Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Sporting, Slogans, and Summertime

Ulaanbaatar is all abuzz this week as the countdown to Naadam reaches the T minus 48 hours and counting mark. For those wholly ignirint of all things Mongolian, Naadam is the single most important holiday of the year, stretching from this Saturday through next Wednesday. Among other things, the nine yak tails of Chinggis Khan representing the nine tribes of Mongolia are ceremonially presented to the public in Sukhbaatar Square.
But the big deal is the three manly sporting competitions- wrestling, archery and horseracing events take place at various locations, with much pomp and ceremony throughout. The week is also a chance to catch up on any vodka drinking that you've been putting off for just too long. If you want to learn more about this, I’m sure there’s plenty of ways you could find out- googling on Naadam would be a good place to start, I guess. Seeing as how this is our first year in Mongolia, and given all the excitement simmering in the city as this thing gets closer and closer, we thought we’d do as the locals do and skip it.

As this is one of the, if not the only, big event of the year, the tourists have descended in huge numbers, all ready to film or photograph the six year old jockeys, tubby wrestlers with pointy hats (jainjum malrai, viewers), drinking in celebratory quantities, and yak tails aloft in the breeze. As anywhere, the tourist hordes are much disdained by resident expatties, all of whom either attend small ceremonies at villages outside the capital, or simply take off to the great outdoors and take advantage of the five day weekend to put some serious distance between themselves and the capital. Given how long it takes to drive anywhere in Mongolia, this is not an altogether bad idea.

For some weeks now we were planning to go to Russia by train to visit Lake Baikal over Naadam, but this plan eventually foundered in the shifting sands of Russian visa requirements, which ended up tallying at 250 USD per person- a fee that was too meaty for our palates. Plan B was quickly pulled from the jainjum malrai, and we’ll be exploring the Kharkhorin area of central Mongolia instead. So for those of you who base your week’s activities around updates to this blog (surely someone must), you may experience some delays in the coming days. Try to contain yourselves.

Naadam aside, the musings this week focus on the entertainingly variable application of English in various climes. Fluency is, of course, a state of mind. And frankly, English deserves a few solid punches in the paunch. It walks around the place shouting at the locals and behaving like it owns everything it sees, bullies more polite languages like French, and just keeps getting bigger and more belligerent, ignoring local delicacies and insisting we all sup from the same verbal trough. However, small but determined guerilla movements around the world ensure that nothing is kept OED pure, and pleasing local dishes are concocted from English ingredients. As the world’s lingua franca is twisted back around on itself by those unfamiliar with its ins and outs, the results can be lyrical, baffling, and profound.

Exhibit A is drawn from the streets of the city, as hot temps mean t-shirts and tanks are sported freely. Now one can’t bring the snigger down too hard on this collection- I’m certain that characters from Asian languages are used just as arbitrarily on western clothing- during the heyday of breakdancing (or New Romanticism) when every youth worth his fat sneaker laces (or eyeliner) was wearing something with Japanese or Chinese letters on his head, chest or ankle, I’m sure we went around with spectacular nonsense emblazoned on our bods. Who cares if you’re wearing a headband that says “Sorghum Production Increases following Solid rainy season” as long as you look like the guy from Beat Street? Or a Tshirt which announces “Nissan introduces new management for southern prefectures”? These are but details which are but nothing compared to the value of a powerful fashion statement.

Some clothing in Ulaanbaatar has taken this whole transliterative process to its logical conclusion, and bears messages which simply consist of the garbage that comes from mashing a keyboard- a t-shirt that bears the legend “sdjcvhasjkl;dtujklbh;zsdfajfhasdjklf” makes as much sense as one that says Just do it. Anyway, enough sdfjhkljhjks. Here are a few slogans which have caught the editorial eye of late, all guaranteed 100% not imaginary. All spelling and punctuation as in the original. Viewers are urged to muse on any deeper meanings which may be hidden within these mantras, but are reminded that enlightenment may take years to attain.

- Steady Willingness seems good. To enjoy is a reminisce.
- Pour some sugar me nature
- Only Lyrical Feeling
- Compu Babe what’s Going Happy?
- With the World Together Club Thanks Myself
- Subdued Ten
- Real Clothing Strife Since 1981
- Ivy B Free American College
- Niger (with Nike Swoosh)
- Here Rigo!
- Happy Tree Friends

But all of these aphorisms are but nothing compared to the digital thieves on Pirate street, who dedicate themselves to freeing up needed Hollywood product for the masses. It’s a relatively sophisticated game, and care is taken to make the copy just like the original. However, appearances need only be skin deep, so often the blurb, credits, and cover art are cut and pasted from a variety of sources. Reading the fine print on our copy of About Schmidt yields the information that this film is actually titled ‘Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of hell’. The strapline on the front cover of Forrest Gump trumpets “Good But Flawed”. And consider this verbatim synopsis from the box of Meet the Fockers:

December 19 of local time, remit the with-virtuous- Nero, Barbara- history reach man wave etc. many a film for big wrists <> s(Meet the Fockers) hold the premiere type in Los Angeles, The that slice of is a com edy a <> , Will in day after tomorrow at all and beautiful be shown. The first gathers torelate of is a male nurse to the girlfriend in home to propose but leadA series of farces of the hair, relaxed acquisition in the sil ce’s that year the ticket of USDs 160,000,000Building score, in <>, male nurse with its parents willAc cept the girlfriend a house of” return to visit…

And there it ends. A tantalizing look inside the film, to be sure.

And with these compound fractures of a language that had it coming still fresh, I wish you all happy Naadam, and will update again next week. And I hope we’ll all take a moment to consider that Steady Willingness seems good, and to enjoy is a reminisce.

Sain saihan bukhniig yorooi (wishing you all good things, viewers),

Jannie

1 comment:

Jannie said...

Any other viewers have particularly choice bits of movie box Babel fishing to report?

With your help, a global d-base can be created, and we can help to stop this scourge before it goes to far.