Missives from Mongolia

Egghead Likes his Booky-Wooks

2008-03-27T16:55:00.004+08:00

Blog? What blog?

Za viewers, sain bain uu? Sonin saihan u bain? It has been super duper long, and there’s no guaranteeing this will be kept up. Hiatus of eight months between postings are presumably enough to turn the interest of even the most committed blogophile. So why then post now?

Because of the depth of your pockets, you gullible McFlys. Because many of you looked unflinchingly into your pocketbooks in 2007 and fished out a florin to fling my way. So I thought it only fitting that you know how all those ducats were expended.

As you’ll recall, the idea was books. With your fundage, we would buy books and fling them about the steppe like so many magazines on a coffee table. And this is exactly what has happened. ADRA cut a deal with a publisher to buy in bulk, and we distribute packages of 70 books aimed at primary, middle school and secondary to deserving kiddies across the land. To date, we’ve distributed 4,500 books to 30 schools. Thanks on you for this.

One of the key attractions of this project (aside from its general freeness to the recipient) has been the quality of the books. The publisher we deal with as the Mongolian language rights to Dorling Kindersley, global publisher for pre-teen glossies like “Inside the Duodenum”, “Aeronautics! In Colour!” and a host of other fine titles. Given that available printed material in the Mongolian countryside tends to be dour antiquated newsprint biographies of Socrates or Kepler, (or for the gents, Russian bootleg James Hadley Chase), books with actual covers and pages within have been a huge smash hit.

Even by my usual cynical standards, this project is really quite a winner. The one snag we’re repeatedly come across is a fearsome scourge who prowl the steppe, peering over half moons in search of defilers of the Word. Armed with the Date Stamp of Fury and cat-like reflexes, this shifty cabal swoop on said booky-wooks like steppe eagles on carrion, carrying their treasures off to a distant eyrie called the Library Closet. Viewers, meet the Librarians. Quiver at their organizational skills.

Luckily, some of our team are old hands in dealing with these Samurai of the Stacks, and have ways of neutralizing their powers of Acquisition. Half of the team stand downwind in plain view, offering a sachet of pamphlets, chap books, penny dreadfuls and Penguin Classics. With their noses and bottoms twitching expectantly, the librarians make their way towards the offering, leaving the schoolchildren unattended and free to learn on their own. At this point, Team B (for Book!) leap from the behind the stationery cabinet and before you can say Dewey Decimal System (Doowiigin Arronii Sistem, viewers), magnificent cascades of astronauts, whales, combustion engines and botany for beginners are making rainbows in the brain. Both parties have their booty, and honour is upheld.

One has to have some understanding for the Librarians. They haven’t had new books since ever in their careers. In some cases, despite being librarians, they have never had books to attend to- a Borghesian jape on the page, but pretty depressing if that’s what you have to get out of bed for. So suddenly being given a stash of books makes our stewards of the shelves take the long view and squirrel those fellows away: those books will have to last the next fifteen-odd years. No point creasing the spines now.

Handing over two sets per venue seems to do the trick. As further incentive, we have told the school admins and librarians than when next we visit, if their set are still clean, we can provide no more. If, however, them volumes are dogeared, fingerprinted, and have Davaa Loves Bold and Wrestlers Do it in the Ring written in the margin, then more books will be provided, as proof exists that the books have gone public.

And so this is where you come in. Those of you wishing to sneak away before the credits roll, now would be a good time.

ADRA’s going to try to continue this project for as long as it can. So far, about five grand’s been spent, and there’s another thousand getting spent this week, and after that the shelves are bare. If more money comes in, more will be spent, and more books will wend their way to the desert and the mountains. The slight sense of urgency to all this is that the deal we have with the publisher, while not exactly un-kosher, is not exactly formal neither. Terms and conditions could change, and if they did the value for money thing would be much less rosy than it is presently: we’re getting books with seven or eight dollar list prices for under two bucks.

So what I’m saying is, if you’ve ever needed a book and not had one, then try out some literary empathy and help out some kiddies who face that predicament every day. It won’t save anyone’s life, but it will make someone’s mind a bit more sparkly.

If this interests you, let me know and I’ll let you know how/where to send the necessary. Previous method should still work as well (see blog passim). If you remain uninterested, let me know what additional incentive I can throw in to sweeten the deal. Camel wool products a specialty.

Mash ikh bayarlaa,

Jannie

2007-08-31T12:48:00.001+08:00

Sain bain uu! Ool zalgui, udlaa shuu! (We have not met for a long time, viewers)

I can only assume that most of you have given this blog up for dead, if only because I told you it was, back in February or so. More fool me. You see, like when Kenny met Dolly, when the material’s this good, you’ve just got to keep on singing. Islands in the stream, that is what we are. Except as we know, no man is an island. Hope that clears things up. Let us begin.

We open on the forecourt of School Number Five, usually the forgiving concrete and broken glass play space of Number Five, where 3,000 schoolkids hurl themselves around playing full contact hopscotch, flaming jumprope and ultimate fighting. This year, said kiddies are in for a surprise when the school year starts, for smack in the middle of the apron a square has been sectioned off, surrounded by spikes and iron grates.

Within the square, a mysterious black plinth has been formed. And from the navel of that, a monolith. Was Arthur C. Clarke right after all? There are no chimps around to ask. Equally mysteriously, the fellows tasked with laying the marble/polishing this plinth are distinctly lacking in most of the major Mongolian attributes. In fact, they are undoubtedly gadaadi hun, (people from outside) viewers. They appear of a more generally European persuasion, but indeterminately so. Aside from a fondness for cigarettes, they reveal no clues to their identity. What on earth is going on?

A day or so thereafter, a stern bust is placed atop the monolith. Resplendent in gold (or gold effect paint), the serious brows and mighty forehead of a man of consequence is firmly stapled to the monolith. Having stared long and hard at the fellow, his identity is as mysterious as those who put him there.

By the next day, the veil of incomprehension had been replaced with the underpants of confusion. A foreign fellow comes along with his Letraset stencils, a ruler and some gold nail polish, and paints on the front of the monolith the identity of the tenant in three languages. The gold visage who will greet youngsters as they prepare to decline the accusative is none other than Mustapha Kemal Attaturk, founder of modern

Turkey

and the hardest rocking bass player in history (Kerrang! Aug 1995). What is relationship is to School Number Five is still unclear. Judging from his general choleric look, he seems pretty uncertain about the whole thing as well.

Maybe he’s upset by the forbidding portcullis he’s forced to remain behind. Maybe so, because a day or so later, the ironmongery is torn up and removed, leaving six holes for poles, perhaps suitable for losing small children down.

Or maybe he doesn’t like all those people looking at him (bit of a liability for a bust, really), because, despite the cat being pretty firmly out of the bag vis a vis who this cat might be, he is then shrouded once again, rendering his once patrician visage into that of one of the Imperial Guards in Return of the Jedi, as we discovered him this morning.

What could it all mean? I await your expert analysis, viewers.

More updates on this breaking news as it happens. Any other sightings of unexplained statesmen of the 20^th Century cropping up in world capitals will be reported with equal urgency.

STOP PRESS 04/09/07: It seems that the orginial portcullis was judged too unfriendly or something. In a last minute rethink, it has now been replaced by friendly yet dignified bollards, which also have the added advantage of filling in the holes in the tarmac.
Phew! A real bodice-ripper, this story. Try not to overheat.

Bi sain mit ugui (I really don’t know) viewers,

Jannie

Ella It is.

2007-04-20T01:09:00.000+08:00

Manai naights (our friends, viewers),

We emerge from our self-imposed blog retirement for just long enough to announce the birth of daughter Eleanor Kay, known as Ella, born on 11 April in north Yorkshire. We were pipped to the post by the Pieters-Sherlocks by a full two days (see here for the annoucement of Orla's arrival), but feel certain that we'll make up the distance over the stretch.

All parties interested in expressing the joy in monetary form are encouraged to do so. Checks, phone credits, wire transfers and in-kind donations to the usual address.

On which related note, much much thanks to all of you throwing cash into the books for Mongolia hat- I am most grateful to you all, and astonished by how many of you have dived between the couch cushions and come up with the necessary. Mash ikh bayarlaa, hummus (many thanks, people).

Returning to the citadel,

Jannie

Interregnum, or Pony Up Some Dough

2007-01-18T11:34:00.001+08:00

Greetings viewers, U bain? As some of the keener intellects out there may have noticed, (specifically, Emily, Swith, and our mystery Settle correspondent) a six month hiatus between posts does not bode particularly well. I wish I could report it was because we were in the studio working on new material, with more keyboards and tablas than our last offering but that would not be true. Fact is, we have been distracted by such hobbies as getting pregnant and doing masterses. Seems unfair that the blog should suffer, but there you are. Either way, Time magazine (not that we read it, but um, we found one) reckons 13 million blogs were started last year, so I trust you've not been short of material. Besides, now that the kids have got hold of the internet, the whole thing's become too hip for us to keep up with. So, like the grizzled old dogs of rock we are, we're bowing out gracefully, doing a farewell tour of arenas across the world, and then we'll step off this madcap whirl which is blogs & blogging. We throw our drumsticks into your outstretched hands.

But! Before we go, I want some money.

Not for me.

However, we are running a book buying/distrbution project in 2007, whereby folks in the deep steppe with nothing to read except the ingedients list on a sack of flour weill be provided with as many kilos of books as we can score. Literacy in Mongolia is about 97 percent, but there's nothing to read. So the plan is simple. We buy books. We give them away. We do it again.

Cost to you?

A measly buck. Less than a quid. Less than a(n?) euro. Less than a New York subway token. Books are cheap in Mongolia.

So go find a dollar and then click here

You'll find us between the sanitary pad and the flipflops. Feel free to stock up on those items as well.

In the meantime, ural (a kind of blessing/good luck thing, viewers) to you all, and see you somewhere anon!

Jannie

When the grass is high....

2006-08-04T13:28:00.000+09:00

U bain (‘sup) viewers?

This interregnum has been, to date, the longest ever hiatus this blog has yet experienced. Ochlaraai (apologies, viewers). While realizing that the readership for this piffle has now dwindled to less than a handful, we are delighted that someone actually noticed at all. So shouts-out then for Swithun, who poked us with a stick to see if we were dead or just sleeping.

Thing is, July is the all time high holiday month in Mongolia, and this year more than most. With dextrous scheduling, Mongolian holidays happen in January (Tsagaan Tsar) and July (Naadam), and last about in a week in each case. None of your long Arbor day weekend here and President’s birthday there rubbish for Mongolia. If you’re going on holiday, then make a decent muttony meal of it, and blow off the whole week. On top of which, July is the month when it begins to get genuinely hot. So between public hols and weather, it’s hard month to spend in front of a computer.

So we didn’t. First off was a sally to Lake Huvsgul, the 12^th largest body of fresh water in the world, southern cousin to Lake Baikal. However, unrelenting rain meant that what should have been a easy morning’s drive from the sniggeringly entitled town of Moron to the lake’s edge turned into many rivers to cross, without so much as a Jimmy Cliff tape in the player to help us out. On our first attempt, we balked at the second river, as we would have had to cross 500 metres of floodwater against the current, a prospect less than concerting. When other cars were being hauled across by road graders, it seemed a slightly silly choice, given our lack of heavy earth moving equipment. On our second attempt the following day, what had been mighty torrents had disappeared altogether, leaving behind rocky riverbeds and tumbled trees, but no water. We had obviously imagined it all.

On we went up the western shore of the good lake, wending through forests and fording yet more rivers still in flood. It was later noticed that we were the first car to attempt the route in some days without a convoy- others had traveled up the lake by boat, having been told the road was impassable. Just goes to show what you can accomplish when you’re ignorant. The lake itself is fully splendid- as clear as a window, unspoilt by people, bereft of boats, and so clean you can wash your car with it. No wonder Mongolian Expat magazine lists it as one of the Six Places you Must Visit in Mongolia. Only doing what we’re told, viewers.

The trip, while ultimately pretty routine by Mongolian standards, was also confirmation of what we learned last Naadam: five days doesn’t get you very far in a place as big as this one, and any trip in Mongolia, no matter what the distance, will take five hours. Just will. Plan your in-ride entertainment and hydration strategy accordingly.

By being out of town, we missed the triumphant ceremonies marking the 800^th anniversary of the Great Mongolian State. In 1206 (or thereabouts), Chinggis Khan (Genghis to you ill-educated out there) managed to unify the various warring tribes of Mongolia and create a credible nation which was a challenge/counterbalances to the Xi Xia in the east and the Jin in the south. From there on out, it was world domination, leaving such legacies to the world as a reopened overland route form Europe to Asia, the Forbidden City in Beijing (built by Kubilai Khan, Chinggis’s grandson), three kinds of Chinggis vodka, Chinggis beer, the Chinggis Club (three of them), Chinggis Khan international airport, and confusion to our enemies. To celebrate, all Naadam festivities were presented in multiples of 800, so there were 800 horsehead fiddlers, 800 long-song singers, 800 archers, and so on. A new and imposing statue of Chinggis was unveiled outside Parliament House, flanked by two of his generals on horseback. A few days later, 800 pieces of scaffolding were replaced as the whole edifice was 800 hours (or days) behind schedule . But hey, you don’t build a legacy 800 years strong overnight.

And finally, as a glittering finale on the 31^st, geriatric German hard rock outfit the Scorpions played a gig on Sukhbataar Square. Lack of promotional material and forewarning (it was billed as a ‘surprise gig’ which is fine as long as someone knows where they should be standing to get their surprise) meant that the first our correspondent heard or saw of it was on UB television, the programming of which is esoteric enough that it was in no way surprising to find the Scorpions on it. However, nor was there anything to suggest in was happening just down the street. Imagine our surprise when last nights bleary eyed teevee watching turned into the next day’s front page. No word on whether ‘Winds of Change’ was retrofitted to include references to the siege of Samarkand.

German guitars aside, the summer has also been punctuated by short, speedy zooms down unsuspecting mountain and hillsides. Back in January, getting a jump on midlife crisis issues, I parted one young Settle resident from his mountain board. For those of you uncertain about such matters, a mountain board is basically an overlong skateboard with knobbly rubber tyres, intended to help you get down that slope in double quick time. You get to the top of a hill. You get on your board. You go down it. It is, in a phrase, much much stupid fun. And a country as wavy as the ocean with limited trees. Mongolia, meet mountain board. Play nice. Having accumulated a fair selection of scratches on my pointy bits while getting to grips with this improved method of dealing with pesky downhills, I knuckled under and scored some pads last week. Within metres of first putting on protection, I hit a marmot hole full on, and tumbled ass over teakettle into the flowers, thus proving that pads aren’t just for fashion, and Poetic Justice isn’t just amovie with Janet Jackson in it.

So if in the next few weeks this blog is once again punctuated by silence and atrophy, then it’s because we are off tearing around the countryside on four small wheels. And if the wind gets up, one adds a kite to the equation, and sails across the steppe. That’s where we’ll be, viewers.

Saihan amaraaraa,

Jannie

Our bold new direction

2006-06-22T09:35:00.001+09:00

Greetings all-

What you see above is cover art for our new concept triple album entitled "Birthdays on the Balcony", a four hour oddessy into children's festivites with a Mongolian edge. The first disc is a challenging reworking of "John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt" for throat singers, the second is a loop of 14 three year olds chewing carrot sticks over a reggae beat, and the final is a 27 minute free jazz rendering of Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday" played on horsehead fiddles and flugelhorns.

Happy birthday to Natty (tursung undri bayaring mindh hurgee, viewers), two years old yesterday.

More soon,

Jannie

One of Uaz, One of Uaz

2006-05-26T10:16:00.000+09:00

Yamur Mashin, humuus (whatta car, viewers.)

See, there’s two things about Mongolia. One is, it’s far away. The second is, it’s really big.

Granted, it’s far away depending on where’s you’re standing, and it’s big compared to smaller things, but when you combine the two, that’s when you get a Mongolian outlook.

So there you are, looking around Mongolia and thinking such deep thoughts as “man it’s big” and “wow it’s far away”, and while your understanding of these concepts will vary depending on what kind of viewing platform you stand upon and what kind of shaded goggles you are squinting through, one thing seems certain. If you’re going to move around Mongolia, you will need a conveyance. In a word, a car.

Not just any car. Oh no. Many of your new fangled rides with their drink holders and in-seat heated bottom massagers are poor choices for the Mongolian milieu. Humvees may prowl the streets of Ulaanbaatar, but these are only vehicular bling, the equivalent of 4WD stiletto heels. Their mileage is so poor and Mongolian gas stations so far apart that taking them farther than the hairdressers is a journey fraught with peril. Plenty of Rovers, Cruisers, Troopers and Patrols exist, but if a widget pops lose from its housing when you hit a camel or something, good luck contacting your nearest dealer to help you out with the parts. So what then is the intrepid Mongolian warrior, weekend or otherwise, to drive?

Step forward the Uaz, as car as iconic in Mongolia as the SUV in America or the Matatu in Kenya. Bata used to promote the Safari boot as ‘the Shoe that says you know Africa’. The Uaz is the Safari boot of Mongolia. Ugly as a kick in the face, made with skills as old as the hills, fixable with pantyhose and gum, and still- no other shoe (or car) sets the maidens’ hearts aflutter like a Uaz.

While you are savouring the fluid lines of the bodywork, marveling at the hardiness of the steering rack or just feeling oddly aroused by the steering wheel, a bit of history for you.

Back when it looked like the Third Reich was going to gobble up Mother Russia like so much caviar, major industries were moved out of the way of the Wehrmacht by shoveling them way inland away from the front. The ZIS car company was moved from Moscow to Ulyanovsk on the Volga where it began making cars and useful wartime items like shells. After the war, the Ulyanovsk plant was hied off into its own company, and in the 1950s they started cranking out four wheel drives according to a basic model which is still largely unchanged. This is the Uaz. Uaz is pronounced- eh., however you feel like it, really. Go nuts. It’s an acronym which stands for Ulyanovsk Avtomobilny Zavod. Russian cars have never gone in for all this fancy naming crap. There’s no Russian word for Elantra, Fabula, or Ka. An Uaz is a Uaz. Similarly, big Russian six wheel trucks are called Kamaz. Because they are made in Kamchatka, the mythical land from the game of Risk handy for invading Alaska, Japan, Irkutsk, Yakusk and Mongolia. By this logic, every car made in Detroit should be called a Daz. Which would be fine, really.

Anyway. Mostly, if you’re referring to one of these beauties in English, you’d call it a Russian Jeep. Or in Mongolian, a 69 (jahren youse, viewers), which is the model number- you know, just in case Uaz is too unspecific for you (not that there are other models, but still.) So Russian jeep UAZ 69 it is. No other ride comes close to being so vital to the country. The Uaz equivalent of a VW bus, the furgon, plays a part certainly, but all others are simply cars. The Uaz is a way of life.

Why are they so great? Well, for a start, they’re cheaper than a good horse. A boxfresh Uaz will run you between ten and fifteen grand American, and a secondhand one is considerably less. Ideally, of course, you don’t want one still in the original packaging. The whole car production process is a pretty complicated thing, and most cars come off the line with a few jagged edges here and there. You need to own a Uaz for a couple of years at least to get the transmission ground down to the point that you can shift into third, and plug up all the leaks around the doors and windows with strips of foam rubber and carpet samples so you don’t freeze in winter or suffocate in summer. A car a couple of years old is more comfortable and useful than a brand new one.

Secondly, they are engineered simply enough that anyone with a modicum of mechanical knowledge can fix them. Which is great, because by a tremendous stroke of luck, Mongolian drivers have that modicum.

At the first sign of parking, the first order of business is to clean the car inside and out with a retentiveness usually reserved for jewelers and spaceflight. While decidedly open minded when it comes to spitting, urinating and trash in public, Mongolians keep their cars clean enough inside and out that you could build silicon chips in the backseat if needs be. So first order of business when the motor is at rest is to tidy it thoroughly.

If your parking type situation persists, then its time to jack the car up and start taking bits of it apart, spreading it in a halo around the car, and peering at the constituent gubbins until inspiration strikes. The front left axle/wheel is a popular place to start, so if for any reason nothing’s actually wrong with your car, start there anyway and work diagonally across the engine. In unfamiliar towns, this is also a surefire way to meet some of the most eligible batchelors around, as blokes come ambling over from their stoops to speculate on where that bit that’s shaped like a little helmet for a monkey goes.

It is mostly pointless for anyone not responsible for driving the car to try to get involved. Such futility usually unfolds thus:

Me: “So what’s the problem?”
Trusty Translator: “He says it’s not a problem.”
Me: “Right.” (pause) “So why is he taking apart the brake?”
TT: (no answer)
Me: “Can you ask him?”
TT: “No.”
Me: “Why not?”
TT: “Because it’s his car.”
Me: “Ah.”

Despite/because of the mechanical know how exerted all over these vehicles, they can be and are fixed with just about anything. When one I was traveling in had its axle mounting come away from the main chassis (thanks to some economizing in the welding department in Ulyanovsk that day), the axle was strapped back on in with wire and string. Okay so it didn’t work for long, but it seemed a plausible repair at the time. When the repair didn’t work, we drove on for 100 kilometres regardless. Uazzerful.

Why else are these cars great? Plenty of reasons. They come in a dazzling array of technicolour hues, including army green, grey, and khaki. You can take out all the seats and turn them into a sleeping space, a dining hall or a ballroom, depending on your needs. There is no upper limit on how many people can fit in them. But most of all, Uazes are great because, like an asylum, they have padded ceilings. While the mod-cons of the rest of the car are no-frills bare minimum tick the box and move on simple, the roof of the car is thickly upholstered like a wingback chair in the gentlemen’s lounge at the country club. There’s no seatbelts, but with a cushioned ceiling you don’t need them- if you hit a bump, you will float through the air, sink comfortably into the ceiling headfirst, and float back to earth like a feather. Your ass is your own responsibility, but Uaz is looking after your head. However, if the ceiling has worn through in places, that may be cause for alarm. Position yourself under a thick bit.

But before you reach for your checkbook and start ordering up a Uaz each for the kids and a brace for the missus, thereby joining a fraternity of motorists whose enthusiasts include the Ethiopian army and the Nepali tourist industry, I fear I must inform you that there is a downside to the Uaz experience. That is to say, a downside if you’ve understood the motoring experience to include an element of comfort. Whoever told you that one has taken unfair advantage of your good nature. For the Uazanite, comfort is as far away as Mongolia is from Montenegro. Seats made of iron planks and rocks, pointy bits of rusty metal just near your tenderer regions, shock absorbers that are adjusted for maximum reverb so you pogo like a punk on every pebble, and ventilation which is either freezing or boiling. Couple that with road surfaces like a bowl of Cheerios, and you’re in for an automotive no-fun ride. For the first few kilometres you can pretend you’re in some kind of music video ride where that lurching up and down is part of the purpose, but an ad hoc imaginary gangsta lean is hardly enough to traverse the steppe with.

Added to the fact that setting off across the steppe usually includes choice between a track off thataway and another off thisaway and the driver can’t decide is the right one, riding the Uaz lightning is an emotional process. In phase one, as you careen from boulder to boulder on the wrong road and have to go back and hit all those same pointless bumps twice, a level of anger, frustration and concern for self rises, wherein you swear that this is positively the last time you’ll rent one of the buckets, and much bile is directed towards all other inhabitants in the car, especially the driver. During this phase, it’s handy not to know any Mongolian, lest one be tempted to verbalize some of these mental stylings.

Then phase two, which begins when Something Happens. Usually this is a breakdown. When temporarily disabled, you have no choice but to look around you and then, the majesty of just where you are sinks in. What’s more, you need that car to get through this, so there’s no point getting pissed at something you cannot hope to alter. Acceptance. When the car gets moving again, phase three begins. Grateful to be back on the road, and with a renewed sense of peace, the landscape takes over, and the sheer wonder of Mongolia’s lands permeates your soul like a warm breeze. As the sun sets and catches the gold in the grass, your aching ass is feeling no pain, but is buoyed along by something bigger. By the time you get where you’re going, all is gentleness and calm. Enlightenment comes on Russian retreads, viewers. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

With inner peace abounding, I will close this entry by saying that after fifty-odd good years, the day of the Uaz is waning. The cheapness of second hand Hyundais has meant that the Uaz is slowly getting squeezed out by the cast offs from Mongolia’s neighbours. While still prevalent outside the capital, the day will certainly come when the Uaz is a relic of a glorious past, along with the hammer and sickle. In the meantime, Mongolia’s drivers do it Russian style, and we here as the Missives salute the spirit of the steppe supped from the goblet of Uaz.

Safe journeys, viewers! (saihan yavaarai!)

(all half-assed research into this article was done from unreliable sources in Ulaanbaatar and the internet. I assume you already figured this out. If you were reading this blog for factual info, then you’re already so off course that you might as well jump overboard and hope that a dolphin carries you home.)

Knead to be Needed

2006-04-19T12:16:00.000+09:00

Before Seoul Massage

Sonin saihan uu bain, more iin? (What’s new, pussycats?)

If there are any readers left at this point, it must be due to the sheer wonderfulness of intertia, or a certain degree of Pavlovian internet masochism. You are encouraged to cease salivating, for the bell has rung, and after too too long, a new entry is yours for the rumination.

But my oh my modern life viewers. What a tense place it can be, filled with stress and strains, anxieties and pains. And now medical science suggests that such time honoured coping methods as keg stands and Gauloises blondes are actually part of the problem, not part of the solution. Eating your wrinkles away is an option, but how many fudge eating contests can you go to before the fun begins to seep away like so much chocolatey goo? Watching professional sports, picking fights in the street, gambling and psychotherapy all pass the time, but none really reach that deep down fatigue that a body feels at the end of a working week. How to unwind, viewers. How to unwind. The answer is not to try to do it yourself, for you are not a watchmaker with your hands on the springs which make you tick and tock. You need a masseuse. Clearly.

Nestled below us on the first floor of building 37, Chingeltei district, is Seoul Massaj (massage, viewers). During our various travels around southeast Asia, the calming delights of reflexology were explored between noodle dishes and tuk tuk rides, and we acquired a taste for it. Upon our return to the steppe, we decided to sample some of the local fare to see if it compared, and no, it did not. No comparison. It transcended. It was a whole new way of paying someone to beat you up. If southeast Asian massage is a lithe monkey dancing on manicured paws, Mongolian stylee is a mighty great yak with gnarled hooves of power. Bow down in its presence, unworthy ones. One amply proportioned acquaintance of ours described his visit to the ladies of Seoul by saying “a ninety eight pound Mongolian woman took me like it was prison.” A lively description to be sure, but as he’s a human rights lawyer I assume this was a professional assessment of the process.

The foyer of Seoul Massage is a modest affair, no bigger than most department store dressing rooms. A rack of sandals and a matron behind a counter are there, as well as a laminated menu of options. Just as Mongolian restaurants serve both kinds of food (sheep and lamb), Seoul offers both kinds of massage: foot and body (hol and bie, viewers). One price, no fussing. Now get those boots off and get inside. Let’s do a foot massage today, ‘cause these dogs are barking, my verucas are salty, and corns’ coming in by the bushel.

Having removed one’s shoes, you are ushered into the darkened chambers beyond, half of which are equipped with banks of massage tables for those of you who selected the body option (we’ll see you after), and reclining chairs and footstools for the footies. The lighting is discreet and darkened, and a radio burbles out the latest chart nonsense from Asia and the west. Escorted to a recliner, you are presented with your new outfit of striped pajama bottoms and a loose t-shirt (black for boys, orange for girls). While you change from your civvies to your uniform, your captain readies the accoutrements she will require to bend you to her will.

Now as anyone who’s seen Pulp Ficton knows, there are foot massages and then there are foot massages. If Tony Rocky Horror gave Mia Wallace one of what follows, then Marcellus had every reason to suspect that something more than podiatry was going on.

Your massage begins when you sit on a footstool and plunge your feet into a wooden washtub like the ones in old cartoons people used to wear to hide their nakedness. The water is scented with a handful of aromatic herbs to ease relaxation, and is carefully warmed to a temperature somewhere between McDonald’s lawsuit and lava. This tub of water will prove very important for the next little while, as you may frequently need to distract yourself from what else is happening by concentrating on whether your feet have turned to fondue yet. After a few moments to allow your feet to start shriveling down to size three, your masseuse glides into position behind you to begin your foot massage.

Now obviously, a foot massage concentrates on one’s feet. It is thus only logical that this massage starts with your back. As the healing begins, you realize that where southeast Asian masseurs and –seuses spend their days softening their fingers in bowls of jasmine scented oil and drinking mango juice while watching Singapore soaps in air conditioned parlours, their Mongolian counterparts straphang on busted ex-Korean buses to and from a dusty ger where they wrangle with goats and braid rawhide to make ropes to hold the house down when the spring winds hit. These women spend their massage apprenticeship grinding rice into flour in their fists for months before they are allowed near a client. Rumour has it they ran out of rice three winters ago and since then have been using a mixture of gravel and broken glass. By the time you realize how formidable you have been gripped, it is too late and you are no longer holding the keys to the auto of life. These women are small, but they could whup you faster than you could say shiatsu, and that’s just what they’re going to do.

As the pressure exerted on your spine exceeds three atmospheres, another unique element of Seoul massage pokes you in the eye. Hands, which certainly are an important weapon in the available massage arsenal, are only one possible option. Any bit of the body which is bony, pointy, gnarly or strong, can and will be used. And so the moments fly by as you wonder “which bit of you is doing that to me?” Possible answers include elbow, knee, bottom forearm, top of forearm, outer thigh, and foot (it’s a foot massage, remember?). Apparently there is a special treatment which involves steamrolling your body using only the head, but it’s a bit intense.

With your back now living in jelly, it’s time to get on with your foot massage and start agitating your….head. Yep. Can’t just make a beeline for the piggies. Gotta walk the whole course before you race the hounds on it. And so begins a bewildering process somewhere between phrenology and trepanning, whereby your poor old scalp that never hurt a fly becomes the venue for such double fisted techniques as When Elephants fight the Grass is Trampled, Mother Spider Defends her Nest, and sometimes, just sometimes, Joe Pesci’s vice trick from Casino. While all this is happening, in a hopeless effort to escape, you crumple over your knees until you’re hunched like Gollum contemplating your visage in the steaming puddle where your feet now live. In sympathy with your plight, your masseuse starts touseling your hair affectionately, like Dennis the Menace used to get when he’d crash his boxracer into Mr. Wilson’s new mailbox. Whatta scamp. And so, thinking it all nearing conclusion, you begin to extend your neck from beneath your shell. More fool you. What may seem like a friendly touseling between friends is in fact an expert winnowing, whereby weak follicles are being separated from the strong. By the time you realize your predicament, she’s grasped a hold of all the runts straight along your centre part and YANK! She pulls you up to ramrod straight using only ten hairs, Gollum banished forever. Who is in charge has never been more clear. All hail the new queen in town.

By this point, your overheated and puckered feets are quite convinced that they’ve been lied to, and they’re not going to the amusement park after all but are on the way to the doctor’s for a booster shot. They are not wrong. With the back and noggin threats neutralized, our new ruler can finally turn her attention to those neglected..arms. Oh well, at least they’re a limb, so we must be getting closer. At this point the Seoul method becomes slightly clearer- moments of reassuring gentleness are interspersed with sudden, unexpected violence. It’s like how someone once (erroneously) described rolfing as talking about a traumatic experience from your childhood and then having your therapist punch you in the face. It’s sort of like that. Gentle strokes down the bones of each finger, the joints of which are then popped so hard it sounds like timber being felled. But before you have time to muse on this too much more, you are treated to such anatomically impossible feats as the whole arm reverse rotation body pop (whereby your fully extended arm is lulled into such suppleness that your elbow joint is popped upwards), and such symbolic positions as the Figurehead of HMS Victory (fingers knitted behind head, elbows pulled back until almost touching, knee in middle of the back) and the Dying Swan (hands held at wrists, pulled back as far as they go, outer thigh shoving back straight). Another domino of resistance falls, and your entire upper body is now under the flag of Seoul massage.

Your feet breathe a sigh of relief that they have, despite the name of the procedure, escaped with little more than a robust stewing. But your masseuse sees all, hears all. Your feet are finally withdrawn from their solution, and quick as a flash are bound tightly in white napkins lest they try to escape. The washtub is withdrawn, and your reclining chair is stretched out to full flat. Lay your weary and beaten self down on it while she drapes a sheet over you to keep you warm. Since you know what comes after gentleness by now, you instinctively tense up as you assume at least a charley horse or nuggies comes after the comfy blankie. But no, it seems that your feet have finally moved up the queue, and it’s time for them to get manipulated. Surprise and fear are legitimate at this stage. Let them flow, it helps to cleanse.

What happens next is not so much an anticlimax as such a relief that it’s all you can do to stay awake. In keeping with tradition though, your foot is defined as starting at the knee and all points south. You lie under your blanket as your feet are jiggled and your toes are individually fibrillated until you are lulled into a reverie involving mermaids, unicorns and rainbows. After a bit, you realize that for the past five minutes she’s been folding your whole foot over on itself, top over bottom, left over right, like a floppy bit of dough. Whether or not it’s relaxing is no longer of issue, as you lost the ability to form opinions other than ‘owie’ or ‘no owie’ some miles back.

Things are winding up. Your sheets are swaddled up around you like a mummy, and your legs are spun in huge circles over your head like in the halcyon days of breakdancing. Your feet are replaced in roughly the location they started in, and then it’s over.

Like hitting yourself repeatedly with a hammer, the reason to do it is because it feels good when it stops. You are given all the time to convalesce that you need, before you change back out of your scrubs and into your skin. If you are of a hirsute nature, proof of what you have done can be found on your calves, where little snarled clusters of hairy dingleberries have sprouted where your legs were so vigorously kneaded.

As you emerge dazed into the world outside, the sun’s a little brighter, the birds are chirping a little more chirpyily, and the cracks in the pavement seem that much more calm and ordered.

Exhausted but elated, you trudge home a hero, for you have completed your quest and lived to tell the tale. Years from now, your grandchildren will gasp as in wonder as you rhyme them the ballad of the massaged man.

On which mighty note we shall close. I shall end by mentioning that 200 hours of painstaking fieldwork went into researching this article. I hope you realize what lengths I go to on your behalf.

Saihan ahmraraa (have a good rest, viewers),

Jannie

After Seoul Massage

Shilling for the Deserving

2006-04-06T10:29:00.000+09:00

In an effort to disguise a lack of new content by filling space with advertising, we are most pleased to announce the publication of Africa Against All Odds, a book of photos by Glenn Edwards. I worked with Glenn in Malawi in 2002 on this project, and had a great time tooling around the central provinces with him Compassion is an overused word when applied to photography, but in this case entirely appropriate for Glenn’s treatment of his various subjects across the continent.

A gallery of images from the book is available here, as well as ordering information. Glenn assures me my face appears nowhere in its pages- some things the world just isn’t ready for.

Mash ih saihan zoruck, viewers (lots of great photos, viewers),

Jannie

(I don't have Glenn's permission to use the image above, so if he asks it will be cheerfully and immediately removed.)

Enjoy a nap while waiting for the next installment

2006-03-21T17:23:00.000+08:00

Viewers, Here's another photo to tide you over until our next entry hoves into view. In the next thrilling episode, we'll be exploring what it means to get massaged in Mongolia.

And if that doesn't sound ominous to you, you haven't been paying attention.

Coming soon to a massage parlour near you viewers,
Jannie

In Christ's Name Dehydrated

2006-03-21T17:16:00.000+08:00

Sain bainuu viewers-

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but it's not a half bad thing to have around something like a blog. Its absence in these parts points to a giant mind at work, or something.

Whatever the case, I returned from a couple of weeks of assessing the viability of a national school feeding programme in Mongolia- it's like a spa treatment, only with more longdrops- and found the item pictured above nestled into the in-tray.

Words do fail me somewhat here, viewers. Anyone have any serving suggestions?

Daihiat odughgui, (more soon, viewers) Jannie

Media Frenzy of One

2006-02-16T10:49:00.000+08:00

Since an important part of any blog is shameless self promotion propelled by the belief that one's minutest doings are a point of fascination to the world at large, I am pleased to announce that the photo above has been selected as the cover shot of the latest issue of Great Nation. Great Nation is THE magazine for expatriate Mongolians living in Korea, and its pages alternate between Mongolian and Korean language articles on a whole welter of issues. It's website can be found here (useful to have the Korean and Cyrillic font sets) but is pretty out of date; for all I know it may be advocating cruelty to animals and more exploration of Venus, but hey, in this age of lowered journalistic integrity, who am I to care what my photos are being used for?

Between the Swedish travel supplement and the Mongolian press, I feel confident in declaring myself a major global media player. I shall be listing myself on the NYSE later this afternoon, but without compromising my artistic vision. Buy early and often.

Yours megalomanically,

Jannie

Mighty Blighty

2006-02-09T16:26:00.000+08:00

What Ho, viewers!

February finds us back in Mongolia after a month in the UK, where, if you are reading this, we probably saw you. So hello. If we did not see you in the UK and yet you’re still reading this, why then that is even more remarkable, and you’re the reason we get up in the morning. So why do I feel like rolling over and going back to sleep?

Turning our acute observational eye to Blighty for just a tick, a few small bits and pieces which got lodged in our grill are extracted here for your review. In tribute to our Yorkshire ‘hood’s most glittering literary son Alan Bennett’s annual diary, this entry is in simple point form, easily swallowed and forgotten, like a tuna and sweetcorn on wholemeal.

Gastro-notes: As in many other countries, people in the Uke Hey spent a tremendous amount of time going hither and yon in their cars. People are busy, time is money, rush hour must be avoided, the A65’s got roadworks on both sides, but everybody’s gotta eat sometime. Pub meals are expensive and may only be served between precise hours, service areas tend to occur only on main roads and are in any case largely toxic, and the weather may not allow for picnics. All of which combines to create the phenomena of Sandwiches in Cars. In lay-bys, car parks, view points and petrol stations, a quick glance behind the windscreen shows drivers and pax huddled over Tupperware, noshing down two slices with filling. Short rows of three and four cars crouch by the side of the road in murky weather, sometimes supported by a van advertising Hot Food for those not already packing a few rounds. This activity is so ingrained into the fabric of things, and the weather is so insistently uncooperative that people unwind in their spare time by taking their sandwiches for a drive to areas of outstanding natural beauty. You fuel up the motor, tuck your trousers into your socks, put the dog in the back and drive all the way to the Ribblehead Viaduct for a pleasant afternoon among the arches, only to find horizontal rain and a wind with murder on its mind. Typical, isn’t it? Still, seems a shame to come all this way for nothing, doesn’t it? Nevermind, mustn’t grumble. Turn up Radio Four, open up the lunch box, and fog up the car. Everything seems better over a wensleydale and chutney with a smoky bacon crisp. Now where’s the flask? Oooh, luvly.

Religious Affairs Department: It is somewhere beyond cliché to complain about the English weather, but even so, it cannot go without mention. On the first afternoon we were there, I took Natty out into the garden at about one in the afternoon. He looked at the sky and the thick grey putty of clouds smeared across it and declared “dark.” No son, that’s what passes for daylight in these parts. From the mouths of babes comes stuff what’s true and that. As if in response to the gloom of winter, the Methodist church in Settle has a poster on its notice board of a sun baked white sandy beach and the surf beyond with the legend “Wish you were here! Love, Jesus” written in ‘handwriting’ font across it. Whether the Son of God is on holiday or works there or something is not clear. Viewers wishing to know more about their spiritual travel options are encouraged to enquire within. And still on the Methodist tip, a Settle lady in the prime of life recently presented one of her ladyfriends with a fresh new copy of the parish newsletter, to which her excited pal was heard to remark “Ooooh! I wish I could reciprocate with the Methodist Recorder!” We assume she was talking about another newsletter, but we could be wrong. if anyone knows if there’s another meaning for “reading the Methodist Recorder”, answers on the back of a postcard of a tropical idyll to our Ulaanbaatar HQ. Best entries will receive a lifetime subscription to Settle Community News. (with a tip of the flat cap to our reporter-at-large T.R-J.)

Vice dept: And so on to south London, where the hippest trends are born, and describing someone as “being committed to a decadent lifestyle” is a compliment. Certain parts of south London are less wholesome than others, and are the sort of places where people wear fake rather than real Burberry and say ‘Good Luck’ to their cars before going to bed. But this ramshackle state of affairs of is not a result of incompetent or inefficient local government, social corrosion, dub reggae or the youth of today. Oh no. The seediness of certain boroughs is a result of Drug Tourism. That’s right viewers: it seems that certain neighbourhoods have developed a reputation as being such good places to score that well heeled north Londoners have been known to hop in minicabs and come south with the sole intention of purchasing illegal stimulants and the like, thus bringing otherwise upright areas into disrepute. It is apparently a) impossible to find any illegal product north of the Thames, b) dealers never stray more than three blocks from the building they were born in and c) dealers have no idea how to use courier services, the internet or even those same minicabs that are bringing all them tourists into the once placid boulevards and avenues. And so the drug taking public must journey south. Guerrila action to Take Back the Streets by reversing the trend and sending Brixton residents into Chelsea and Kensington to try to buy there have so far met with inconclusive results. In the meantime, packs of toffs clad in John Smedley curb crawl around Lambeth disturbing the law abiding citizens with their loaded questions about ‘gear’ and ‘could one sort one out’ and the like. Pensioners clutch their pearls to their neck and hurriedly cross the road, remembering the old days when all the houses had bead curtains for doors and you could leave the collection plate in the high street overnight and no one would so much as borrow a farthing. And now? Hordes of Japanese with next-gen cameras and safari jackets clutching the Fodor’s Getting On One in London clog the zebra crossings following tour guides waving antennas with a red rag tied on it as they are led on walking tours of the once reputable shooting galleries and crack dens of SW 11. It’s getting so the streets aren’t safe for the dopeheads anymore. Won’t someone stop the madness? Look, if two Mongolian cops in the only ger in 100 miles can bust timber runners with only their bare hands, then surely the Met can bring the Tourism scourge under control? Our anxious thoughts go out to Mark and Keith, living under siege in Camberwell. Keep hope alive.

On which gritty street-tough note we shall close. Coming soon, more silliness about Mongolia. See you then!

All the best (saihan saihanig husii, viewers),

Jannie

On Marmots

2006-01-05T14:18:00.000+08:00

Shin onii mindh (happy new year, viewers)-

As the mercury plumbs deep new lows, and the lining of one's clothes turns from synthetics to animal fur, winter in Mongolia appears to be among us. On the 21st of December, Mongolians celebrate the beginning of '9 times 9'- the first 33 days represent the start of winter, the next 33 the coldest days, and the final 33 the beginning of the end of winter. While the maths may not add up, and it wasn't exactly above zero before the 21st neither, it is indicative of the fact that outside it's getting a bit froze. It's early 33 days, but thus far it has been within the realm of expectations: don't go outside in shorts expecting warmth and you won't get it- easy! We tip our dogskin boots in sympathy towards our peeps in Minnesota, who suffer the same thing but with less opportunities to eat belly warming meaties than we Mongolian residents have. Nick, fear not: we're saving you a slice of marmot.

Our story this week takes place in the late weeks of autumn, in the soum of Ikh Choloochiheruul, where I had gone with my trusty colleague in a less than trusty rented Russian jeep to inspect the gardening progress of the good people of the soum. This particular spot is two hours flight and five hours drive from Ulaanbaatar, a mere trifle by the standards of the day. By the way, a soum is a Mongolian administrative division roughly equivalent to a county. Each of the 300 soum centres in the country has a post office, a school, a telephone, a bank, a 'hospital', a police station, and a petrol station. Electricity, water, and internet are optional extras.

There can be fewer more futile tasks than assessing a garden plot AFTER the harvest has already been completed- unkind people might suggest it is in fact no different than scrabbling around in a dirt patch, but we food security coordinators are a sharp eyed bunch, and can see things in a pile of dust that the untrained eye would miss. Our mission was compounded somewhat by the fact for this visit we had decided to use the Improvisational Rapid Assessment tool, an old fallback of the humanitarian/development playlist. Basically, you forget to tell anybody you're coming. My colleague Hovdogh had taken care of that step for us, and our local contact had done her bit by shooting off to the capital for a week or two to visit her ailing pop. What, then, to do?

Into this breach stepped the local soum governor, the estimable Tsartsagaan. A lady in the prime of her life, she strode unannounced into our hotel room shortly after sun up. Mongolians, on the whole, don't share western mores about privacy. People in round houses know no corners, or something. Anyway, Tsartsagaan had decided that she herself would escort us to the garden plot, and we could leave forthwith. A woman in a position of administrative power wearing a camel hair twinset and a full head of makeup before nine in the morning is not to be questioned, viewers. Saddle up and ride out.

Driving the fifty kilometres to the project site, the less than trusty driver of our less than trusty jeep whacked in a cassette of the Greatest Mongolian Driving Hits..Ever! His vehicle fully conformed to the basic rules of having a crap car: the more crap the car, the more booming your system must be. So despite this being a car that would later have its front axle mount rupture from the chassis while we were driving, the graphic equalizer and woofer system was presently giving us an immersive aural experience, steppe style. This was then taken to the next level. Due to some mysterious cultural shared consciousness, every Mongolian knows the words to every Mongolian song ever written ever. And every Mongolian must sing, sing, sing. In fact, it is especially important to sing when driving in a car, Tsartsagaan informed me. My pathetic lack of knowledge of Mongolian repertoire was not an excuse, it was a disgrace.

And so with the volume up to eleven, and three throaty companions in good musical spirits, the kilometres flew by like so many miles. Mongolian driving music is a jaunty, exhilarating affair, with lots of cowboy movie strings of the herds galloping majestically across the steppe, uplifting female vocals, and lusty male solo singers, exalting to the great blue skies the greatness of...Their Mums. Yep. Unless specifically stated otherwise, all Mongolian music is a paean to Mater; how she's keeping everyone safe as they travel, how she's just wonderful at making the curds, and how she'll have a warm cup of tea ready for us when we get back. Sung with pep by the cast of Oklahoma, in Mongolian. When I was asked how many western songs are written about mothers, my answer provoked the kind of pitying head shaking usually reserved for stories of puppies left out in the rain.

As the mountain pass gave way to a giant plain, our happy singing car came upon a single dingy ger by the side of the road, incongruously stocked with a huge stack of uncut tree trunks. A quick scan of the horizon confirmed there wasn't a tree in sight, but all was soon revealed. This ger was the temporary shelter for a policeman and an environment officer, cunningly placed to intercept logging thieves and smugglers pinching wood from the forests up north and selling them in the treeless south. Now why treelifters couldn't drive around the only tent in fifteen square kilometers is not clear. Even less clear is why they would even stop for two dudes without so much as two horses between them. It's not many cops who can stop a truck single handed, wrestle the occupants to the ground and arrest them, remove the cargo from the flatbed, do the paperwork and still get a good night's sleep on the cold hard ground at a decent hour, but that seemed to be the m.o. This duo's duties were not limited to busting timberrunners, but in fact covered seizure of all contraband which might somehow be drawn to them. Illegal whatnot of all sorts was winkled out and impounded, as smugglers of all shapes and sizes found themselves drawn, magnetlike, to the only ger in 50 kilometres.

Contraband is like anything else, and is subject to the whims of fashion, trend and taste. In 2005, the number one most wanted illegal item in short supply was the marmot. A big groundhoggy thing that lives in holes, he is marmota sibirica (tarvag, viewers). If you read Russian and can't get enough marmot info, then http://tinyurl.com/7lbee is for you. For the rest of us, it is enough to know that the marmot is a big rat thing that lives in the ground, good for making stoles and other accessories from. Other fun facts about the marmot include that it has fleas that still carry bubonic plague- every year about five or six Mongolians get chomped or mugged by a marmot and get plague. Also, they are congenitally stupid. Like many steppe dwellers there are really, really bored, and spend months inside with nothing to do. So they are easily distracted and will be entertained by almost anything. Over the centuries, the rugged outdoorsmen of Mongolia have worked this out, and lure the marmot from his nest by such cunning predatory manouvres as honking the horn, yelling out "knock knock!", and singing bracing Mongolian hunting songs such as "I kill you good little beastie". Marmots come above ground to see who's throwing the party, hunter shoulders weapon, there is a one sided exchange of bullets, and terminally comatose marmots comes home to daddy.

But the most important thing about the marmot is that while he's an attractive fellow to make a hat from, and a pretty sporting hunt, he is fine, fine eating. Boiled, steamed, grilled or just plain old warmed on the car radiator, he's the rodent of the moment. There are various marmot organs which are considered especially good for one's health, so much so that they are called People Meat (hun mach, viewers). Certain Mongolians are so enamoured of the taste of marmot flesh that autumn just doesn't taste right without a marmoty burp in the gullet. Be that as it may, this year the government decided that a) plague was just really, really medieval and surely we could skip a year without someone coming over all buboed, b) so many marmot munchers had seriously depleted numbers of marmots left in burrows and c) just do what we say. So it was that this year, there was no legal marmot to be had in Mongolia, and lo there was much gnashing of teeth, free of marmoty sinew.

And yet, all hope was not lost for those who'd been looking forward to marmotburger all year. For instance, what of already dead marmot? What if, purely hypothetically, a cop in a ger in the middle of nowhere had intercepted some not alive marmots shot by naughty persons? What if those marmots were more than he could possibly consume I mean enter into evidence himself, even if there was a friend to help him out? What then? Wouldn't it just go bad? Wouldn't that be a crime too? Well wouldn't it? Our hostess in the twinset Tsartsagaan was thinking along the same lines. Plus, as governor, she is the boss of him and does represent the will of the people, so make with the meats, flatfoot.

The finer points of this Socratic dialogue was held in the conditional tense (or at least was translated to me that way), so after a lot of "IF I did have a marmot then I WOULD give it to you" type chortling, it was off to see the soil spot. The project site was a dusty affair, located as it was at the summer grazing spot, now vacated by all but one family. So no people, no turnips, and nothing to assess except the consistency of dust. A successful mission, I'd say.

On the way back, we stopped at the same cop ger we'd visited on the way out. By a strange confluence of nature and human appetites, in the hours we were away, not one but two marmots had now been found. One was already in a state of severe undress, in the process of being gutted on a cardboard box. The other? Not totally certain, but Tsartsagaan entered the ger and emerged with a mysterious bundle in her arms covered in cloth, which was then stashed in the back of the car. And back we went to the soum capital to take advantage of the many amenities on offer. Could it be that her parcel of cloth contained a marmot? Who can say with certainty, in today's confusing world? But suspicion points in that direction, viewers. This would not be the only suspicious marmot of an increasingly marmoty trip.

Later that evening, my colleague Hovdogh was greeted by some of her local pals, delighted to see her after such a long absence. To celebrate her return, they had thoughtfully brought her...a marmot. Nicely cooked with not too much salt, presented tastefully squashed into a plastic bag. Hovdogh could not have been happier, she being of the too much marmot is not enough school of gastronomy. Having bought herself a jumbo jar of Polish pickles to accompany her repast, she set to work. Now a word about eating marmot in 2005. You may have somehow found yourself in possession of such a thing, but it is still illegal, and the law is still the law, and you can't just sit on the front step and chow down in full view. One must be discreet. Given that our hosts were mostly government folk of some tier or another, it really wouldn't do to chew on the illicit meat right in their faces- even if they gave it to you. A etiqutte poser, to be sure. The simplest thing to do, really, is chomp it down in the car on one's own. No mess no fuss. Which is what she did. For three consecutive meals, Hovdogh would sit in the passenger seat before we'd go into a house (inevitably for a meal), get out the pickles and paring knife and gnaw away. The standard Mongolian fashion for meat eating is direct under any circumstances, but hunched over a bag of contraband in the car with occasional visible flicks of a greasy knife gave the whole process a certain junkie feel.

Even after three drive-in marmot specials, there was still leftovers, and that same plastic bag was kicking around the car with carcass in it. As we were driving the five hours back to the aimag capital, the driver pulled up on a dried up riverbed and came round to where the marmot bag was. Flipping open a secret panel in the back rear right side door, he stuffed the plastic bag into the leg of a spare pair of trousers and closed the panel again. Why is marmot always stashed inside clothes, anyway? This was apparently necessary because just ahead was another spot where cops and environment officers tended to lie in wait of smugglers, and he didn't want the marmot bag in plain sight. Entertained by the James Bond secret panel (although the similarities ended there), and amused by the fact that in all the great wide open space of Mongolia the cops have an unerring ability to pick their busts in just the right spots, we proceeded towards the suspected trap.

And with all the inevitability of a thing going to happen, there were the cops and environment guys, right on schedule. In fact, not only were they cops and environment guys, they were the SAME cops and environment guys we'd met the day before, accompanied by their superior officer from the capital. Realizing that these dudes has little ground to stand on on the whole 'have you got any illegal marmots in bags in secret panels' type questions seeing as how they were dealers, we were disrespectfully sniggery throughout our questioning. The superior officer saw nothing funny about anything, but other two authority figures shuffled their feet and averted their eyes, waiting for this whole episode to be over. I was later told that if the car was searched, the driver was going to say that the marmot concealing trousers belonged to me, thereby ratcheting up the whole affair to a full blown diplomatic crisis. In the event, all parties agreed it's a rum old world and no mistake, spat in the dust and drove off in search of more marmot related adventures.

The remainder of the trip passed without rodent related incident, although I will close this entry by simply mentioning that under pressure to sample the delights on offer, and on the understanding that you only live once, I was induced to sample a sliver of marmot. Screwing my courage to the sticking post, I did so. I can report without fear of contradiction that it tasted meaty, for the most part.

On which note we shall close- we are away in the UK for the next few weeks, so you'll have to get your jollies at another internet spot till early February, viewers.

Saihan saihuig husii (wish you all the best, viewers),

Jannie

A alleged marmot under interrogation yesterday.

Höi! Lók! Vi got øãr neim inna papir!

2005-12-05T15:53:00.000+08:00

Dear Viewers,

While in Thailand, Natty and I were interviewed for the travel supplement of Sweden's leading daily, Aftonbladet. Their reporter on the scene needed our considered views on traversing the globe with kiddies. Our opinions were highly controversial, and fly in the face of much conventional wisdom on such matters. We urge you to take up the debate by clicking on the following link:

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/resor/story/0,2789,734903,00.html

If anyone can tell us what in fact we said, we'd love to know. Until then, we will just assume we were witty, insightful and eloquent. Photos of our alluring visages are also thoughtfully included with the article.

Enjøy,

Jannie

2005-11-23T18:19:00.000+08:00

Khao San Road, Bangkok

If it's Monday, this must be Bangkok: A Month in the Southeast Asian Sun

2005-11-23T17:42:00.000+08:00

Sawadee, sabadii, and selmat datang (that's hello, hello and welcome in Thai, Laotian, and Malay, viewers)-

In response to requests from some of our more attention deficient viewers who got motion sickness from reading the China dispatch, these entries will be divided into country size chunks, allowing one to come and go as one wishes. We will not, however, be offering TXT message article summaries for those pressed for time. Sorry Jake.

We begin where we began, in Thailand. If you wish to skip to the end and find out whodunnit, bounce down the page to Laos or Malaysia. If you're not too scrupulous about chronology but would like to know what we did recently, start with Malaysia and work backwards. Confused yet? You soon will be.

Thailand- Backpacking, Temperature taking, and the PPC.

2005-11-23T17:37:00.000+08:00

The glittering facets of Thailand are generally well documented, and Bangkok is, as it always has been, a dazzlingly fun place to visit. Leaving aside the Golden Temple, the ladyboys selling fried cockroaches, the pleasures of pad thai, and the 4D traffic, Thailand also maintains the element of surprise, as we found out to our credit and debit. So let's balance the books.

Our guest house for this visit was situated within the greater Khao San Road area, home of the one dollar hostel and the globe-on-a-shoestring Shangri-La. The neighborhood streets overflow with travellers from all over the planet in various states of smart/casual disarray, poring over DVDs, grilled squids, cheap luggage, kickboxing lessons and more massage options than a website like this one can explore. It rolls on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just as it has for thirty years or more. Purists and those who remember the good old days argue that the Scene has been irrevocably sold out (a vibe explored accurately in Alex Garland's the Beach). Indeed, Khao San Road has become so entrenched that it has itself become a tourist attraction, and now features on the city tour of Bangkok, along with the National Museum and the Democracy monument. More to the point, there's now a Starbucks and a KFC on KS Road, which is of course a sign of apocalypse riding in our midst like so much bird flu in a henhouse.

Despite the taint of commercial spoilage, there are quirks to the KS area which continue to make one smile into one's papaya shake. Travellers of all shapes and sizes use Bangkok as their jumping off point for exploring every place else, so the traffic is considerable. But a time comes in every traveller's voyage when it is time to cast off the livery of the Road, and rejoin the world they came from. Alternatively, living on the cheap is part of the Experience, and with cash in short supply, it may become necessary to pawn that camera/Da Vinci code/pair of hiking boots for bus fare to Singapore. Hence the emergence of the We Buy Everything market stalls dotted along the shady backstreets.

That is what they do: Buy Everything. Hand over your tired Tevas, your clapped out back pack, the flashlight that saved your life in Sarawak, and in exchange get a pittance of baht, or trade it for some other equally second hand bit of kit. Looking at the goods on display at these stalls, one realizes that it is possible to outfit oneself for one's search of self entirely from cast offs from other selfs who went to look for themselves. That sleeping bag may have travelled thousands of kilometres and yet may never leave. And so the backpacker and his Thai hosts have created an entirely self sustaining microeconomy all of its own. No sell out here, greedheads. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to replenish your water bottle at the Buy Everything well, for it will be returned to you in time.

Moving crosstown somewhat, Natty brought with him from Mongolia a particularly robust cough which required the services of the medical sector, and so we discovered how Bangkok has become a world centre of medical prowess, attracting the infirm and injured from all corners of the globe.
Based on a pointer from a colleague, we headed to the Bumrumgrad medical centre, a gleaming mothership of chrome and green glass built to make you well again. The triage begins in the road leading up to the complex, where uniformed guards peer in the car and point you to the ER, out patient, inpatient, or shopping plaza, and clear traffic for you as befits your condition. When you pull up to the front doors of the place, uniformed bellboys bustle around your car gathering your stuff for you. Next, green suited concierge ladies glide up and politely enquire as to the nature of the ailment, before gently taking your arm and gracefully escorting you to the appropriate bank of elevators. Note the splendid marble atrium and food court on the mezzanine as you go. If English is not your preferred jive, spot a uniformed lady with your national flag on her lapel, and she will translate from Japanese, Urdu, Tagalog or whatever other specials of the day there may be.

Arriving at Kids World (also known as the pediatric outpatient ward), get registered, have a complimentary juice or mineral water, get your new medical credit card thingy, and see one of the bank of doctors on shift. When we were there, the clinic was only half staffed, so there were a mere eight general peds MDs on duty (not counting specialists). If for some bizarre reason you have to wait, then pass the time in the indoor playground, or watching cartoons, or drawing pictures at the crayon table. Racks of the day's newspapers in various languages are on hand for adults. Upon seeing the doctor, who already has your particulars in front of him, get examined, diagnosed, prescribed, get meds, get paid up and get out of there. It took us a whopping fifteen minutes to complete the above, thirty if you count from when we entered the building. We repeated the procedure a few days later, when an x-ray and nebulizer hits were required, and it was equally smooth, the x-ray emailed upstairs in the time it took for us to take the elevator from radiology to Kids World.

Efficacy and medical glitz is all good, but the real draw of medical Bangkok is the cost. For all of the above, consults, x-rays and prescriptions, we paid a total of 160 USD. People from all bits of the world, rich and poor, having expended the available medical options in their neighbourhood, make their way to Thailand. The waiting rooms of the complex were a mushmouth of languages- kids get along with whatever they speak, and adults with not a word in common traded WetOnes, soft toys and held each others kids in an effort to keep everyone happy. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to have your nose done on the cheap at Bumrumgrad. Today's nose at yesterday's prices. What a wonderful world, folks.

Or rather, it both is and isn't. Our final Thai musings derive not from Bangkok, but from Pattaya, two hours drive southeast on the road to Cambodia. We selected it for our weekend excursion on the basis of its proximity to Bangkok, and the need to see the sea before returning to the steppe. Our expectations of a sleepy seaside town of thatched beach huts, hammocks, and slow boats in gentle clear seas were as fictional as the beach in The Beach. Had we known where we were going, we would probably not have gone. But that, of course, would have been the way of the wuss. And wuss we do not.

Pattaya is a heaving city of two million, most notable for being the epicentre of the seedy, nasty tourism which has long been a mainstay of Thailand’s tourist industry. Given the number of other possible candidates for sleaziest place in Thailand, being the winner is the doobiest of dubious awards.

The town has hundreds of girlie bars, staffed by thousands of bar girls. These establishments are simply ranks of u-shaped bars, lit with the requisite red neon, behind which stand at least one barmaid per barstool, to attend to the client as they enjoy one or more beverages. As language is often (the only thing) not shared between x & y in these transactions, many bars keep a stack of board games on hand, so that the culture gap between can quickly be bridged by a bracing round of Snakes and Ladders. The most popular game by far was Connect Four, by the way. To these bars add dozens more gay/straight/other go-go bars advertising in at least half a dozen languages, market stalls selling key rings and t-shirts with 'amusing' smutty slogans, beersweat and too loud music, and many, many pairings of young Thai women and old, older, oldest white men, and you have a fun filled holiday destination for all the family. As was pointed out to us in Bangkok by a fellow in the know, the advent of Viagra has meant that the age gap between the gent and the lady has broadened considerably. May-December romances are now able to see in the New Year, as it were.

In fact, Pattaya has such allure to some of the world's male population that there is now a significant permanent expatriate population of 200,000 or more, with many more on a quasi-permanent basis. Sun, sand, female companionship, beerhall bonhomie, all in a Benny Hill atmosphere and affordable on a pension to boot: what more could one want? What is most impressive about this enclave is that far from letting their brains turn to mush in this dissolute atmosphere, these émigrés are highly organized. In addition to the requisite club activities, amateur dramatic societies, Rotary and the like, the expats of Pattaya have their own television station, the Pattaya's People's Channel (PPC).

PPC exists to remind the resident farangs of the city that in moving to Pattaya they have made the wisest choice they have ever, ever made. From here on out, it's paradise. The super smiling mzungu presenter and all of his smiling guests share the same evangelical certainty (and blinding teeth- cheap whitening is just one of the many benefits available in Pattaya), and feel the need to convert you, the viewer, to their way of thinking. One interview I saw went a bit like this- two blokes in Hawaiian shirts and cheap linen are smiling at each other on a beach:

Presenter: So how long's it been since you moved here?
Happy Pattaya Farang Resident: Oh, about three years now.
P: And have you EVER been happier?
HPFR: I can honestly say that my life has never been better, and I've never been happier.
P: That's great to hear, that's great to hear. And what were you doing before you came to Pattaya?
HPFR: Brrrr! I don't like to remember it! I was working in [insert profession] in [insert dreary place] when all of a sudden I decided I'd take early retirement and come out there and I here I am and I've never been happier.
P: And will you EVER work again?
P and HPFR together (for this is the funniest joke in the world): Hahahahaha!
HPFR: No fear of that!
P: And you've never been happier?
HPFR: You can say that again! I've never been happier.
P: Really? We get that a lot here at PPC. That's great. You enjoy yourself now.
HPFR: Thanks for that, I will, I will. Many thanks.

Not working ever again is a key component to the Pattaya lifestyle. Following on from the illuminating interview, the next bit of programming was a highlight reel from a recent workshop on the topic of How to Make Money Without Working. Expats in sunwear sat around a hotel conference room and watched a powerpoint presentation on how to make a buck by doing bailiff work, verifying insurance fraud, cockfighting, stunt diving, and many other foolproof schemes, none of which require you to wear a tie or work a nine to five. Unfortunately, I was unable to pick up some of finer points of this process, as the highlights were overdubbed with some happy upbeat music, to remind you how easy and simple it all is- all you need to do is walk away from the rat race and into the arms of Pattaya. What could be simpler?

On that inspirational point, we will bring the Thai chapter to a close. A big wai to you all, and here's hoping that if you end up in Pattaya, you know why you're there.

Taa gaawn,

Jannie

Laos- Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.

2005-11-23T17:31:00.000+08:00

In the wine trade, the personality of a vineyard and the vintages it produces are gauged, inter alia, by soil quality, weather conditions, the grape variety, cultivation and harvest methods, and a final something called terroir. Terrior being the quasi-mystical blend of history, culture, tradition and prestige which allows for a grape grown in the Loire Valley to be inherently more complex than one grown in similar conditions in Mudgee Gulch.

While this may or may not be the case when it comes to wine, the idea of there being an organic, non transferable identity to place is intriguing, and one which fits Lao People's Democratic Republic. Vientiane has terroir, no doubt about it. In a world of Yellowtail Chardonnay, Laos is a Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc.

Laos (or Lao PDR, either way) is sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, with China to the north and Cambodia to the south. It's got about six million people, which makes it demographically tiny compared to anywhere except Mongolia, really. It is otherwise tremendously diverse, with 35 different ethnicities spread over its jungly mountains. Laos has 300 varieties of rice, more than any other country except China, yet less than four percent of its land is classified as arable. Economically, Laos languishes way behind Vietnam and Thailand, and seems likely to continue to do so.

The capital Vientiane is a dozy place- hot, humid, and just about to nod off. It has anywhere between 200,000 and 500,000 people, of which no more than about 20 percent seem to be awake at any given time. The head-cleaving heat that bakes the surrounding jungle reigns from 0930 to 1600 makes hats absolutely mandatory, and empties the streets for much of the day of all but the most insomniac residents. Laotian lethargy is legendary- one axiom has it that the Thai grow rice, the Cambodians watch rice grow, and Laotians listen to rice grow. While this makes Laos a somewhat frustrating place to work in for the driven professional, it suits the more relaxed visitor just fine. After the hustle and bustle of metropolitan Ulaan Baatar, it's good to unwind in Vientiane.

Once the sun moves nearer to the horizon, Vientiane is a lovely place to amble around. Most buildings are no higher than three stories high, and have verandahs on all floors, to cool off the inside of the house when the heat builds up. Laos has significant hardwoods in its jungles, and houses are built of dark, heavy woods carved with flourishes on the eaves, doorways, and grilles. The roads vary between pockmarked tarmac and packed earth. Like other southeast Asian cities, houses are generally open to the street, and market stalls are set up along the streets, selling fruit and veg, coffee and tasty soups and tilapia for lunch. Tuk tuks and mopeds are the dominant mode of transport, which makes for a rush hour that sounds like a dozen sewing machines. People smile, say hello, and walk along gently.

The remnants of Indochine are still in evidence as well. In between the Buddhist temples and government buildings, there are remarkable number of wine shops, one of which has a carved barrel three metres high and two across built about its shopfront. Bistros and restaurants serving French fare abound. Patisseries that bake excellent brioche, croissant and pain au chocolat are on every block. Locals will recommend some establishments for breakfast, some for midmorning, and some are suitable only for lunch, m'sieu. Cafes serving Laotian coffee are in similar abundance- the coffee is, unsurprisingly, marvelous- traditionally served thick and black with condensed milk stirred through it. Laos also remains determinedly francophone, the last remaining holdout in southeast Asia. Street signs are written in Laotian script and French, and people brighten considerably if you parlez-vous. By ten p.m, the streets are just about empty, as everyone has retired to bed after another exhausting day.

All in all, a charming, gentle anachronism of a land stuck between the thrusting economic powerplayers of south east Asia, and a place more friendly than a roomful of handshakes. In a world where the Starbucks on Khao San Road serves the same thing as the Starbucks in Beijing airport or the one in the Borders in Times Square, Kuala Lumpur, Vientiane's cafes continue to serve their own homegrown. And for that alone, we urge you to set sail for the land of the languid.

Ever southwards,

Jannie

Malaysia- Malls, Monorails and Money

2005-11-23T17:14:00.000+08:00

As Lyle Lanley told the citizens of Springfield, "You know a town with money is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No-one knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it!"

Lanley's sold monorails to the towns of Ogdenville and North Haverbrook, which really put them on the map. What he neglected to say that he'd also sold a monorail to Muddy Confluence, Malaysia. So as soon as we saw a monorail in Muddy Confluence, we knew we were in for comedy fun. We were wrong, but Lanley was right.

Muddy Confluence sure has money- they've got oil, electronics, Formula One Racing, and Michael Bolton playing at the Genting Highlands resort in November. MC also shares with Springfield a real desire to get noticed by the world- they've got the world's second tallest building (stupid Taiwan), the world's fifth highest communications tower (stupid China, Canada, Russia and Iran), the world's longest apple strudel (80metres), and the world's largest replica camel collection (200). Reports that they will challenge Springfield for the largest pile of burning tyres remain unconfirmed.

But it's not all records and monorails in Kuala Lumpur, which is the Malay name of Muddy Confluence. For all its money, Kuala Lumpur has about as much idea what to do with it as that mule mentioned above. Put another way, Malaysia knows EXACTLY what to do with all that money, and that’s spending it on huge construction projects which will shine brighter and better than any before. Add that to the fact that the Malaysian national pastime is shopping, and you have a recipe for more malls than the eye can see. Malaysia claims to have the world's largest mall, and this is all too plausible. The Times Square complex has eleven stories, including an indoor amusement park and an IMAX theatre. Suria KLCC is embedded into the feet of the Petronas Towers, and has six stories of shopping and an aquarium. There are many more.

Not unlike Beijing, Kuala Lumpur is strongly focused on making and spending of cashmoney. Unlike Beijing, the process of turning the place into one big shopping centre is so far completed that it is wholly possible to lose all sense of where you are- you are standing outside the Debenham's and might have a snack at Baskin Robbins or Famous Amos on your way to Marks & Spencer. Welcome to AnyMall, Planet Earth. Buy buy buy. The whole consumerist experience has been hermetically designed that no unpleasant indigenous variations seep in; in some cases quite literally, as malls have no windows to the outside world and are air conditioned to sub-arctic temperatures. Walk by a mall entrance at ten yards, and a blast of cold air hits you sideways, as Malaysia attempts to cool down the tropics from the inside out.

This nonstop shopping might has some explanation if prices were anything to shout about, if bargains might be had. But no, the similarity between western malls does not end with the choice of shopping outlets; the prices are comparable as well. Despite this, and despite the presence of cheaper prices in Bangkok and rock bottom prices in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur overflows with Aussies, Kiwis and Brits on shopping holidays, whatever circle of hell that may be. You can buy city maps which chart the smoothest passage from one mall to the next, without having to tread in any culture by mistake. Some of the monorail stops disgorge passengers directly into malls, without having to touch the street.
The tourists are far outnumbered by locals in the throng. Sporting the slickest phones, bluetooth headgear, watches, flashdrive accessories and sunglasses, the aspirational model of today's Malaysian youth seems entirely western, derived from mass media arbiters of cool, and forms a homogenous uniform appearance, in lockstep with their US and UK contemporaries. They behave just as badly, and sad to say, are just as fat. Kids today, viewers. I tell you.

None of this is to begrudge Malaysia any of the success it apparently enjoys. But surely there is a more useful way to spend all of this money in a way which does not simply add more malls to the world? Everyone has the right to shop in the same places, I suppose. Is shopping a human right? Discuss. On the other hand, making the whole thing so indistinguishable from its western counterparts that walking into such places is an empty, eviscerating experience isn't a good thing either. Presumably, there will one day a reckoning, as people realize that there's more to life than Sunglass Hut and Accessorize, and new money will no longer be poured into building more and more caves of shopping. Until that day, we have the KL experience.

Kuala Lumpur's residents are serious about making it in today's capitalist world, and are prepared to work very hard to do so. The business pages of the Straits Times takes up at least half the daily paper. The front displays of any bookstore are filled with management handbooks with titles like How to Make Your First Million, and Secrets of Microsoft: The Bill Gates Approach to Management. The payoff to all this is that Malaysia has tremendous human capital, and is a major Asian economic contender.

One suspects that this highly organized business approach is congruent to that of Singapore, Malaysia's neighbour to the south, and member of the federation of Malaysia until 1965. Like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur is very clean and very well organized, and its citizens generally are well behaved and law abiding. Ambition is obviously much valued by the Malaysians, both in terms of the individual pursuit of success, and in demonstrating to the world just how much Malaysia can accomplish if it sets its mind to it. Petronas Towers is perhaps the most obvious example, and features as the icon of the country on the currency, in advertising, and as the logo for the ASEAN conference scheduled for December 05. Globally speaking, Malaysia is fully expecting to join the 'G-9' in 2020. The government is nearing completion of a private city from which to conduct its business, the ten billion dollar Xanadu called Putrajaya, which comes replete with ministries, offices and residences for the Prime Minister and the King, a vast pink mosque and a stocked artificial lake for the PM and the Cabinet to commute up and down in special boats. Oh, and an air conditioned shopping plaza, naturally. Putrajaya is adjacent to the high tech exclusive suburb of Cyberjaya, which has wifi internet access from every toilet and breakfast hutch.

So far, so sterile. Rabid shopping, white elephant architecture, too much air conditioning, and high prices. Add to that the sin taxes the government exacts on beer (four bucks for a bottle of Tiger), and Malaysia is shaping up to be the fishbone in the trachea of south east Asia.

And yet.

Scratch the surface even a little bit, and Malaysia is a fascinating country. This is perhaps what is so frustrating about the whole way that Kuala Lumpur has been developed, is that it does the complexity of Malaysian society such a disservice. First off, Malaysia is an ethnic and cultural hybrid comprised of its own indigenous elements with strong inputs from China and the Indian subcontinent. Fifty odd percent of the population is Malay, twenty five percent Chinese, and the remainder are of various south Asian origins, plus others from Malaysian Borneo and farther afield. While avowedly a Muslim state, Malaysia nonetheless has significant Hindu and Buddhist populations, as well as Christians and animists, and maintains a climate of considerable freedom of worship.

Over the centuries, Malaysia has developed a cultural absorptive capacity that allows it to incorporate significant populations from China and India without having its own identity overwhelmed. Granted, this has not always been a flawless process, but it has unfolded comparatively bloodlessly, and diversity is strongly valued by Malaysians. Our visit coincided with Aidalfitri and Deepavalii, and the town overflowed with public celebrations of all kinds to celebrate the culmination of the Muslim and Hindu holy days. Over the decades since independence, there have been consistent dark mutterings that the Malaysian socio-cultural equation is too delicately balanced, and could collapse into chaos at any point as a result of independence, communism, Indonesian influence, Malay-Chinese desire for dominance, extremist Islam, and so on. Nevertheless, Malaysia has held firm, and shows no signs of splintering into its base components, if indeed anyone could reverse the process.

This ethnic diversity is so interwoven that it is impossible to determine at a glance whether someone is Malaysian or not based on physical appearance. Like riding a train in New York or London, riding the monorail in Kuala Lumpur it is impossible to determine who is local and who is visiting. Waiting for the ferry in Port Klang, two chaps who looked Tamil sat down with another two guys who could have stepped off the streets of Beijing and their pal who could have been (maybe was) Filipino. The five of them have a coffee and smoke (everyone smokes in Malaysia), jabbered away in one language, answered their mobiles in English, switched to another language, back to the first language, and all carried on. On Pelau Ketam island, the same variety of appearance continued, but all the signage was written in Chinese, although everyone spoke English. Muslim teenage schoolgirls wear tight jeans and tiny tops, but with a tundung headscarf over their heads. I saw one such outfit in which the tundung was pinned at the shoulder with a smiley face button. Business as Malaysian usual.

This plurality of influence and heritage is also deliciously evident that in the available eating options in KL. Indian buffet restaurants specializing in tandoor stand right next to (or share tables with) stalls specializing in Penang prawn fried noodles, which in turn are next a place doing grilled chicken fish with ginger and soy sauce. Single meals consist of great dishes from all over the place, and ingredients are borrowed and then lent back across the various cuisines. Even against the greatness of Thai or Beijing foodie options, Malaysia has such extraordinary variety of choice that eating well is well and truly one of the prime attractions of Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia is not, per se, a global Great Culture, in the way that China or the United States exude influence across the world. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Malaysia seems rather to be able to take up what is on offer from other cultures, and fold it into its own mix. While the wholesale inhalation of consumer culture leads to the homogeneity of the malls, it also allows for the people who shop in them to be part of a dynamic and vibrant multiculture. That's why it's such a disappointment to see the youth getting cloned to look like every other teen on the planet. Kids today, viewers.

All is not forever rosy in the land, and there is a darker side to the Malaysian profile. The ruthless drive to succeed takes place within an autocratic state that regularly represses 'unfavourable' elements, especially southern Islamic political parties, a catspaw media, and is dependent on exploited migrant labour. A rigid social hierarchy, enshrined in the constitution, ensures that everyone knows their place. Within the Indian population, inherited caste systems from the subcontinent delineate just who's who and why they'll stay that way. Populations in Borneo are significantly less attended to that those on the Peninsula. In addition to the cast off migrant labourers adrift in Malaysia, refugees from Thailand, Burma and the Philippines waft in and out with regularity.

For all the carefully planted parks and manicured architecture, real life is far more interesting in Malaysia than it lets on. Far removed from the gleaming marble of the mall floors, there's a whole country out there waiting to be tasted, walked in and discussed. So next time you're there, please remember to ride the monorail to the end of the line, and start walking from there.

On which impractical advice we shall close. If you've read this far, you probably deserve a southeast Asian holiday all of your own.

No further travel is slated anytime soon, so relax in the knowledge that the next dispatch will be back on the freezing solid ground of Mongolia.

Selamat jalan,

Jannie

2005-11-16T09:22:00.000+08:00

Frost forms on our bedroom window this morning.

2005-10-07T15:57:00.000+08:00

The glorious sportsmen and women of the revolution vs. the marketing might of Manchester United. Worker's stadium, Beijing.

Beijing Babylon

2005-10-07T15:54:00.000+08:00

Mihaa! (Greetings, viewers, but not in Mongolian.)

I've been struggling with this piece for sometime now, and have eventually had to release it into the wild without having given it a full physical. Even so, despite wrestling with the subject matter, I have not been either shooting arrows at it or horse racing it, for this is not a Mongolian issue. This piece concerns China. China, on the other hand, is probably deeply unconcerned by this piece. Quid no quo. Grab your wontons and green tea and settle in.

China is, as we know, intrinsically vast. Any discussions of China presupposes this massive girth- geographic, demographic, economic, cultural, historical, take your pick; it's a behemoth. There's no such thing as a little China.

Playing the numbers with China is a mug's game, because the figures involved are akin to those used to calculate distances in space, but it may be instructive to mention a few here. 1.3 billion people (that's 20 percent of everybody), spread over 9.6 million square kilometres. Shared borders with 14 other countries. A total of 1.8 million kilometres of roads, with five million private cars purchased a year. Annual growth rates in double figures, despite unemployment rates of 20 percent. The second largest economy in the world, ranked 85th on the Human Development Index. Three hundred million people without adequate sanitation. Whatever point it is one is trying to prove, the numbers for China will make the point for you dramatically.

But what, then, is the point? How to encapsulate all that bigness into one easily digestible intellectual biscuit? Bearing in mind the fallacy of the visitor in any circumstance is to try to extrapolate a grand theory based on a set of thin conclusions, conclusions which are in turn a result of a narrow set of experiences comprised of a fistful of rapid observations. So we're still no closer.

This extemporizing is problematic when considering Lichtenstein or Tonga, but applying this approach to China is unwise indeed. The plurality of the Chinese whole defies comfy theorizing- any operant assumptions are easily contradicted just around the next corner. Much of what one hears or assumes about China is wrong, or at best readily deniable. This isn't particularly unique- the same applies to much of what is written and said about America. Nonetheless, that doesn't stop anyone from coming up with pat assumptions and one sentence summaries.

All of which is to say, much of what follows is wrong.

Through the centuries, China has kept going, come what may. At massive cost and with sometimes retrograde motion, but it is as it has been for thousands of years: immensely powerful. China in this regard contravenes the standard narrative applied to dominion- implicitly, the notion of empire presupposes decline and fall. Rome, the Mongols, The Ottomans, the British, the Soviets-their empires have come and gone, while geopolitically speaking, the Chinese are still in the hunt, and could still ascend further. This is perhaps due to the fact that China's mass is contiguous, and consequently easier to control than a far flung series of satelites might be. This is painting in broad strokes to be sure, but the fact is that the future of a strong China is still playing out, and does not represent a closed historical chapter in the same way that say, the British Empire does. China has declined and fallen flat any number of times- a fair few times in the 20th Century alone- but with every seeming collapse China reinvents itself and carries on, apparently gaining momentum as it does so. Formidable ironies pile up quickly, as yesterday's anathema is today's ordre du jour, but perhaps it is this mutability which keeps China's sails so full of wind.

The result of this ideological pig pile is juxtaposition of everything one might care to ascribe to the concept of China, writ on a massive scale.

As one approaches the sleepy little hamlet of Beijing (pop.15 million), capital of the communist People's Republic of China, it is the forces of capitalism that first emerge from the gloom. Clusters of skyscrapers stand on either side of the road, each crowned with a single giant corporate logo- Nokia, Microsoft,Luftansa- concrete and steel fingers stretched out for coin. The buildings themselves are functional blocks with occasional accents or color, but for the most part simply appear to be unadorned money making factories. This is repeated throughout the city, as one realizes that China is El Dorado- the biggest market and the cheapest labour going.

If you're in the business of making a buck, you simply cannot afford to ignore China and risk losing out. Incredibly posh shops and corporate frontage are purchased at lavish expense to peddle Louis Vuitton and Audemars Piguet at prices that no one can afford, ignoring the inconvenient fact that knockoffs are available just across town for rock bottom prices. A Rolls Royce dealership sits between Burberry and Prada on Beijing's main drag, Chang'an Avenue, fifteen minutes walk from Mao's Mausoleum. The most powerful communist state on the planet is one of the most nakedly venal places on earth. China is for sale, and everything's negotiable.

Insatiable moneymaking has driven property prices sky high, with old buildings being destroyed in order for something more profitable to be constructed. There's a clock on all this: the Olympics in 2008, for which Beijing must be shiny to the point of blinding. China World Trade Centre is looking to throw up a 80 story wonder, in addition to its two existing 40 story towers. Dozens of cranes work single construction sites, round the clock, seven days a week. We walked along streets on which huge billboards in red and white advertised thrilling new residential opportunities coming soon suitable for executives and foreigners. In the breaks between the billboards, bulldozed shanties lay in piles, with folk squatting in locations destined for higher things. Sanlitun Bar Street, a bohemian strip of pavement bars and nightclubs is scheduled for complete razing, renovation and restoration as a high end entertainment mall by 2007. The western side of the street already is rubbled, with one establishment which has somehow held out left adrift in a unlit field of broken stones, with a sign announcing "We Still Here." How long that will hold true is anyone's guess. Probably not much longer, for the future is coming. No one, it seems, is ineligible for destruction.

The pressures on land and sky coupled with the inflow of much much money means that the high end residential market is also booming. Congestion, traffic and and air quality are such that gated communities geared to the international market have been thrown up around the edges of the city, with names like EuroVilla and Paradiso. These complexes come complete with private security, driving ranges, schools, pools, restaurants, and off street parking, at a price which allows one to spend in the style to which one has become accustomed. The alternative of living deep in the city, with the attendant lack of green space, lack of non-Chinese speakers, noise and traffic can be a something of a challenge, especially for the child rearing. Air quality especially leaves something to be desired- for 2005, Beijing City Council is aiming for 230 clear days, up from 228 in 2004. Put another way, that means that 135 days are not clear. Four and a half months of the year, it's a smoggy smog world. How the discus throwers are going to cope with this during peak choking season in 2008 remains to be seen.

All through the city, the sound of currency being counted quickly permeates. Advertising is everywhere- flat screens were mounted opposite the elevator doors on every floor of our hotel to give a you a hit in those critical seconds before the doors slide closed. Soon, all Beijing taxis will have unturnoffable screens installed into the seatbacks to bombard you with product information as you drive around.

Beneath the corps doing billon dollar deals, at street level dozens of markets sell everything, and the bargain hunt is a key element of many tourist's trips to Beijing. We saw platoons of Americans (recognizable because Americans on vacation wear tshirts emblazoned with the name of the last place they went on vacation) lugging bootleg Samsonites into the Pearl Market to fill up with cheap product to take home. After the polite, prix fixe dealings of Ulaanbaatar, the aggro and fluidity of Beijing's markets can be a bit startling. The general rule of thumb seems to be pay no more than 25 percent of the asking price, no matter what. This will involve shouting, some of it angry, so be ready. Inevitably, the first few transactions will doubtless lead to some dubious purchases of uncertain value, but soon enough one is buying Levis in bundles of six. It also helps to keep the exchange rate in mind. Two of our party, jetlagged and unfamiliar, ended up buying some dried fruit and two bananas for forty bucks. Ooops.

Once into the swing of things, one common bargaining manoeuvre is called Happy Price, whereby the seller and buyer agree to meet halfway- all good until you realize that you are dealing with people who are hands down smarter than you, and have a much better idea of the worth of the materials in question. Going to buy a pair of shoes/string of pearls/set of clubs becomes an exercise in vaguely Buddhist market indexing: the true value of anything in unknown, so how much is one willing to pay for anything? Independently of what one is willing to pay, how much can one get it for? Is it worth either of those prices? Only the abacus knows the answer.

All this haggling and money making going on can make one's head spin- and yet, besides this everything must go attitude, there is a humourless inflexible adherence to the rules. For obvious reasons, taking photos inside the markets is forbidden- the same vendor who would sell you the shirt off her back will under no circumstance let the shutter click. You need a visa to set foot in the airport, even if only in transit. Taxis will not stop for fares anywhere except in designated spots off the main roads. Hotel reservations not in pristine order are treated with deep suspicion. At bustops and the airport, queues happen, and seem to keep a degree of shape. In fact, given the sheer volume of humanity in play, it's impressive how relatively well the infrastructure functions. Granted, there are problems with particular elements here and there (traffic flow and roads spring to mind), but overall it keeps ticking over.

Once all bargains have been safely negotiated, it's time to go and poke at the lasting achievements of China's history. Of the various stops on the circuit, there are two highlights of truly sublime dimensions. Specifically, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall are extraordinary places to visit, and worthy of all the hyperbole pointed in their direction. Anywhere which maintains an emotional punch in spite of the domestic and foreign hordes milling everywhere, bloated tourist tat shops, and wilting humidity is worthy of visiting, and no more so than those two. On a more miniature level, the caliber of workmanship on even the cheapest of items is very high indeed- lacquerwork, painting, and ceramics are all exceptionally wonderful. Of course, there's a vast cornucopia to choose from, so individual mileage may vary, but something for everyone can be found. And then there's the food.

Unless one is a particular kind of freak (hi Bob and Ali!), reading about other people's meals is rather like hearing about other people's minor ailments: it's hard to keep from scratching oneself to stay awake. The food in Beijing deserves better than that, so we'll keep it brief. In a word, transplendentdelicioustastyyumyum. And that was just the cracker we found on the floor at the airport. The highlights of the meals inhaled are plural, but a shout out is in order for the romaine with sesame dipping sauce, barbecued trout at the Great Wall, green onion dumplings, prawns cooked on hot stones, multiple wonderfuls with aubergines and garlic, and the mystifying ability to take fish as marginal as carp and turn it into a centrepiece dish. Once one gets used to the fact that food seems to arrive in arbitrary order, and you remember not to touch, move or otherwise disturb the meal chit filled in by your barrage of servers that rests at the end of the table, everything will arrive in a regular rotation of tasties. And if, after all, you thought the vegetables could have been more exciting, or the squid was less than you hoped for, then solace awaits when you get the bill. Even with a revalued yuan, China is kind to the holder of hard currency. Smack your lips, burp up the vapours, reach for a toothpick, and ask to see the menu again.

And on that rich, aromatic and tasty note, we will draw an beaded curtain with a pitcure of a dragon on it over these proceedings. As a digestif, I would offer the following.

Traveling around Beijing with a blond haired blue eyed baby is an extraordinary thing to do. More times than could be counted, we were stopped by random strangers, asking to take Natty's picture, either by himself, or with them arrayed around him. 'Asking' is perhaps the kind way of putting it. Dozens of people picked him up or carried him out of sheer 'i want to hold a baby' joy. One night at a Thai restaurant called Banana Leaf, he woke from his sleep and when roused, started dancing to the music from the band. Tables cleared of patrons who came piling round to watch the scamp do his thing. A bank of camera phones was popping like Cannes- I counted seven at one point. We have a photo taken inside the Forbidden City, in a gallery filled with jade and vases of inestimable value- every single person in the place is looking at the boy standing around doing nothing much. The combined beauty of the imperial heritage have nothing on a toddling boy. There was no let up for this the whole week. It was all good natured, but unrelenting. If it ever got too much, the only recourse was to return to the hotel, and even there- one morning at breakfast he was pinched off his chair to play by the lady in the carpet shop before he'd had a bite.

I mention all of this not to big up my son, but because it was a manic, nonstop of the visit. Given how many people there are in Beijing, there are surprisingly few babies. Granted this may be different in more residential areas, but compared to the streets of Ulaanbaatar, the difference is obvious. The one baby policy is still in effect, even if it is less rigidly enforced, and there is nowhere for China to sluice off the unrequited maternal/paternal instincts. Perhaps this is an inadequate explanation, but even compared to kiddie friendly places like Mongolia or Italy, the degree and urgency of attention Natty got was striking at the time, and slightly melancholy thereafter. What will all those people who took jpegs of a random foreign baby do with them? Save them? Add them to their holiday album? Why take a photo of such a thing in the first place? All of the possible answers are depressing.

To be continued at a later date, viewers. This will not be our last visit to China, and I look forward to contradicting myself imminently.

Bai bai,

Jannie

2005-09-16T14:53:00.000+09:00

Undri Mindh (Good afternoon, viewers),

Posts to this blog are like number 38 buses. You wait ages for one, and then three come at once. In other ways, this blog is not at all like a bus, so do not try to board it, attract the conductor's attention, or stand in front of the yellow line while the vehicle is in motion. Next stop, Zavkhan market. All aboard!

One of the bigger unofficial milestones of the year in Ulaanbaatar is the turning on and off of the heating system. The whole city is still centrally heated, and individual houses and apartments do not have thermostats- you are as hot or as cold as the state decides you are. Usually, this means you are walking around in shorts, as the heating engineers seem to err on the side of tropical.

The heating comes on the 15th of September, an event preceded by unannounced workmen stomping around the attic (in old Russian buildings, plumbing is in the roof) at 11pm on Sunday night, followed by heavy hammering, rotary saws cutting through metal, and welding. Given the quality of Mongolian construction, this usually leads to plaster falling on your face as you lie in bed, wondering if you're about to be invaded by wrench wielding maniacs. It's like that film Brazil, only in Mongolia.

Once the dust settles and banging subsides, the heating comes one, one radiator at a time. And despite all my caviling about the State of Things, on the morning of the 16th, we awoke to heavy snowstorms and zero temperatures. The picture above was taken on the way to work. A neat bit of scheduling. Almost-almost too neat….

The heat will remain on until 15th of May, no matter what the weather does between now and then. Whether the blowtorch wielding roof marauding casuals will return between now and then depends very much on the creaky pipes holding it together for another season. Let’s hope together, shall we?

Gadaa huiten bain (outside it's cold, viewers)

Jannie

2005-09-16T13:54:00.000+09:00

Dried and pickled goodies on display, Bayankhongor

Gazpacho in the Gobi

2005-09-16T11:46:00.000+09:00

Sain Bainuu Viewers- Bi tantai daihiat ulzandah bayartai bain (I am pleased to meet you again, viewers).

Into every life a little hiatus must fall, and so it is with this chronicle of Fast Times at Mongolia High. It's been a busy few weeks, the ramifications of which are such that future entries may be shorter and less frequent. While this will doubtless come as a relief to those of you who have moseyed over, looked at this and said "eeeh, I don't have time for this" before heading to the fridge to see if there's any pie left (I'm looking at you, Kwana), some others of you may be distressed by this change. Our recommendation is to read the blog, eat the pie, and try not to fret.

But what are these portentous events? Have all keyboards mysteriously reverted to Mongolian script? Did a passing yak trample our hard drive? Is there something besides soy in the sausages? No, viewers, it's more than these. After fifteen months of kiddie swims and toddler groups, I have finally rejoined the cabal of the Gainfully Employed. It has, luckily, been a relatively simple transition to make. After a few days on the job, I no longer had the urge to sniff my colleagues' nappies when they whimper, and they all seem to like the introduction of cookies and juice, and naptime after lunch. Natty, on the other hand, still has not given me his 2005 workplan, and his petty cash allocations are a mess.

I'm working for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), a medium sized NGO has does work in a number of different sectors (health, education, microcredit,etc). I've been hired to oversee four different projects to do with food security, spread over Bayankhongor and Zavkhan aimags (see the map on the right if you're a keen-o.) For those of you who collect them, the title of the position is Food Security Coordinator, which gives me the right to enter the summer palace through the west gate, graze my goats on the village green in times of drought, and a stipend of 16 gallons of yoghurt per annum.

In order for what comes next to make any kind of sense at all, two paragraphs of context are going to have to be administered, so lie still and try not to cough as it slides down. It may prove useful one day, if Mongolian diets come up as a topic at a cocktail party, so hush up and pay attention.

Basically, the standard operating lifestyle in Mongolia centres around the herd of animals kept by every family. You herd it, milk it, get wool and skins from it, kill it, eat every bit of it, sell it, and that's it. In summer, rural Mongolians' diet centres on 'white food' (tsagaan holl, viewers), which is an inventive collection of dairy products consumed fresh, fermented, curdled, curded, aged, bewitched, bothered and bewildered. In winter, animals are slaughtered and meat is consumed- it is cold enough that meat is kept by shoving it into the rafters of the ger, where it freezes, thus you can consume an animal slowly without it going off. Easy peasy.

This is a fine system when it works, which is some of the time. If, however, the winter is extremely hard (-63 celsius, let's say), and the animals start to die, then very rapidly, the folks who depend on those animals begin to feel pretty peaky pretty quickly. In 1999-2001, there were an especially hard series of winters (called dzud, viewers) which killed off whole herds, in some cases, and forced rural families to the aimag centres to find quoi manger. Essentially, there's no plan b. So what this program attempts to do is encourage people to plant, harvest, cook and store agricultural produce as well as meat and dairy, so that they have at least a couple of options when the cold hits, and can make a bit of cash by selling off whatever veg they don't need, have more micronutrients and minerals in their diet.

See? That wasn't so bad, was it? It's fun learning stuff.

So second day on the job, and it's off to Bayankhongor, 600 kms ot the southwest, of which the last 200 are dirt tracks over the steppe- this takes about 12 hours, if you don't stop for anything more substantial than a Mars bar, more if you do.

About 120 kms outside the capital, along a section which is terraced (in that it has tarmac bits on it), we were marooned behind a truck with trailer barreling along at speeds fast enough to be unsafe but slow enough to be frustrating to be behind.

Having sounded the horn in the accustomed fashion, we moved to over take on left, half on the road and half on the shoulder, gathering speed to pass the extra long vehicle. Given the age of the truck and the probable level of noise in the cabin, the charitable explanation is that the driver did not hear our horn. Either way, as we passed the trailer, the truck rumbled fast over to the left, with the body of the trailer looking fling us into the hereafter. The driver extraordinaire (and my boss) stomped on brakes, and steered us off the shoulder and onto the plains, while the truck boomed on carefree.

Now some of you may have noticed that my employer has the word Adventist in a position of some prominence in their name, which may give some hint as to their general outlook on matters spirit and flesh. As the truck was hoving to, and it was clear we were about to be smashed to pieces, I blurted "Jesus Christ!!!". Luckily, I did not, in my panic, choose to adorn it with some of the profanity which is often inserted between the first and second names. Loud public swears may not be the best way to impress the new boss of a Christian organization, viewers. Try to refrain in future.

Once we were done with the swearing, the next day it was more driving to the edge of the Gobi desert, where the tiny community of Jinnst lies. The Gobi proper lies some distance farther south, but the Jinnst salient gives one a pretty good idea of what's out there. With sand and gravel fields all around, there is a valley of slight width which has a narrow river flowing through it. The river allows for human habitation, and along its banks is a community of not more than 30 gers, spread up and down the river. Behind the gers a huge sand dune rises, reminding you that the green beneath your feet is a shallow mirage.

Upstream from the settlement, mining has begun, and the folk of Jinnst have begun to complain that the water tastes different than before. Depending on what is found in the deposits upstream, the real possibility of mercury poisoning exists. We took water samples from the river which are now being analyzed at the lab. A bad business it will be if the water is tainted- watch this space.

Nothing grows higher than a shrub anywhere in the vast nothing, with the bewildering exception of one great big tree. It stands all by itself, quite some distance from Jinnst and the river. It is too big to get one's arms around, and is in mysteriously robust health, all green leaves in the dry breeze. We mused silently on how this tree came to be in the desert, and how it had escaped being chopped down for all these years. We speculated that it must have some mystical significance to have lasted this long. Each lost in his own thoughts, we drew these quiet meditations to a close, got the chainsaw from the boot and took the big ugly brute down. It was spoiling the view.

No, no we didn't. Did we?

Driving on, we arrived finally at Jinnst, where the river's edge veggie growers awaited. As Mongolians don't have a long history of growing stuff in the ground, part of this whole process involves a step by step training process, from planting through harvesting, to make sure everyone knows which end is up on a carrot. Today's lesson involved that cunningest of subjects, the How to Cook. This way you don't have people standing around with their crops rotting in the ground, claiming not to know what to do with rutabaga, snozzcumber, or spunkwort. Once you've successfully bagged yourself an aubergine, how do you gut, clean and roast him? How indeed.

Gathered in the welcome low light inside the ger were about forty growers, men, women and children. And up against the far wall, wearing her best whites, chef hat and crisp new apron, was a chef from the Mongolian Culinary Institute (for such a thing exists), specializing in vegetarian fare. Three tables, burners, and banks of visual aids were set up as seen on teevee cooking shows, and for the next three hours chef wowed the crowd with such unexpected wonders as squash vichyssoise, carrot with sauerkraut, apple compote and sundry other fresh and pickled bits and pieces. It went over a storm, especially as chef thoughtfully prepared enough in advance for everyone to try everything, plus everyone got a pamphlet of recipies for everything they tasted that day. Masterchef in the Ger, and so far so good in this gig.

We continued in this vein the following day, north of Gallut, a town about which our Lonely Planet states "if for some bizarre reason you find yourself in Gallut.." Well tell you what, LP, we go to Gallut to poke about in cabbage patches, that's what we do. Gallut was slightly harder to reach than usual because the wooden bridge over the river was destroyed a few days earlier when two mining company trucks well above the limits of what the timber could hold tried to cross it, splintering the bridge and hurling the second truck into the water. Luckily, we were told, they were able to get the truck out (so much for the bridge). Both trucks, having crossed, were now marooned on the other side, lined up like naughty schoolboys by the edge of the water, being made to look at what they'd done. Neither truck appeared in the least bit remorseful. Short of anything else to do, and with the bridge unlikely to get repaired anytime soon, the two truck drivers ambled on over and took in a lesson or two in how to make potato salad. Otherwise, it was more of the same, with the inclusion of the a huge frisbee match at the end of the afternoon, involving a cliff, a water hazard, two guys on horseback, a few dogs, all the men and boys over the age of seven in the village, and about half the women. Mongolians are able to throw a Frisbee pretty much instinctively, and a huge scrum of fun was had.

Thereafter, it was a short twelve hour dive back to the capital, in time to have a day off and head back to the office. Still, not bad for a first week, and certainly more frisbee and fricassee than expected.

And with the acrid fumes of pickling vinegar fumigating our nostrils, and our mining company stock dividends burning a hole in our pocket, we will draw this installment to a close. We hope you'll remember to do the required reading, mind your tongue and not overburden your herds.

Bi tantai tanilsandaa bayartai bain (nice to have seen you, viewers),

Jannie

2005-08-10T18:21:00.000+09:00

Lake floor, Ureg Nuur, western Mongolia

Uvs, Ulaangom and Ureg Nuur: An Epic Dispatch in Three Manly Sports and Four Occurences by the Lakeside

2005-08-10T18:15:00.001+09:00

Greetings Viewers, Orood Ireree (you’re welcome, viewers)-

Apologies for the delay in service, but we have found it easier to remove the speck from the eye of the camel through the eye of a needle than it is to find the last straw that broke that same camel’s back in a haystack. You know how it is.

Our story today takes us to Uvs aimag (aimags being the largest administrative division in Mongolia, equivalent to states or provinces), all the way west and up a bit. It is 1300 kms away, takes two and a half hours to fly there, and is one hour behind Ulaanbaatar. Most of the time, this time difference is the most exciting thing about Ulaangom, the aimag capital.

In order to stay current at the regional level and to avoid confusion at the national level, people keep their timepieces on both times, such that a wall clock will show Ulaanbaatar time, a watch Ulaangom time, and car clock Ulaanbaatar time, a mobile Ulaaangom time, and people talk about this all the time. If you schedule a phone call with the capital, you can expect a lot of toing and froing over what time you should expect the call, what time UB thinks it should make the call, what time you should be ready to receive the call in case they get it wrong, but above all be on standby at least an hour each way just in case.

All of which frenzy results in such a high level of excitement that when one actually really needs to know the time of something, like what time the plane takes off, no one is quite sure- not even the pilot. Consequently, you either find yourself with hours to spare, or getting to the airport after the gate has closed. Apparently, when Daylight Savings time springs forward or falls back, half the town goes into immediate hibernation, and the other half’s brains go into immediate meltdown, while figures clothed as the Twelve Hours of Daylight dance in the streets to the music of Morris Day and the Time.

Most of the time, that is. But not the weekend we were there, when things were considerably more thrilling, as it was the 80th anniversary of the aimag’s existence. Due to redistricting, fighting, administrative restructuring, conquest, and Soviet ideas about efficiency, some aimags are more aimag than others. Uvs (pronounced uvs, viewers) is an oldie, and consequently all the aimag governors from the other 18 all showed up to hail this achievement, as did the Speaker of Parliament and a host of other bigwigs. In honour of this occasion and in deference to the needs of said biggywigs, the Uvs’ hosts hospitably laid on electricity and water for the whole holiday period. This is quite a feat, as Uvs hypothetically gets all of its power from Russia. However, being an older aimag, its memory isn’t what it used to be, and it has completely misplaced its change purse and it now owes Russia half a million American dollars for electricity. In order to jog Uvs’ memory, Russia has turned off all supplies of juice until it remembers where it hid its last pension check. Uvs is still scratching its head. In fairness, Uvs is not the only western aimag in this predicament. Either way, the dazzling glare of two phase electric current and 4WD horseless carriages in the high street all contributed to a splendid festive atmosphere.

The celebrations centred, as they always do, on the three manly sports- wrestling, archery and horse racing. In fact, Mongolians are so keen on naadam celebrations that the government is trying to limit celebrations to one per aimag per year. Otherwise, it seems, every time someone passes an exam or spots a new moon, whole provinces bunk off minding the sheep and starts wrestling in the dust and shooting arrows about the place. Either way, manly as these sports may be, spectator friendly they are not.

Wrestling. Men in tight blues, red chestless singlets (to show they are not women) and pointy hats grabbing hold of each other’s shoulders, throwing 90 degree shapes, and walking slowly in a circle. This is not to say any one of them could not thump you in both UB time and Ulaangom time and once more for Greenwich Mean Time, it’s just that they don’t get any cool moves. The coolest thing about the wrestlers is the rankings, which include State Titans, Lions, Garudas (?), Elephants, Hawks and Falcons. We saw a State Elephant while we were in Ulaangom. Besides his mountainous size, we could tell he was an elephant because he had nine blind men poking at him and saying things like “but no, it’s a wastepaper basket!” and suchlike.

Archery. Men with steely gazes fix on a point in the middle distance, pull on string, arrow makes a zoomy noise and is gone. Admittedly this looks cool, but it’s impossible to tell who’s winning, how scoring works, or even what they are aiming at. It’s like tennis with only serves. Actually, no, tennis is still more boring.

Horse racing. While everyone agrees the other manly sports are okay, the whole country of Mongolia is stone crazy about horse racing. Every Naadam, racing venues are set up 35 kms from town centres, and then the whole town decamps to said venue to watch the horses as they come in, often fording rivers and scaling sheer cliffs to get there. We went along with everybody else to watch these races, and found ourselves in a ger city of thousands of people who’d come to watch these races. The starting point was a good distance off, and the horses come in in a dusty hurricane across the steppe, looking for all the world like those hordes one‘s heard about. Thing is, there are thousands of people, dozens of horses, a vast great steppe, and everything happens in lightning speed. As the horses come in with their kid jockeys aloft, everyone bolts down to the finish line to try to touch the sweat of the winning horse, which gives you good luck. After this is done, everyone ambles back to the gers to eat some more meat and talk about horses. This is repeated for six races or two days, whichever comes first. Again, not without its charm, but not exactly a thrill a minute.

Exhausted by all these sporting thrills, it was time to leave the hustle and bustle of the big city and head out to the solitude and beauty of Ureg Nuur (which seems to mean Responsibility Lake, viewers- I’m baffled), three hours west of Ulaangom. We had planned to camp by the lake, and had made arrangements with our travel agent pals to be met by a driver equipped with tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, and all necessary whatnot. The driver Ulaanbayar showed up, but showed a distinct lack in the tackle department. A quick liaise with our pals in the capital later, it transpired that the gear we were to have used was irrevocably lost/damaged/broken/eaten/something/anyway there isn’t any, and instead what would happen was that new gear would be loaded on the plane that morning in Ulaanbaatar, and transported up to us at the lakeside by a second car which would meet us there three hours later. It helps to have in idea of just how remote these places as you consider the viability of this plan, not to mention the possible hiccups that uptight people might spot a mile off. Not us though. Oh no.

Undeterred, we departed, and arrived at the banks of the lake more or less on schedule, with no tent to sit in, or kettle to put on to boil. So we did as is done in these parts. You stride over to the closest ger, remember your etiquette (don’t step on the threshold, don’t lean on the supports, don’t move any hats, don’t point your feet at the shrine, move clockwise, etc), take a seat and wait for the hospitality to flow. In the first instance, this included milky tea with salt which is pretty much standard, and an assortment of hard cheese and pastry items of varying palatabilty. All this was fine for the grownups, but what of little ones? What could they have? What indeed. As it happened the particular ger we stopped at had two little girls of about four and two living there, at least one of which was still breast feeding, as is Natty. And so our hostess duly obliged the visiting lad by proffering him a hit of the homegrown good stuff. Young Armstrong took a long hard look at things as they stood, had a think about it, but decided to stick with his own stash. There was, it must be said a quiet sigh of relief heard from certain quarters.

By and by, the sound of a motor was heard, and our chase car appeared. The plan had worked. Not only had the plan worked, but the runner with the camping gear was so thrilled with her errand that she brought her whole family along to share the excitement. In addition to the tents and sleeping bags, she had brought along her mother and father, her sister and her boyfriend, their younger brother and herself. They spilled out of the Russian jeep as we stood slack jawed and wondered if they were staying for the weekend, while mentally counting the teabags. But no, they were just along for the drive. Once satisfied that the tension in the guylines was acceptable, they piled back in the car and drove the three hours back, without so much as a refreshing beverage.

And then there were three and a little boy. Ulaanbayar called me over and said he wanted to show me something. He opened his mouth wide and pointed to a molar on his right side. Looking at it, it was split laterally into two pieces, from front to back. Using a combination of Mongolian, Russian and gesture, he made it clear that he needed that tooth out now. His plan was to break open a disposable razor, use the blade to cut open his gum, and then use the pliers on my Swiss Army knife to yank out the painful half of tooth. I told him that there was no way I was going to cut him with the razor, so he suggested that he make the cut but that I would have to pull the tooth out, because he wouldn’t be able to do it himself. So that is what we agreed, and that is what we did.

As night fell, and the codeine kicked in, I found a purple hat with an orange band on the beach, in perfectly serviceable condition, and the following exchange occurred in Mongolian: (all translations probably scarily accurate)
Jannie: Look. Is Hat Is.
Ulaanbayar: Yes. Blah blah blah Matches blah blah blah.
Jannie (thrilled he’s heard a word he understands.): Yes Oh Yes. Matches, yes. Matches good.
Ulaanbayar: Yes. Matches. Give me, I need.
Jannie: Yes yes yes here. (gives matches).
Ulaanbayar: Ah, thank you.

And with that, Ulaanbayar took the hat off a respectable distance, piled some grass up in it, and set it on fire. After a quiet moment and a resolution to give him any other bits of clothing just yet, we filed that one away to find out about later. It transpires that Mongolians don’t take kindly to others messing with their hats, as this is a particularly personal bit of property. This explains why along the roadside one can often see a wide variety of quite serviceable headgear, lying around unclaimed. A hat only ever has one owner, it appears. Finding a hat without one, the humane thing to do is dispose of it. Law of the steppe.

And so with the lessons of these four parables still clear in our ears and fresh on our heads, let us bring this dispatch to a close. We hope you’ll remember to keep one clock on Ulaanbaatar time at all times, keep your hat pulled firmly down around your ears, and get those teeth checked before you need my services.

Bi tantai tanilsandaa bayartah bain (nice to have met you, viewers),

Jannie

2005-08-10T18:10:00.000+09:00

Sunset over Ureg Nuur, western Mongolia

2005-07-27T13:10:00.000+09:00

Pastoral Idyll, Mongolia. Rush hour traffic not pictured.

Getting around without running aground

2005-07-27T13:03:00.000+09:00

Greetings viewers, and sonin saihan uu bain? (What’s new, pussycats?)

We are between gallivants to the country just presently- back from a weekend at the ger of some pals on the Tuul river, and about to head way, way west to Uvs aimag on Thursday- consult your local atlas, almanac, or AA map to see where these spots are, but be assured they are more than a day’s ride. Full rendering of the west be provided in the fullness of time, but for the instant your Mongolian comestible du jour is a quick sketch of the capital’s transportation systems.

In addition to the buses which come in diesel or electric flavour (the latter apparently referred to at goat horn buses due to their poles, according to the good people at Lonely Planet) and microbuses (matatus by any other name), the great staple of the city is the taxi. This is largely due to the fact that it is really cheap- cost of living up in here isn’t much to shout at, but even allowing for yawning inequalities between local and expatty fundage, taxis still represent a pretty fair bargain. A kilometre is 250 tegregs (1 USD= 1190 T). Travel within the city centre which is less than a few kilometres is generally rounded up to 500T for the driver’s trouble, which is fair enough really. Otherwise, the meter ticks over and one pays accordingly. A pretty good system, if one accepts the prevalent standards of driving, which includes a casual attitude to which side of the car the wheel should be on (it’s an even split), open minded attitudes to vehicle maintenance and upkeep, and the seatbelts which show their user how much they love them by leaving a wide dark dusty band of nastiness across your chest and lap. Drivers have been known to bust out laughing when you put one on. There’s nothing so funny as seatbelts, viewers. A little comedy tip from the steppe for ya.

Anxious parents inclined toward strict upkeep of western safety standards for kiddie transport are encouraged to visit Mongolia with a good supply of soothing herbal remedies close to hand- or perhaps a blindfold. Kids are allowed to sit anywhere in the car, including the driver’s lap, where the view is best. One enterprising SUV parent has solved the problem of kiddie car boredom by allowing the kids to ride around standing up through the sunroof, surveying the scene like a tinpot despot. Why more parents haven’t applied this innovative idea must have something to do with the fact that most cars don’t have sunroofs.

Having said that taxis are a key slice of the transport pie, the cost of cars here is very low- once cars have put in a few years of service in Korea or China, they come up here to move through their autumn years in the congestion of Ulaanbaatar traffic. Four wheel drive cars can be found for as little as 4000 USD, and saloon cars with a variety of bogus and real identifying brands can be found for even less. It’s reasonable to assume that once a car is done with Mongolia, Mongolia is done with the car, and it’s off to the happy Hyundai grounds to sleep a dreamless auto sleep.

But the real blast on the horn of this citywide merry-go-round, the thing that makes it all so Ulaanbarilliant is this: to get a cab, you raise your hand/arm in the internationally recognized gesture for ‘I require conveyancing’. Faster than you can say ‘chop chop, for I am expected at the Proconsul’s residence’, cars will begin piling up on your sidewalk. Not only yellow taxi coloured cars, but all manner of cars, marked taxi or not. You see, in Ulaanbaatar everyone needs a few extra tegregs, and all cars are potentially taxis, so pretty much anyone stops. Although most of the available rides will be Hyundais in various states of excitement, occasionally other cars stop- on one occasion, one of the town’s Humvees rolled up and did a door to door. Anyway, so you get in whichever car stops, muddle your way through explaining where you want to go (it does help to know where that is, and the words for left, right and straight (zum, barum and chigiree, viewers)), and you are delivered thither as fast as its shattered shocks can carry you. Same payment scheme as with other taxis applies, with the odometer reading serving as taximeter. And you’re there.

The whole system seems to work relatively well, and there are remarkably few horror stories resulting from using either mode of taxi. Once you get over your firmly entrenched instruction not to get in the car with strangers (after all, what then is a taxi?), it’s a painless system to use.

And with that, we’re off to cruise around the city in a vehicle of our choosing. We hope you’ll keep in mind what’s funny about seatbelts, and remember to round up to the nearest hundred tegregs when exiting the vehicle.

Sain yaraad ireree, (go well and come back soon, viewers),

Jannie

Stop press: T-shirt update. It is not my intention to keep bringing this up, but if the torsos of the city continue to sport these items, then it is my duty to bring them to your attention. And so ladies and gents, I give you Godstupid superstar, spotted last Friday. Interpretations, theological, blasphemous and otherwise are welcome.

2005-07-15T13:15:00.000+09:00

Campfire at Mongol Els, three days ago.

What we're wearing

2005-07-15T13:11:00.000+09:00

Regular readers may remember all the way back to last week when this column highlighted a few of the more sophisticated t-shirt slogans spotted around town. Building on that, I am delighted to announce that this morning the estimable Amgalan of language lesson fame was sporting a red number with the following soliloquy stamped upon it, and lo there was much rejoicing up in here.

Leisure Vogue Tornado
Express Yourself Entirely
Please Entry
Procedure Trademark
Then Settling the Mind
On…………

Phew. It certainly puts Bent New Epochal Wonder which I saw on Wednesday in the shade. Interpretations, scholarly and otherwise, are welcome.

(Language x Lessons)2

2005-07-15T13:06:00.000+09:00

Just when it was looking like Mongolian was going to stop thrashing around in its cage like some kind of trapped marmot and simmer down and play nicely, it lashed out with another barbed lingual digit, ready to cause a nasty little cut which will no doubt get infected. The other day, as the lesson was winding up, while coming to grips with how to say ‘May I?’, Amagalan and I were discussing whether or not it was possible it was possible to cross Australia by camel- a ruminative cud chewer of a question, to be sure- when I noticed that ‘Australian’ in its Mongolian directive case form (ABCTPaCyrillcLBackwardsN Pyy) came with a small but unmistakable 2 in the top right corner. In effect, Australian was squared- it was to the power of 2. This Australian camel was twice itself. While this might make it doubly cabable in the continent crossing department, it was nonetheless a bit of a poser.

I pointed out this mini-integer to Amagalan, assuming it to be an error. Instead, I was informed that yep, some words in Mongolian can be upped to two[2]- and in some[3] cases even to four[4]. You see, vowels in Mongolian are either masculine or feminine, and depending on their gender they get either one or the other set of grammatical accoutrements- unless of course they are neutral, in which case they get the neutral set which go with anything, casual or evening wear. However, some words decanted from other languages needs must contain both manly and womanly vowelly virtues, leaving the suffix families with no clear idea where to put themselves. This gender confusion is resolved by the introduction of the Powers that Be, which indicate a word may indeed be one way, but it could also be the other. Lingusitic hermaphrodites. Now tell me, does your language do that? Does it come with inbuilt powerups? It does not. Mongolian is simply more fun that your boring old jibber jabber. Another reason why English is on the way out, kids. Get ahead of the Mongolian wave, for it’s acoming! Get with it, or get out of the way.

2005-07-15T13:04:00.000+09:00

Horsemen and boys review the day's racing at the Naadam festivites in Kharkhorin.

Sunlight, Steppes, and Sandflies

2005-07-15T12:58:00.000+09:00

So back we are from our five days in central Mongolia; tanner, wiser, with slightly more telescoped spines than we had before. A definitely worthy and interesting trip to go on- one which ultimately brought home one key fact: this place is huge. No two ways about it. It’s a big ‘un. You could put your keys down in Mongolia and not find them for like, weeks. That song about the bear went over the mountain was definitely composed with Mongolia in mind.

All other attributes of the country are in relation to this biggery. And lest we feel too much like we’re all intrepid and stuff, we covered but a slender morsel of the overall. Four to five hours driving in the country is considered, well, a mild Sunday afternoon’s mosey. And in between what there is to see, there’s more of that great wide open, so really there’s no option but to keep driving. But in the end, it is ultimately that scale which one is seeing. When one can see neither the end nor the sides of the ‘valley’ one is driving along the bottom of, it is easy to wonder about where you are and where you’re going. And to hope that the bloke behind the wheel has a better idea than you do.

Still, all that drive time gives you plenty of time to ruminate, to let the flotsam and jetsam of your mind float freely to the surface, where it bobs around refusing to leave. In my case, hour upon hour was spent with a continuous loop of Celine Dion and Toni Braxton songs in my head (no, I didn’t think so either, but evidently I do) as well as endless repetitions of that Stevie Wonder jazz chord joke (Marcel Grogan, you’re on my list). So time well spent then.

As only few (if any) of you know your Mongolian geography, I’ll keep the itinerary light and frothy, and recommend Tseren Tours for all your Mongolian travel needs. From Ulaanbaatar to Mongol Els, a series of sand dunes far from the Gobi. Then to Kharkhorin, ancient capital of the Mongol empire, and now a dusty little town with a splendid monastery complex. Then to the Orkhon river via Shankh monastery. And from there, back to the capital via the rock formations just east of Mongol Els. All in all, about 700k or so. Tell you what, go look at the pictures in the galleries then come back here.

The trip was punctuated by the requisite punctures, flat batteries, towings and related vehicular japery which come standard as part of any tour in this bit of the world. Having busted the second type and only spare (fun fact: assuming he knows what he’s doing, it takes a grown man 65 minutes to remove a tyre from the rim, reinstall a tube, revalve, and pump up one Mitsubishi Delica tyre, assuming the pump is a one handed Chinese bicycle pump), a runner was dispatched from the capital with a spare in hand, so as not to leave us stranded in Kharkhorin. The driver took off at midnight to meet him at the bus station, but was not back by 0830m the next morning, which led to much hearty speculating. Disappointingly, he did come back, leaving this story generally without incident. Even so- lots of driving is not as tedious as it might be, if only because the sun doesn’t go down until 1030 at night. So even if you arrive in the late afternoon, you’ve still got six hours of daylight to play in, plus it’s not so hot you can’t see straight. Some time thereafter, the sunsets begin- if you haven’t been to the galleries yet, go now.

Despite our desire to be far from the touristic hordes, we were inadvertently ambushed in Kharkhorin. Having secured said tyre, we were on our way out of town when the rumbling in the distance made it clear that Naadam was underway, and the horse were running- and so we visited the local celebrations, which centred on a men, women, boys and girls on horseback circling the ring, whilst within men in open chested singlets wrestled for the greater glory of Mongolia. Around the edge of this hot dusty spectacle, sat the touries, glistening with the healthy pink one sees in the poultry cabinet at the supermarket. Given that there were two more days of this to go and the sun beats down at 40 C plus, it really doesn’t bear imagining what shades of the rainbow were yet to manifest.

Back in the city, the demographic balance of the streets of Ulaan Baatar has, for the course of this two day week, readjusted to be about one foreigner:one local. This is the holiday weekend, so most Mongolians have headed out of the city, whereas most touries are descending. What’s one to do? Heed the call of the wild, and head back to the countryside of course!

And with the weekend beckoning like so many days off at the end of the week, we hope you’ll consider that life is a destination, not a journey, so hurry up and get there already.

Taivan bain (it is peaceful, viewers),

Jannie

Technical Notes: As much as is possible, this blog will not be about blogging, because what could be more boring? But this has come up a few times, so I’m putting it up here for all to know. You can post comments after any article by clicking on the pencil icon, or on the green text with the time signature which appears at the end of each post. You can also read any comments that anyone else has left, and add your two cents if you want to. If you are unable to post for any reason, let me know and I’ll commiserate before offering whatever suggestions I have. Please do feel free to add anything you wish!

2005-07-06T18:19:00.000+09:00

Flying a kite on the banks of the Tuul river this weekend. Happy Naadam, everyone!

Sporting, Slogans, and Summertime

2005-07-06T18:02:00.000+09:00

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

2005-06-29T14:14:00.000+09:00

This photo won a local competition in the Fauna category, beating off stiff competition from a lot of photos of horses. The model was not immediately available for comment, but is doubtless ecstatic at this news.

Swimming, Singing and Swabs

2005-06-29T13:55:00.000+09:00

Sain bainuu, one and all. Ulaan Baatar is basking in midsummer glow this week- bright sunshine, strong breezes, green trees, and lots of downy seed heads (like dandelions) migrating slowly through the air in great clouds. Grooooovy. Temperatures are well above 30C, and there’s not much in the way of cloud cover, so a thick layer of suncream has become part of the daily regimen. Despite the balminess, yesterday a hailstorm showed up out of nowhere, and turned United Nations Street into a river, so it’s still business as Mongolian usual.

One of our more sharp eyed correspondents who wondered about the heat asked if there are any swimming pools. Thanks for asking, Libby- here’s what’s going on under our bathing cap.

There are a few private pools attached to health clubs, but these are not available to the great unwashed, and inevitably the price of membership is far higher than one is prepared to pay. There is, however, one public pool which is open to all comers. In order to use the facility, one has to undergo a mandatory medical exam on each visit. This practice is not so uncommon, and is likely a holdover from the heady days of socialism- in Serbia, some spas and gyms had a similar practice, whereby a cursory examination (and resultant fee) were occasionally a prerequisite to taking the waters or using the medicine ball.

For the Ulaan Baatar public pool, the exam includes administering an anal swab, to ensure that swimmers are not bringing any worms into the communal pond. Fair enough- no one likes worms. This practice is in place Monday to Friday. Saturdays, however, are free swim, and no medical exam (or swab) is needed. Consequently, this is the busiest day of the swimming week. Mysteriously, despite a rigorous Mon-Fri swabbing schedule, people with clean swabs going in emerge from the water with worms onboard. The medical community is baffled. Can any public health types out there help unravel this wormy problem?

When not swimming in public pools, we’ve been attending concerts at the Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, a peach and white coloured building off Sukhbaatar square. The first ticket arrived in Sue’s inbox inviting Ms. S.Southern (and spouse) to an concert of “World Famous Melodies”, commemorating the 10th Anniversary of cooperation between the Government of Mongolia and the Hans Seidel Foundation. Righto. How SS(+s) got on the guest list is anyone’s guess. In fact, who or what the Hans Seidel Foundation is or does is a mystery, even after the concert. It would appear to be some sort of arts patronage body of some sort, but that’s besides the point. They hand out free concert tickets, so that’s what makes them okay in our book.

So up the curtain, and it turns out that the stage is occupied on one side by the theatre’s resident orchestra, and on the other side by the Morin Khuur Orchestra, a traditional Mongolian ensemble, playing horse’s head fiddles and cellos, the zither like things that are played with stick brushes, flutes and piccolos, and more besides which I couldn’t see. The western style orchestra is pretty much per usual, decked out in tuxedos and evening dress, forming a nice visual counterpoint to the white satin traditional Mongolian gowns sat opposite them onstage. The orchestra also had a dedicated triangle player- always a most underrated instrument, and surely the glue that holds the group together. Ding!

On we roll. The programme is an interspersed mix of western (mostly Austrian, which may be a clue as to Hans Seidel’s provenance) and Mongolian pieces. The western stuff is familiar enough that it’s not particularly worth mentioning; Strauss, Mozart, a smattering of Debussy and Saint Saens. The Mongolian pieces, by dint of their unfamiliarity, are perhaps more worthy of comment. The pieces are all titled “The Awakening Spring”, or the “The Quest for the 1000 Nights” and similar such sentiments. The music itself makes for good concert going, especially for the easily bored, largely because it does not use the small brush. More than one piece began with massed timpani, a mighty blast on the horns, all the violins sawing away like crazy, all getting louder and louder until the cymbals go BOOM! Then the real thundering starts. It’s all crescendo and climax, with none of the tinkly bits which lead one’s mind to drift. Spring is Awakening, so eyes up for the big noise. It sounds like one giant herd of horses galloping over the plains. Splendid stuff, all played too loud to allow for sneaky napping. If this sounds like your sort of thing, then check out the works of Natsagiin Jantsannorov, our conductor/composer for the evening, who was awarded the highest honour the state bestows on arty types in the course of the concert, and is now known as the People’s Artist.

Aside from the music and associated whatnot, the show was also noteworthy for being the first classical gig we’ve ever attended where drunk, excitable youth in the audience played a role. While stopping short of shouting “play Cum on Feel the Noize you bastards!”, they did arrive halfway through the show, hang over the dress circle while talking loudly into mobiles and to each other, applaud enthusiastically every possible chance, snuck down into the front row (trailing enough vodka vapour for rows A-F to order a round of mixers), and kicked off the standing ovation at the end of the night. All of which was surprisingly tolerable, because they were behaving like fans, rather than rowdies. A claque with ambition, perhaps. Who knows? Maybe people are just really, really serious about showing their gratitude to foreign arts foundations.

What’s more likely is that audience behaviour is just really, really undisciplined by western concert hall standards. This idea gained credence with the second show of the week, a performance by the world famous Urna at the same theatre a few nights later. Urna, despite being world famous, might not be famous in your world, so here’s a few pointers. Urga Chahar-Tugchi hails from Inner Mongolia, and is renowned as an a cappella singer of tremendous range, who takes traditional pieces of Mongolian music and puts them out into the world. She has a voice which goes all the way up and all the way down, from quiet to loud and back again. She is also something of a fixture on the world music scene, and often gigs with a sitar player and a tabla player. The UB Post (a newspaper which will feature more prominently in later articles) mentioned that she was at some point voted World Musician of the year by the people who vote on these things. So there you are.

Urna maintains a distinctly spiritual pose in her music, both in lyric and emotion- she is very much at one with many things; nature, love, family, peace, gentleness, and so on. If it’s a good thing, Urna’s with it. The following lines were printed on the back of the ticket: “Life. All creatures beautify the world. Touching each other, our hearts are warmed. A tiny candle; its light bright and far reaching enlightening the universe eternally.” What the ticket began, the show meant very much to continue.

This was her first performance to Mongolia, a country she considers “her brotherland” (UB Post), and this was the inaugural show of the Roaring Hooves festival, a two week extravaganza of music across the country. So all in all, a relatively big deal. We went along to hear her (no free tickets this time) along with many other expatties who read the paper and believe the hype. She was accompanied by Zoltan the Hungarian on the violin, who variously strummed, picked, bowed and thumped his violin as Urna sang. Her voice is really rather something to hear; however, her style of delivery is somewhat contingent on rapturous silence, so one can absorb the haunting vibes and delicateness of the voice work. Mongolian audiences do not do rapturous silences very well. Urna’s voice and Zoltan’s violin were beatboxed by various multiple mobile trills, lots of whispering, sweeties and crisps being given an airing, folks arriving late and leaving early, and many more besides. World famous Urna was a bit taken aback by the lack of reverence among her crowd, presumably because this was her first show in the brotherland. She kept appealing for quiet (Hand on chest, eyebrows raised, smiling in disbelief and index finger repeatedly making the shh! gesture), but those calls kept coming in, and more zesty snacks kept coming out of the hamper. To crown it all, the mikes kept feeding back so much that eventually the show had to have an unscheduled intermission for the one techhie to fiddle with wires to make the fuzz go away. All in all, it wasn’t Urna’s night. She’s probably best heard at an outdoor site, in the company of thousands of peaceable WOMAD types who are ready to feel along with Urna. But if you know of another quiet spot, do invite her round to hum a few chords.

And so we’ll leave it there for this time. We hope that you’ve reflected on the fact that whether swimming or listening to ethereal music, it’s always good to have a checkup.

Sain yavaarai (which means safe journey, viewers),

Jannie

2005-06-21T10:42:00.000+09:00

Natty J, one year old today, photographed with Naraa, the lady who looks after him during the day. Happy Birthday!

Celebrity, the CanCan and Chinese Subtitles

2005-06-21T10:31:00.000+09:00

If you’re like us, there’s one issue that causes you to wake up sweating in the night, wavy lines of stress emanating from your head like spidey sense. While the talking heads of the world prattle on, gross injustices are going ignored, and we have only ourselves to blame. One distant day in the future, when our children ask about it, will we know what to say?

That’s right friends, I am talking about celebrity image rights. So often those selfless heroes of stage, screen and wireless find their efforts to make the world a more aromatic and beautiful place rewarded with chicanery, disdain and outright piracy. I, for one, am appalled.

We in Ulaanbaatar are reassured that some of our key cultural figures are ahead of the curve, and have taken steps to protect their precious public profiles, even in such marginal markets as Mongolia. These forward thinking entertainers have moved aggressively to diversify their market share before the photoshoppers and silkscreeners get in there and render their visages as cheap as a bootleg copy of Revenge of the Sith at Happy Shop (2.5 USD apparently- not that we’d know). Enterprising sorts that they are, some have opened wholly legitimate enterprises in Ulaan Baatar which are authorized to bear their likeness. Listed below then, are a few of celebs spotted around Mongolia, and what they’re peddling:

- Britney Spears- Ms. Spears invites you to play pool at her basement saloon. Don’t be put off by the proximity to the bus stop or drunks in the stairway- it’s a classy establishment.

- Rowan Atkinson- Mr. Bean, Blackadder, and Johnny English. But to pedestrians in the shopping precincts, Rowan’s rubber face is synonymous with quality sports trophies. He encourages you to reward the champion on YOUR team today.

- Angelina Jolie- In addition to her many chores as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina has always felt strongly about poor quality photocopying. That’s why her face is plastered on street lights and hoardings all over town, testifying to the availability of quality copies at low low prices. Her sunny smile is free of streaks, paper jams or toner.

- Salma Hayek- Ms. Hayek knows that massage is no laughing matter, which is why she has endorsed the parlour near the carpark at Zanabazar. Her severe brow and humourless nudity do nothing to make one less tense- perhaps an inducement to go inside and get a massage? Only her marketing people know the whole strategy, but it is doubtless at work on many levels.

It is our hope that many others will join them in the weeks and months to come, and that soon the capital will have more selfless celebs supporting the efforts of local business.
Why not reward these capitalist pioneers for their generous efforts by consuming some of their latest product at recommended retail price?

And while we’re discussing issues of global cultural import (sic), let’s put to one side such twaddle as the thousands of years of tradition laid down by Chinggis Khan, the ancient art of embroidered Kazah wall hangings, the exquisite silks of the Mongolian del, or the saddlework on Mongolian ponies. Junk, the lot of it. Let’s talk about television. A wiser man than me once said “there’s something strange about watching tv in a different time zone.” Whoever than man was (I think it was Homer Simpson), and assuming I’m not inventing rubbish out of thin air, I’d like to shake his hand. Television, that great leveler-friend of the common man, comforter of the unemployed, the thing that does the thinking for you and tells you when to dance.

Hereabouts, in addition to Russian MTV, various incarnations of CCTV, Bollywood’s finest, and plenty of overdubbing of Hollywood product, tango fans will be glad to know that there is one Russian channel which shows a nonstop series of ballroom dancing competitions. Twenty four seven, seven days a week, they are shooting horses, aren’t they? Often these are under the guise of regional playoffs of one form or another. It is all packaged like a sporting event, with commentators clamped into huge headphones, league tables, and slow motion replays of especially choice manoeuvring. Perhaps most bafflingly, these events all seem to play to packed houses, waving national flags and chanting encouraging slogans. We have yet to develop a team allegiance, but you can be certain that we will. Even as we speak, somewhere in the world a couple are applying great putty knives full of makeup, donning spangles, and hitting the floor, with an eye on taking down those left footed losers from Estonia with a killer twirl in the quickstep. Come on Finland!

Now I can watch as much ballroom dancing as the next bloke, and I’m not saying that it’s not thrilling entertainment, but sometimes one wants something with slightly more in the way of plot. Step forward, Sansar Movies, the wonderfulest channel ever. Sansar Movies runs commercial free, has no evident editorial policy, no presenters, and no worries. Just movie after movie. Sansar’s playlist is made up of whatever happens to be on the market stalls of some of those more unscrupulous buccaneers of the digital age mentioned above, shot through with classics of the 80s, 90s and today like You’ve Got Mail.

This wide mouthed approach leads to some serendipitous programming, like a Blackhawk Down/Fog of War double feature. But most wonderful of all is the fact that Sansar either a) assumes its audience doesn’t speak anything except Mongolian, or b) really doesn’t care, because movies on Sansar are broadcast in a bewildering variety of languages, accompanied by subtitles in another language (which may or may not be from the same movie). This last element can really spice up run of the mill offerings- Snow Dogs (Cuba Gooding with a pack of dogs run in the snow together) was improved considerably by subtitles suggesting that all the cast has slept with each other at some point or another. Mush, you huskies.

It’s a good idea not to get too involved when viewing Sansar, as periodically the film will stop, the DVD menu will pop up, and an unseen hand will change the settings from English language with Russian subtitles to Chinese language and French subtitles. And on we’ll go. Sometimes it will change back, sometimes it’ll go round Asia, with characters and accents morphing from one scene to the next. Disney horsey movie Spirit of the Cimarron (?) was on the other night, and halfway through all the horses mysteriously learned to speak English. But they still all sang like Bryan Adams, which is still very unsettling.

And with the heartfelt notes of that troubadour ringing in our ears, we will close this entry. We hope you have learned a little bit more about life in other places, and might reflect that as much as we’re all different, we’re all the same on the inside.

Sain Amraaraa (which means have a nice rest, viewers),

Jannie

Postscript: regular viewers will be glad to learn that at this morning’s lesson, it was revealed that Mongolian contains two sets of names for days of the week- one numerically based (first day second day, etc), the other based on planets (davaa, myagmar, etc.). Both sets are used interchangeably. There is also apparently a third set, based on Sanskrit names of planets, but this one is less commonly used. So sain duru dich uduur, puroo garig, and barkhasbadi to you all. Just don’t ask which month we’re in…

2005-06-21T10:30:00.000+09:00

Ger Camp in Terelj, evening.

2005-06-14T17:58:00.000+09:00

Sain Bainuu, one and all. Welcome. We are glad to see you, and we trust your animals are fattening nicely.

Cold fronts, consonants and concrete

2005-06-14T17:48:00.000+09:00

So here goes. We thought we’d begin in the halls of residence. From here, we will move in no particular direction as points of interest catch our fancy.

We live the third (top) floor of one of the older buildings in the city, which in this case is the 1950s- standards of construction round here are slightly less competent that your average sand castle. It’s one of the standing factors of UlaanBataar- buildings less than three years old look decrepit, and buildings more than five years old fall down with some regularity. But as one long time resident told us, these folks have a civilization that’s been around since the Doomsday Book was a pamphlet, but they only started building permanently in the past few decades. Before that it was (and to a large extent still is) all felt ger tents. There’s not a lot of institutional memory when to comes to know how to building an even flight of stairs, or a door that stays on its hinges.

Despite this, there are buildings going up all over town- cranes and exposed re-bar are everywhere on the skyline. There is such demand for housing that some apartments increase in value by as much 40% within six months of purchase, especially if they can stay reasonably upright for that long. I walked by one construction site last week where a wooden covered walkway had been built to allow pedestrians to pass below. This was just was well, as four stories up a welder was busy melding metal to metal without any of those uptight ideas about protection getting between him and his acetelying that building into shape. Great cascades of molten sparks were tumbling down onto the street below. I saw one chunk of especially glowing aspect fly from his torch, drop two stories, hit a tarpaulin, burn through it and continue on down to bounce glowing yellow on the pavement. The passersby beneath were yelling at the guy to stop, but he was a pro, so he ignored them. There’s really no way round this bit of road without going a long way round, so at each end of the building site, groups of peds would huddle together, wait for a break in the spark shower, and run under the building site, hoping the guy wouldn’t reload his torch in the meantime. After a bit, my group made its dash, but had our timing totally wrong, and as we hit the halfway point yellow metal pieces began tinkling onto the wood above our heads. I took off my backpack and carried it over my head and ran between one salaryman type and two schoolgirls. We all emerged unscathed, at which point everyone just ambled off on their business without so much as a shaken fist directed at the guy in the sky. Just another day on the street.

As the weather has changed from the dust storms and cold temperatures that greeted us on out arrival, the city has gained in attributes of loveliness. The trees, all pollarded and beat up looking without foliage, all seeded, blossomed, and advanced to full midsummer splendor in one week. The other night we sat out on our balcony on a carpet digging the breeze until about midnight- it was so warm and filled with sounds it was like being at the coast- perfectly warm, and a reason to be all in itself. Then again, when it comes to weather, it is always going to be Mongolia. Last weekend when we went to look at the Gandan Khiid monastery it was bright sunshine all the way there and sleet and snow on the way back thirty minutes later.

Weather and housing- how fascinating this must be. It’s all part of my ongoing honing of my expat spouse pose. I go to playgroups, fret about the servants, go shopping and bi*ch about the price of wine and caviar, plan holidays, go to the gym and fantasize about my tennis coach. Or I would, if I had any interest in tennis. And I take lessons in Mongolian three times a week, administered by Amgalan of the Friends Language School. And thus the cliché is complete. This is turning out well longer than I had anticipated, and Amgalan is by this point doubtless en route, but I’ll keep plugging until it’s time to wind up- we’re in the midst of conjugating a list of 36 verbs. Frustratingly, my efforts to apply my lessons on the unsuspecting public have not met with the greatest success. Mostly I get confounded stares- perhaps it’s my Kikuyu accent. Who knows?

The lingua of the steppe is a particularly gristly mouthful of linguistic mutton for a number of reasons, most prominent of which is the fact that the written and spoken form are really only freshman year roommates; they get along fine, and have stuff in common, but long term, they’re never really going to hang out. The Mongolian attitude to consonants is an uninterested one- a b could be a v could be a g could be gh could be ghch could be whatever you want. In order to address this, the alphabet has 35 letters, including all of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, plus two which Russian couldn’t handle. Pronunciation of said characters may or may not be the same as Russian, so please keep your hands inside the moving Mongolian vehicle at all times. Grammar fans may also be pleased to learn that Mongolia has eight cases, including, as I ‘learned’ in class today, the ablative, locative, accusative, instrumental and directive. I imagine John Cleese dressed as Genghis Khan hovering over me saying “To go? But that’s motion TOWARDS, boy.”

Of all of this written language bunch, I think my favourite has to be: b. Lower case b. Not to be confused with lower case b with a bar at the top of the stem (that’s a b) or upper case B (which is V, as we all know), or bI (which my book says is actually y), or indeed b (looks like lower case but is upper case, and is in fact I, apparently). No, no, none of these are as good as lower case b. You see, lower case b is pronounced . That’s right, . Good, you’re getting it: . Only put less accent on the , and more on the . As you can see, little b has no pronunciation at all. It’s role is purely disciplinary. As noted above, consonants in Mongolian can be a pretty unruly bunch, prone to acting out and hassling the vowels as they go about their work. Some consonants are more belligerent than others, and sometimes a b is inserted twixt con and vow to avoid any unseemliness. When the language scholar trips across it in their forays to the Mongolian Cyrillic interior, it should be ignored. Hence, a world like MOPb, meaning horse, is pronounced ‘myrrh’. Clear? Good. Hand in your exercise books to the monitor and change into your games kit, it’s time for sumo.

Beyond the city, as one is told illimitable times, is where Mongolia truly begins. Regardless of the redundancy, it is very much the case. UlaanBataar sprawls in its own way, and is, as previously mentioned, not the handsomest of all world capitals, but it quickly gives way to the rolling steppe. Everything outside the city is generically referred to as the ‘countryside’- you don’t really specify where unless it’s of importance. This will quickly descend into vista-babble, but anyway- the most striking factor is simply the scale of things. You don’t really get this until you try to walk anywhere, and realize that the air is clear and the visibility is that of a falcon. Just walking up that valley can take the better part of a morning. Everything is simply vast. You lose some sense of this because the middle distance is, conventionally speaking, featureless- there is little in the way of trees or vegetation beyond grass in many areas, a tight stubble of grass which grows green thick and short. However, if one looks closer, the ground is teeming with tiny wildflowers, bugs, marmot holes, and raptors in the sky. The best visual approximation I can think of is of the panoramas of the prairies seen is old westerns- the presence of stern men on horses certainly helps, but its sheer sweep is what is most definitive. As one looks at it, it is as much what lies beyond that matters- it is like this all the way to Beijing, and all the way to some far off other point- Moscow perhaps? We haven’t been that far, two and a bit hours away at most, but you look at the map and realize that in Mongolian terms that’s roughly still greater UlaanBataar- a reasonable distance to walk to see a goat with a wonky tail for most steppe dwellers.

Watching Mongolians navigate this sprawl of nothingness is remarkable to behold- we got a bit muddled up on the way west Hustai (home of one of the few indigenous species of horse left on earth, apparently). We were about a hours drive past from the campsite and heading in the wrong direction. This is very easy to do, as there is nothing by way of landmark to reckon from. Zorig, our driver for the day, stopped the car and had a chat with an old, old man who happened to be on his way from somewhere out there to somewhere over here. They had a good think about things and scrabbled in the dust for a while, but in time this old chap had provided up to date instructions on the whereabouts of a place one can’t imagine he’s ever needed to go. But that’s par for the course. When learning the language, you are told to be specific with your mode of instruction- some teachers expect you to swallow 60 vocab words a day. Mongolians are masters of memorization, apparently simply imprinting whole physical or linguistic geographies on the insides of their skulls.

The landscape itself bears few hints as to how you’d work out where you are, if dropped from the proverbial spacecraft. Telephone poles take on a particular resonance, as they are sometimes the only point or line which is anything other than two dimensional. The poles themselves, fact fans, are mostly the same as those found elsewhere, except they ride a solid four feet about the ground. The poles themselves are attached with steel bands to concrete railway sleepers, which are stabbed vertically into the ground. No know knows why this is- some say they were born that way. But the poles themselves, you ask them, they don’t want to say…

Even money is that it’s something to do with how cold it becomes- presumably wood would split when living at -40 for four months of the year. Civil engineering types are encouraged to speculate on this point. Similarly, major trunk roads out of UlaanBataar are not tarmaced in one solid flow of stone, but are rather made up of giant paving stones, about four metres square, lain two abreast. Again, this is presumably to do with freezing temperatures. One is told with some pride that Mongolia is the most expensive place in the world to build roads. Well, I guess someone has to be.

Daraa Oldse (that means until next time, viewers),

Jannie

2005-06-06T22:40:00.000+09:00

2005-06-06T13:04:00.000+09:00

A ceremonial tsam mask, and our current web totem. Welcome to Missives from Mongolia.

2005-04-13T20:50:00.000+09:00

Of all the photos we have ever posted on the photo galleries, this one is the one that is far and away the fan favourite. It generated more email 'wows' than any other. We admit to being slightly baffled, but have posted it here for you to muse upon.