Russians on this one. The art inside truly is laughable. Numerous smiling gods in God-Only-Knows-What positions. Much of it more ornate than a Baroque cathedral.

Especially interesting was the back-room, called a Secret Tantric Prayer Room. Basically, it was a room for lamas to make out with women. Inside, huge paintings resembling Where��s Waldo tableaus made the whole experience ludicrous. These paintings combined MC Escher, Monty Python, and the best of pulp comics about sex, drugs, and rock n�� roll. A whole lot of sadistic torture (including turning you into a sheep or camel, chopping bits/chunks of your flesh off, cutting out your tongue, boiling you in a human soup, being eaten by various hungry animals, sitting in a cave while bugs eat your flesh to the bone, growing a tongue large enough that other men plow it with cattle slicing it up (no joke!), or repeatedly drowning). All of it was designed with fuzzy logic vanishing points, and most of it was ink-drawn, so it looks like one big cartoon. No wonder the kid whose Mom was going around saying prayers to all these laughing statues stood in front of these pictures for minutes on end. As did I.

Afterwards, I strolled in the Children��s Park (basically UB��s version of Central Park). Carnival rides of varying fun-factors and colors were scattered throughout. Though if sometimes you had to wait until the ride was at least half full before the conductor started up the diesel engines. I rode on the gigantic ferris wheel. The guidebook said it was slow as molasses; however it was over in about four minutes. I contemplated other rides, but what fun would it be on these rides by myself? I wanted to see a performance of the Tumen Eck song and dance ensemble (for $6), but decided at the last minute that I would rather see it with a friend.

Last night one of my host brother��s friends asked me, ��Don��t you get lonely here? You don��t know anybody. Nobody speaks your language.�� I wanted to say, ��Well, duh.�� But instead I was more truthful. ��I can keep myself entertained fairly well.��

But it still stung.

Hitting the Sticks

Last weekend I hit the road with my host family (and their closest relatives) to camp in Eastern Mongolia, about 260 km from UB. It was near the town of Delgerkhaan, next to the Avarga Toson lake. Now, I know what you might be thinking when I say �lake.� Maybe an alpine setting with lush forests and speedboats. Well, that�s Oregon, not Mongolia. Here, a lake is where you go on vacation, and it amounts to a spring-fed puddle in the middle of the high desert. No trees as far as the eye can see. Only untainted expanses of grassland, rolling hills, a few mountain ranges in the very far distance. Nothing to get worked up about.

Well, let me talk a little bit about the ride TO the lake from UB. We had about 16 people inside a mini-bus that could comfortably fit eight. That�s the Mongol-style. No bus and no car should move unless it�s filled to the brim with people. On top of that, everyone packed as much junk as they could bring with them. I counted about 50 blankets rolled up in the back. We sat on 10 of them in the minibus. Blankets made up both the sleeping pads and the sleeping bags for these Mongols. I brought along my blanket from my bed and a rolled up towel for a pillow. My padding amounted to three blankets stacked on top of each other. I think my back finally has some iron in it after these past 5 days.

Another thing about driving conditions. The paved and pockmarked road lasts for about � of the route to Avarga Toson. The rest is pure Russian Ruts. American logging roads are better maintained than these for one reason. Mongolian roads were created by simply blazing a trail using jeeps and service trucks. American logging roads are carefully planned and built. But either way you cut it, the last half of the ride was, at best, a theme park safari ride of bumps, dips, descents, ascents, washboards, and flat tires.

And to top it off, Mongolian drivers still drive agressively. Out in the middle of the steppe, uninhabited as far as the eye can see, with only two cars on the lonely and desolate stretch of ruts, Mongols still tail-gate. That�s right, the tail car speeds up (risking a flat tire or worse) until it is riding the ass of the front car, eventually overtaking it. Then it is just more endless, desolate roads.

*

Avarga Toson is the where Mongols believe the first Mongolian city was established. It is also, coincidentally, where an intelligent young man named Temujin was crowned Chinggis Khaan (Ghengis Khan), ruler of the Eastern world around 1250 AD. Nearby there is a huge statue of Chinggis, but we didn�t go there. Instead, we mostly were either at the lake or in the ger (yurt). Each day was a repetition of the last: wake up, walk to the local herding family where we drank a glass of fresh horse milk (which would thankfully cure my constipation), ate some breakfast (usually something milky and mushy), go to the lake for a swim, sunbathe and get a sunburn, circle the lake on foot (stopping at a mineral spring to splash our eyes and cure any eye ailments), go back to the ger, sit around in the ger and be lazy, eat some dinner (involving mostly soups), walk to the local herding family for our evening glass of horse milk (play with their cute toddlers), sit around some more, go to sleep at dusk.

The exceptions to this rule: on Sunday my host parents and a local family boarded into a small bus to attend the Naadam festivities in a local sum (a fancy way of saying �a village and its environs�). Naadam is the National Holiday of Mongolia, and tourist agencies make a killing during this time. In UB, the three events (20 km horse racing, archery, and wrestling) have been commercialized so much that most Mongolians stay at home and watch the events on their TV. Even so, UB during Naadam is like Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage. Thousands upon thousands of country Mongols flood UB (along with thousands of tourists) and its enough to make one say �Screw Naadam, I�m hitting the road outta UB.� Which is what me and my host family did.

The small Naadam I saw was small and cute. They were all about their horses, thus horse racing was the main attraction. Only 30 minutes of wrestling figured into the festivities, and no archery was staged. We arrived in the late afternoon, and I was immediately greeted by the Mongol stare. I�ve come to the realization that most non-Mongolians don�t come to this part of Mongolia (since it is serviced neither by public transportation nor main roads). Besides, all the foreigners were crammed into a stadium in UB, why was I poking my neck around and butting in? I figured I wasn�t the first �white man� they had seen, but I might�ve been their sixth. But no worries, I played it cool.

We cheered on some kid named Seggi, who was the grandson of the herding family who provided us with horse milk. He got fifth, which is good. Only first through fifth get prizes. The rest go home with a popsicle.

Another break from the rule was when I asked if there was a horse I could rent for an hour to ride into the countryside. Davaa (host dad) asked around and I went with. Don�t let anyone tell you Mongols are stoic, quiet people. They like to talk, and they use twice as much breath to say the same things we do. It took about ten minutes of beating around the bush before Davaa would ask �And by the way, could we rent one of your horses for an hour?� The usual answer was that the husband wasn�t home, and we would have to ask him.

But my lucky strike came on Wednesday morning, when the horse milk family asked me to do some herding for them. They wanted a group of fluffy, white sheep (a splotch of white on the horizon) to move over and mingle with the dark brown goats (a splotch of black on the horizon). I had no confidence I could accomplish this in any reasonable amount of time, but I couldn�t pass up the opportunity.

I mounted a horse and tried my best to trot. The horse sensed my inexperience, and merely trudged. I had only gone 100 meters before the herding family told their son to accompany me. The 6-year old grabbed my ropes and basically towed me out to the sheep. After that, the horse was on autopilot. We shooed and whipped at the sheep, and they got a move on. The trick is to get a group of them running. There are hardly any stragglers. Sheep have that group mentality.

Unfortunately, I was wearing shorts and my sandals. I rubbed the inside of my ankle raw and bloody by the end of the ride. When I returned to the family�s ger, they asked if I would be their herder. I told them to give me 10 years to practice herding. They said I would be too old by then. I said Thank You and Goodbye.

As I was saying, this family had the cutest toddlers. One we nicknamed Black Sumo because she walked with a bow-legged sumo gait. She was also very dark, even for a Mongolian. Black Sumo liked to stick her head in horse manure. These kids were allowed to freely roam around. Most Mongolian toddlers don�t wear diapers (too expensive and wasteful), so they walk around without pants on. I remember one evening going to drink milk and asking �Where�s Black Sumo?� The grandma pointed in the far distance, and there she was, crying for a few seconds, then watching a pack of cows go by, then bending over, then falling over, then falling asleep. We ran over and picked her up into our arms. Her father is in prison. Her mother is away indefinitely. But I�d hate to see her adopted and raised in some city.

Black Sumo has the grasslands written in her blood.

When will the good things start?

Fifteen years ago Ulaanbaatar was a place where you could walk across the street and not look both ways. Where you did not fear that you would be pummeled by a beefy SUV taking a sharp corner at 50 mph. Those were the communist days. The only cars on the street were Russian-built, and they numbered less than 5,000. Those were the communist days. Today, with absolutely no new roads built in UB (nor widened), there are about 70,000 vehicles roaming the streets at any given time. Welcome to democracy and capitalism at its vicious best.

Yesterday I attended what you might say a �pot-luck� gathering at a German family�s home out in the yurt suburbs. Driving out of downtown UB and into the suburbs is like entering the slums of Bogota or Buenos Aires or Calcutta. But unlike those slums, these are relatively new---all haphazardly partitioned and facetiously arranged. Since nobody (technically) owns any land in Mongolia except the government, I wonder who decides how much land you can have if you move to UB fresh from the country. The cover of my Lonely Planet guidebook says: �Mongolia: Discover a land without fences.� There should be an asterix next to that statement, since UB is nothing BUT fences. There are fences around the parking lot outside my apartment complex, with a gate to boot. Fences make it impossible to pick just any route to walk around your neighborhood. They even fence up the wild land on the outskirts of UB�big parcels that have nothing more than a yurt and an SUV parked outside. For all this talk about Mongolians being hospitable and �open,� they sure are freakishly paranoid. It is a standard practice by every Mongol who locks a door to set two dead bolts and then give a tug on the handle to make sure it latched. And this is just to lock up an empty classroom inside a building that has a Security Guard checking everyone�s IDs at the door. This weekend I take a trip to the countryside. I�m curious to see if my host family relaxes a little bit. Leaves the car door unlocked from time to time.

But anyway, so at this �pot-luck� this family was BBQ-ing lamb ribs. Huge, foot-long ribs. 95% pure, free-range fat and a few nibbles of meat attached to bone. Yum indeed. I ate two and swear I heard my arteries hardening. My dad would be proud.

It�s fun watching even the most daintiest Mongolian women eating huge, slabs of greasy fat off a bone. I asked Naraa, my assistant at the TV station, if she ever went a day without meat. She said she did, and got horribly sick the next day. She typically eats meat 3 times a day. And that�s the norm.

Americans think we�re meat-eaters if we eat it everyday for dinner. But try breakfast, lunch, and snacks, too.

So the views from this house in the suburbs were actually quite superb. Just behind their house was a rocky bluff. A Catholic nunnery was next door. These Germans frequently took ex-prisoners into their home and taught them the word of God. They had a nice, newly built house, with a yurt in the backyard of course.

English class has been a learning experience (more for me than the students). I make up lesson plans, but it doesn�t matter. We change topics as rapidly as we want and by today I�m making up the syllabus as I go along. Flying by the seat of my pants. Naturally, I have the occasional student who challenges me on such petty things as whether �Playing� is a verb or a noun (today she admitted that it wasn�t a noun, it was simply a gerund). And quite frequently it is the students who decide what I�m going to teach them. I have them making photocopies of a text to read for next week, which I will prepare comprehension questions for. Then in class, we discuss. They want to speak (they care little for reading or writing) English. Of course, they don�t realize that they should speak English with each other. They complain that everyone only speaks Mongolian in Mongolia. That�s like saying only English is spoken in the United States.

But the basic truth is that everything they see on TV and at the movies is dubbed (poorly) into Mongolian. Only the most enterprising businesses write their signs in English (not Russian Cyrillic). And, many will simply never leave Mongolia. Thus, they will never be fluent. They will never realize how aggressively they drive. They will never see how filthy and polluted of a city they live in.

Again, contradicting myself, many Mongols have studied or lived abroad. Very few, however, return.

Now I want to bring up a few billboards and t-shirt phrases I read today. First, on a billboard near the central square, it read, �Sex with children is a punishable crime.� Some foreigners might take this the wrong way. Mostly the billboard is referring to the quite large under-age prostitution ring. Hundreds of Mongolian girls are inadvertently sent to places like Macau or Taiwan to Beijing to work as brothels. Once there, they must work up enough money to come home. The brothels are set up so they never have enough money to do this.

The second sign I read was on a young ladies T-shirt. Above a picture of Snoopy (Charlie Brown cartoons are big here), it read: �When will the good things start?� That about sums up the mood in UB. They�re on the path to full democracy, they have trusted that capitalism is the ultimate truth, and now they wonder: When will the good things start?

A Very Long Blog

So, where to start? It's been awhile since I posted anything, and I have more things to say than I can cram into a one hour internet session at the local Net Cafe.

So, I'll start from this weekend.

I visited Gandan Khiid (monastery) on Saturday in downtown UB. It's basically one of only a handful of Buddhist monasteries NOT torn down by the Russian communists. The reason: so the Soviets had something to impress foreign visitors (the few and far between), and to keep them looking away from the crumbling apartment buildings and KGB satellite dishes.

There are better Buddhist temples in China and Tibet, but at least the lamas are free to worship and educate as they please here. Next to the main temple, an auxilliary temple housed about 50 children, all practicing to become lamas. But the main temple was the main attraction. It's over 30 meters tall with everything intact (I'll try to send a photo of it later). Inside resides a "merely" 20 meter tall gold-plated statue of a Buddhist god (the God of Longevity). This thing is HUGE and elaborate. Michelangelo's David in Florence, Italy is a doll figurine in comparison. It's actually a fairly new reproduction (the original was melted down and the copper was made into bullets for the Soviet army). I know this simply because Timultyn (my 21 year old host brother who came along with me) saw it for the first time. The last time he visited this temple he was 7 years old, and nothing was inside except a circle of prayer wheels. Prayer wheels are the big drum-like copper barrels that people spin around (like they do on the Price is Right) as they pray for happiness or spiritual salvation or a shiny, new car.

That's another thing I don't get about Mongolia. Here's a country that would be financially destitute if 30% of their GDP wasn't foreign aid. Here's a country where most of their social services are free, thanks to volunteers from other countries, thanks to a gazillion of Non-Government Agencies working in UB. But here is a city where everyone drives shiny, new Japanese, Korean and American cars. Half of the vehicles are burly Ford Expeditions, Isuzu Troopers, Nissan Patrols, and other SUV name brands (I even saw one Hummer). The other half are new Mercedes, Audis, Hyundais, and Hondas. Either SOMEONE is subsidizing all of these vehicles (because according to Mongols gas isn't cheap here...about US$2 a gallon) or UB residents are investing all their free money from the government on a new car. Most of these cars are diesel-guzzlers, so they emit black smoke. The last thing UB needs are more people buying cars. They don't even have enough money to maintain the roads, all their streets are too narrow for mass vehicle transit, nobody rides bikes (that would be a death wish in UB), a Red light means Go Faster in Mongolian, and their air quality is piss-poor to begin with (thanks to the 3 coal power plants in town, and I think one Nuclear). At any given moment (even at 3AM) I can hear the faint whine of car horns and car alarms. The car horns I can deal with (it's a part of city-life), but the car alarms are seriously distressing. Nobody pays any attention to them. Most alarms go off for no reason (perhaps a gentle rain?). Ten or twenty minutes can pass before their owners return and turn the alarm off. Vehicles are superfluous and everybody has one...so why would you want to steal one? I heard the most god-awful alarm the other night at 1AM. It sounded like somebody was leaning on their car horn. This went on for a good ten minutes, right outside my window. But here's the funny part: I asked my host family if they heard it; they didn't even wake up.

On Sunday I attended a Korean-based Presbyterian church with my host parents. I did this out of kindness and curiousity. When the inevitable questions popped up: Are you religious? Do you believe in God? Are you Protestant? A negative answer to any of these would've resulted in instant proselytizing. So I just said I was Christian, I was Baptist, and I hadn't been to church in awhile. That seemed to satisfy them. Though one overzealous churchgoer made absolute sure I had a translator for the sermon/lecture/brow-beating. I played along the whole time. The church service had a full band (electric and acoustic guitar, a bass, and a drumkit) and choir. So there was lots of singing and music and hand-clapping, which was nice to hear. The pastor's "tell them a story and then use this story as a metaphor for today's lecture" involved trying to steam dumplings in Germany. The point of the story was this: Just like Germans don't know how to steam dumplings, we do not know how to become Holy. We need the recipe of the Word of Christ. Without dutifully following this recipe, we will not make true dumplings, nor will we be Saved.

Afterwards, everyone piled into cars (at least 14 in my host parent's car alone) and drove the 30km into the countryside, where more lectures would be dispensed. The countryside was exquisite. It seriously looked like Eastern Oregon and especially Nevada out there. No trees (except near the Tuul River), endless grassland, dry desert, rocky mountains. Horses everywhere. The po-dunk town/village. Plastic bag tumbleweeds. Roaming cows and goats. The occasional mongrel mutt.

After about an hour of this, Davaa (my host father) and I drove back into town, to Ulaanbaatar University's gym, where a group of students and teachers assembled (as they do every Sunday evening) for sweating game of indoor soccer. Davaa can sure run around for his age (48). The other Mongols and Koreans (there is a very huge chunk of Koreans in UB; mostly from Seoul) were better ball-handlers, but I was a mean defender (and sometimes goalie). Only one goal got past me.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I start teaching Beginning and Advanced English courses. I teach the Beginners Monday through Thursday from 10:30AM til 12:30PM. I teach the Advanced class Mondays through Thursdays from 2PM til 4PM. Fridays are reserved for First come, first served individual tutoring. I'll teach English for about a month (August 4th). After that...who knows? I don't really think I can do anything else at the station. I'm going to talk with my other contact in UB, the director of the Foreign Language learning center, and see if there's something for me to do there until I go home. I would like to shake things up a bit. Just getting to Mongol TV up on the hill will become tiresome.

To wit.

Today, I was punched in the stomach (on accident) by an 80 year old Mongol on the bus. Then, I witnessed this Grandpa be forcibly ejected from the bus (and I mean FORCIBLY, the old man DID NOT want to get off the bus and even made a mad scramble to reboard once he was finally off). The thing was, this man was drunk. He wanted to stand next to the bus driver, but this was off-limits. A younger Mongol (late 20s) kept his leg up to block the elder man. They argued a little...it sounded like the elder was giving a lecture to this younger person, throwing insults and the like. Eventually the younger Mongol bopped the old man on the head with his empty water bottle. It reminded me of an older brother teasing his younger infant brother. Then, the old man took a swing. Unfortunately, he swung wide and I was in the path of his fist. So I got an unexpected blow to the abs. After that, everybody kind of stepped back and watched as these two scuffled. The bus came to a stop and the elder was literally pulled off the bus. The driver had to help out, peeling the old man's fingers from his iron grip on the bus. After he was off, the driver closed the doors and drove about a block, where the younger guy caught up and reboarded. The other Mongols on the bus acted as if this was common. The New Mongolia is, of course, a youth culture. Respect for the elderly is in quick decline. And who can blame them? The elderly make up most of the drunks. They dress in traditional clothing. They are counterculture to the Youth in Asia.

(in a later blog, I will explain this whole youth explosion a little more. Until then...)

Mongol Surprise

I must rebut some of my previous statements on this blog. I was overcome with a nasty case of ethnocentrism. Also, I was just plain irritated. These things will get ironed out as time goes on.

Today I tried to find an English bookstore (and failed) but I did manage to look up the schedule of the Mongolian Opera house. A lady saw me squinting at the Cyrillic and asked me to come with her for a full summer schedule. I got to walk across the stage...WHOA! It's not as big as some of the Operas in the world (or even the States) but from what I saw in the dimly lit theatre, it was perfectly intact from the communist days. I probably won't be allowed to take my camera to a show (I plan on seeing Puccini's La Boheme and another opera simply titled "Chinggis Khan"), but I made friends with the box office lady. She said to come back to her a week before the show for an "invitation" to a show...so I may score some free tickets, plus I can take my camera and take pictures during the day when performers are just practicing.

I haven't taken many photos of Mongolia yet. Just a few from my balcony of the sunset hitting the apartment buildings. Once I get a large amount (probably after the national Naadam summer games festival) I will download them to computer and send a few of my best in an email.

Yesterday I ate khuurshuur. It's basically a doughy pancake stuffed with rice and mutton. They were delicious! Though today the grease isn't sitting too well in my stomach. Khuurshuur is a traditional Mongolian dish eaten by the nomads out on the steppes. You won't find it at the local Mongolian BBQ restaurant in the States. In fact, BBQ is rare in Mongolia. You're just as likely to find something fried or boiled than BBQ'ed. Hardly anything is baked here. Though the bread I eat every morning for breakfast (with butter, jam, and honey imported from Germany and Russia) is standard to superb.

Tea drinking is incessant. I think I drink about 3 cups a day. Plus one coffee. At home and at Mongol TV, boiled water is constantly "Ready" (they have special machines that look like coffee pots that boils and dispenses about 4 liters of water). And this is pretty good quality tea...as good as Liptons. A good cup of coffee, however, is only served at fine restaurants and hotels (and will be grossly overpriced).

I'm thinking I could be the next updater to the Lonely Planet Mongolia guidebook. So much of the information in it is no longer true (and it was updated in 2001!). But it's still been a godsend of information.

Yesterday evening I sat down and wrote (and finished) a short story. Suddenly I had a creative outburst, and so I capitalized on it. I hope I have more of them.

Tomorrow I will explore UB a little more with my host family (I'll politely ask to be driven out of town a little ways). On Sunday, I go to their Protestant church to meet some new friends.

On Monday I am giving Mongol TV workers a short test to see if they should be taking my "Beginner" English class or my "Advanced" English class. I have no idea what I'm doing!

Ahhh...it feels good to be flying by the seat of my pants.

p.s. I need mailing addresses for the following people (please email me your address): - Renia Ydstie - Debbie Sartwell - Graham Davis - Casey Smith - Harmony Piccuica (and other relatives in Chicago) - Pearl Rasmussen - Andrew Fick

You may have given me your mailing addresses before, but I forgot to bring my address book with me to Mongolia...so if you would like a postcard...

Mongol TV

So Mongolian Radio and TV Studio (where I work...or don't work) is a harkening back to the 1950s. The building was built around 1967 by the communists, but nowadays it's too big for its own good. Women make up about 75% of the workers (or non-workers) there. Many are either secretaries or beaucracy clerks. Some of them are TV technicians. In each room, a whole lot of tea and coffee drinking is going on. A whole lot of newspaper reading is going on. A whole lot of Solitaire is played on the computers. And maybe 15% of the workforce is actually at work on something (editing video footage, typing manuscripts for TV commercials, typing written requests for United States visas, those sorts of things). On July 1st, Mongol TV loses its State subsidies and becomes a public television station. They also lose their monopoly of the airwaves. How do you say "Bon voyage, comrade" in Russian?

I have a bad feeling about it all. One of their largest studios is used for a talkshow program that is on hiatus until August. For now, it sits empty, waiting for a host. Mongol TV is for sure overstaffed and inefficient (they still pay Mongol artists to hand-draw cartoons on paper), so staying competitive in an ever-increasing crowded market would certainly mean the closing of the builiding. It would certainly require vast upgrades of technology (where would the money come from?). Just yesterday I talked with a video editor who lost all of her edits because a computer crashed. She was in the process of re-digitizing hours and hours of tapes.

What I predict is that Mongol public TV will only last a short while. They're studio and building will be bought out by a private company and MPBS (Mongol Public Broadcasting) will be no more.

But I'm cynical. And I have to be. I couldn't think of a more depressing place to spend a summer than in Ulaanbaatar. Millions of square miles of vast steppe is just a hop over some mountains, but I have to stay in UB. I'm developing a persistent cough because of all the pollution and dust. The food is uninspiring. Mongol drivers show absolutely no respect for human life or patience. Every day I see road rage. Walking on broken glass is a must, and I see women doing it daily in their high heels. I spend hours at a time all by myself in empty rooms. The Mongols baby me and escort me everywhere. All I want to do is see my girlfriend. Who could be cheerful at a time like this?

At least the children are cute. And everywhere. One smiled and waved at me from a bus. Another said "Hi" to me as I walked by. I said "Hello" back, and he parroted it to himself. These little things will soon take over the unpleasant things...

UB or not UB, that is the question

I just love China and the Chinese and how they like to take you on a trip around the block and then make you pay for it. At the airport, I had the simple question: Where do I check-in? So the "handy" airport help ushered me upstairs, down a long, long hallway, knocked on a few doors, knocked on a few more doors, finally taking me around the building one more time before pointing down to the check-in counters (about where I was standing when I asked him in the first place). And then, he demanded 20 yuan. $2.15 for nothing! I gave him 10 yuan to shut up and walked away.

Anyway, so I'm in Ulaanbaatar now. Yesterday my host family met me at the airport and drove me to their apartment (which they just moved into a few days ago, so everything's in disarray). Their oldest son speaks the best English, so it's fine when he's around. The father speaks very little. The mother speaks it enough to understand me when I tell her "I'm going to the internet cafe for two hours," so that's good.

Ulaanbaatar is crowded, pockmarked, crumbling, and traffic-jammed. I live in a "new" apartment building, which really just means the interior was renovated while the exterior is left without a paintjob. Anything that is not really REALLY necessary to build or install, isn't. Things like grassy lawns, or lawns at all, is nonsensical in a place that freezes over come October. It seems that if Mongols want some fresh air and green grass, they just get in their brand new SUV and drive a few miles out of town. Beyond UB, the land is wild and untamed.

But in UB, which is where I'll be most of my time here, it's a different picture. The streets are too small to accomodate everyone's SUV. In the words of my host mother, "Mongols drive like they ride their horses." Rough and tumble.

Powerlines are everywhere. People are everywhere (along the main routes at least...on the sidestreets in residential areas, it's actually quite peaceful). The only thing to keep me awake at night is the next-door neighbor using a powertool to drill nails in the wall. That, and howling dogs, screaming babies. These things echo loudly between the apartment bloc buildings.

I get my own room with my Mongol host family. I feel sort of bad about it. The two parents sleep in a queen size bed with two of their youngest children. The other two oldest boys share a room with a bunkbed. I get my own room with a door that opens to a balcony (that overlooks pockmarked apartments, but still). I get a mattress (the boys sleep on mats) and a desk with ample closet space. Half of my room sits unoccupied. But, when you consider I'm paying a considerable amount per month for rent ($200; the avg. mongol makes $50/month), the host family is making a good, healthy profit off of me. If it will help put their oldest son through medical school, than all the better.

The food is generally good. Last night my host mom made stir-fry. Tonight she promises a "traditional" mongol dish. Today at work I ate Mongol cafeteria food and it actually tasted very American (something maybe served at dinner in the plains states...those places still untouched by International Cuisine and all its ethnocentric fallout).

I've also decided to change my travel dates and return to the States two weeks early. I need extra time to prepare for my senior year in college, among other reasons. Mr. Batzorig, my boss, supports my decision and will even help me change my ticket at the local airline office.

I need to go soon, so I won't go into details about Mongol TV (where I'll be working), except that it will be VERY flexible (i can set my own hours) and I will be teaching/tutoring workers there in English skills (at least for the first few weeks). Also, I'll have to take a bus to and from work every day. That should be a happy nightmare from time to time...

Over and out til next time (the Net cafe is a block away from where I'm living, so it's a cinch to do this email thing, for good or ill).

The Great Wall part two

So the hike was probably one of the best hikes of my life. It was both sweaty, rugged, scenic, AND historic. If you ever visit the Great Wall (at least a "developed" site) visit the one at Jinshanling and hike the wall to Simitai (it's recommended by Lonely Planet, and for good cause). It was funny when our guide motioned for us to get on the cable car that would take us a good portion up the wall but nobody followed him, instead deciding they wanted the FULL hike, with all the uphills. The guide was the only one in the cable car, looking foolish.

Reaching the end of the hike, there is a Zip line from the mountainside, over a lake, and to a boat that will take you to the parking lot. I took it for $3. Cheap thrill indeed. I wish I could post pictures along with these posts, but images will just have to wait until I get back to the States.

Also, I've made some quick observations of China, and here they are:

- Full color billboards showing what a place is supposed to be like (serene, lush) and the actual site (concrete and dirt) behind it. - One hand on wheel, other hand on car horn. - Roadside fruitstands every 50 meters. - Persistent salesmen. - Third world housing conditions in a country that thinks its First world. - No trees taller than 20 feet. In fact, hardly any trees at all. - People who inhabit the Great Wall (what a great existence...) - Thick smog/haze. - Bike culture vs. Car culture - People whose job it is to take your empty bottle or can of soda after you've finished (at the major tourist destinations and public parks) but they don't wait for you to finish and will pester you to gulp the last half down so they can take it. - Buildings (even gas stations) built on a grand, epic scale. - Sky cranes littering the skyline. - Either they don't percieve risks, or we perceive risks too acutely.

*disclaimer: these observations are based solely on time spent in Beijing and the Great Wall and in between. Exceptions to these are bound to pop up all across China (it's a BIG country), especially Tibet*

Great Wall part one

I hiked a portion of the Great Wall that few dare attempt. The drive to get there from Beijing takes 4 hours. Since so few people go, the souvenir hawkers can zero in on you and follow you for many miles. The inclines are dizzying, the descents are loose rock slip-n-slides. The total mileage is 10K (6 miles), but it took me 3 hours, 15 minutes. The only other tourists in the area were from the two buses of youth hostellers (twentysomethings) that I went up there with.

Oddly, the only injury I sustained on the Great Wall occurred when I squeezed out of my seat on the bus, scraping my leg on something sharp and probably rusty. It left a huge gash that bled for 10 minutes. Luckily I brought a small First Aid kit. Ironically, 3 other bus-riders disembarked from bus-related injuries as well.

The hike was as scenic as they come. Horizon to horizon, endless Wall stretching over ridgelines and down into valleys all the way into the hazy distance. A few raindrops fell, but went unnoticed. The curious thing about this hike were the hawkers. There were two types:

- the type that sat in the doorways to the watchtowers, yelling out "Water, Beer, Coka." These were the most annoying because they were in EVERY watchtower, so just when I wanted to take a seat and rest, I couldn't. If I stopped at a watchtower, these hawkers badgered you senseless.

- the other type was a "stalker" type. they zeroed in on you, for some reason deciding you were the target market for their picture books, postcards, and/or t-shirts. There were enough of these types (most all of them were middle-aged woman) to have one "stalker" to every tourist on the wall.

I picked up my "stalker" about 100 meters along the wall. At first she just asked me my name, pointed out some sights, and reminded me to "be careful" when navigating a steep slope. About 2 miles into it, she started hawking her wares. I persisted with my No's and my ignoring her products. At one point she told me "I'm Mongolie farmer. We eat corn." and I think that the intention was sympathy.

Well, I finally got rid of her by "outpacing" her. I knew she would give up once she said, "Buy a t-shirt and I go home." So I kept walking. She gave up.

I felt an air of accomplishment.

More on the Great Wall later....

Chinese Dining

I finally ventured out into the wild Beijing night in search of an authentic Chinese dinner. Once again I was accompanied by an Irish guy (in Croatia, I befriended an Irishman too). I think I get along well with the Irish--they're brash but down to earth in a way the Brits are not. The both of us were dressed way too casual for the outing, but what the hell? Many Chinese gave us looks, but don't stare for too long. This is Beijing after all. While roaming the streets, we spotted a flicker of neon down some alleyway (neon usually means "food" or "shopping"). So we ventured inside. Turns out it's packed with Chinese families--so it must be good eating. We motioned for a table. Nobody spoke any English, nor did we speak any Chinese (the entire night consisted of pointing and gesticulating). They sat us in the window as "dressing" for passerby to gawk at. Luckily they had a picture menu for us foreign folk, but gave us absolutely no time to look at the menu with any detail before making our order. We ended up ordering 6 items: -Delicious Chicken (swimming in chili powder soup) -Duck Soup (lots of skin, very little meat) -Sweet and sour Chicken (tasted familiar...best item we picked) -Egg Fried Rice -White rice/wild rice mixed -Another meat dish that was extremely spicy and had tiny itty-bitty bones in it (thus: unedible).

Obviously this was twice as much food as we could eat. It was ready in 5 minutes. I took a few bites of the "delicious chicken" and the unedible menu item and instantly my lips, tongue, and throat burned with wicked fury. I tried washing the hotness down with beer, but beer only made it worse. The best dishes were the rice and sweet and sour chicken. The duck soup wasn't bad either.

...Next Time: The Great Wall...

Beijing, part 2

Day Two: Beijing

Today I hopped on a guided tour of Tianeman Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven. A full day of site-seeing and a buffet lunch for $26 ain't bad. Beijing is so confusing and haphazard (and I'm so jet-lagged and disoriented) that I didn't want to risk a major headache to get to these places on my own. So I met up with 4 other people from 3 other major hotels (one 50-year old wife from Carmel, CA; one 60-year old Scottish lady; and a 30-something couple from Argentina) and we strolled the day away.

Amazingly, we all got along.

Tomorrow I hike 10K along the Great Wall and spend the night there, too!

Down and Out in China

Well folks, I'm in Asia now, trying not to breathe Beijing's smog-polluted air or drink its bacteria-laced water. So far I've survived, though. I've even crossed a busy street and learned the "way to cross" by observing other Chinese. I guess red lights don't really mean you can't Go. If traffic or pedestrians are sparse, no problem. We walk out into the middle of the road and wait for an opening. I feel I might see someone get pulverized by a speeding Hyundai in the next few days. It's only inevitable.

My success story: fending off scores of "tourist hunters" at the airport who wanted me to come with them in a joyride taxi to the city center, Tianeman, and who knows where else. The scam was in the price: 300 RMB. I kept saying no thank you until I found the shuttle bus ticket counter (16 RMB for a trip downtown). Score! But then the bus drops us all off in the middle of nowhere and I was helpless and confused and finally agreed to let some men give me a ride to the Beijing Central train station (they pointed at a minivan; but I ended up climbing into a pedal-power rickshaw). An old man huffed and puffed all the way to where I wanted to go (8 blocks away) for 30 RMB. Then I get out and a man grabs my bag and wheels it 20 paces and expects me to tip him: I hand over 2 RMB and he feels cheated.

Anyway, I'm staying at a fairly cush youth hostel just across the street from the huge central train station. Good thing I brought earplugs! All I plan on doing is sitting around and waiting until my eyes get tired and going to sleep. Tomorrow I will probably just sign up for the package tour of Beijing sights and be done with it. $35 to keep me busy most of the day. I don't think I want to wander around by myself--though I'm perfectly adept at doing so--in order to avoid more people who want to take my money. Of course I'm a moving target in Beijing...the only white boy around.

If I get hungry there's a huge KFC right across the street...

Oh, did I mention Beijing was 100+ degrees today with super humidity? Also, and this is key, a thick layer of smog blanketed everything, leaving dust on the car hoods. And traffic is horrendous. Why did someone think it was a good idea to give one of the most populous countries on Earth enough automobiles for every man, woman, and child?

Frankly, I'm looking forward to getting up to Mongolia. It may be poorer there, but at least it has a nice cool breeze blowing off the Siberia.

You may have noticed this is a mass email. This was done just to let everyone know I made it to China in one piece with no luggage problems yet. In all other cases, please refer to my online journal:

http://fieldnotesmongolia.blogspot.com/

which will be updated about once a week or more.

Take care all, Chuck

Adventure #6.8

Why choose Mongolia?

The simple answer is sort of clich�, but it fits: Mongolia chose me.

In a way, it's true. In other ways, it's not.

I first heard about the program from a friend. At the time I was most interested in the Switzerland or Belgium programs so I could work on my French. Then I was told I had to live with a host family and no visitation from friends or family would be allowed. Then I was told that I would have to go through an oral interview in French. Then I was told about the programs in aboriginal Australia (which perked my interest in going somewhere remote). Then I was told about the new Mongolia internship at a TV station. At this time (November 2004) I was sure about two things: next summer I would be living/working outside of the country, and after college I would apply for the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps has an extensive program in Mongolia, so I thought it would be my "foot in the door" if I spent a summer there. So I queried the program coordinator about the Mongolia program, and he replied as if I'd already got the job. So from there, it was simply a matter of going through the paperwork. As I read volumes of articles and books, scrolled through hundreds of online photos, Mongolia both amazed me and repulsed me.

It was only after getting a thumbs up from my advisor on campus (reminding me that I'm young and now is the time to do crazy things like this) that I felt good about the whole thing.

Here's one more thing (and why I chose this particular program): I'll be inserted and integrated into another culture's way of life. Other programs are run more like summer camp, where you find yourself in isolated "American" fun lands in the middle of a foreign country. Contact with foreigners outside of the tourist trade is minimal. You'll be working alongside other imported crewmembers. In this internship, the only American faces I will see are those who made the epic journey to get to Mongolia (by air, by train, by tour guide, whatever) and only in a passing glance, or perhaps a half-hour conversation in the local expat caf� (called Millie's).

Why not Mongolia? The future of American foreign policy will shift towards the Pacific Rim (esp. China, N. Korea, Taiwan) in the coming decade. Why not figure out this whole Communistic-Asian-Hedgemony thing before the next war breaks loose?

Peace.

Pre-Departure Thoughts, Part 1

here i am on the eve of the eve of the eve of one mighty exploratory journey and here is how i feel:

i go from a mood of extreme excitement and anticipation to a strong bodily urge to stay where I am, don't go, and be content with my stasis. sometimes I am overwhelmed by everything that goes with traveling alone to a foreign country. I know how it feels: I did this a few years ago, landing in Venice and then exploring the Croatian coastline before 3 months in Italy. This time I'm landing in a city of 8 million (Beijing) for my "adaptation" period of 4 nights and then flying off to an even more backwards land (and I don't even remotely speak the language). This time I'm staying with a host family. This time I won't be meeting up with other Americans for wild and crazy nights, Eurotrash style. This time I'll be put to work in an environment I've never worked before (TV studio). This time I will have to use electric converters, pray I don't lose my digital camera. This time I will truly be isolated.

When my body says "No! You can't go! And leave THIS!" (pointing at my sweet, sedentary life) it remembers what it went through in the first week in Venice and Croatia (heck, even on the flight over). It remembers what it went through upon returning to the daily USA grind (a full week of pure pain and displeasure). It remembers what it felt like to be truly alone and miles away from home.

I'm hoping my body remembers what it felt like midway through my term of service: pure elation, never wanting to leave this foreign place. I hope my body remembers what it is now like, how my life (and especially my writing) has been enriched tenfold for the very act of going.

Sure, this time I actually have someone to keep me from falling apart when I return (my Abby). But that will only make leaving harder on the heart.

I'll never be ready for this experience. Or any other future experiences. So I might as well not dwell on the question of "Will I be ready on June 21st?" Of course I won't be ready. But I'm only given one go at this, so I may as well take it when it comes.