...yuu bna?

Mongolian Kazakhs in Kazakhstan

2008-11-03T19:01:00.002+01:00

thetys.caoss.org, a German-language blog dedicated to Central Asia, has a very interesting article by Henryk Alff on Kazakhs from Mongolia in Kazakhstan. The author has written his master thesis on just this topic, so about the only downside to the article seems to be his brevity. For anyone who does not read German, some key points are

Before the 1990s, Kazakhs in Mongolia were very much isolated from Kazakhstan
Between 1991 and 1993, about 40% of Mongolia's Kazakhs, or 60,000 people, moved to Kazakhstan. However, many of them returned to Mongolia later,
Significant problems were that Kazakhs from Mongolia were that they spoke no Russian, did not gain Kazakh citizenship (huh?), were looked down upon as lazy and uncultivated, were initially settled in the disintegrating agrarian enterprises from socialist times, and lacked access to the local social networks,
However, in the last years the number of immigrants has risen again. Kazakhs from Mongolia have found social niches, and a good share of new immigrants can rely on support from relatives who migrated to Kazakhstan earlier. Kazakhs from Mongolia today often live near or in the cities, working in trade, construction, or as craftspeople.

Hans-Peter Vietze

2008-10-22T17:23:00.004+02:00

According to www.mongolei.de, Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Vietze died on Oct. 9th. He is most well-known for his edition of "the" Mongol-German and German-Mongol dictionaries (notwithstanding the earlier work of Johannes Schubert). In recent years, he worked a lot as translator, on official occasions like state visits, or at the Berlinale. I, and probably most Mongolians in Germany, remember him best for working for the police at Berlin-Tegel airport.

Some people I know well used to call him, half-jokingly, a spy, because he had an eye for illegal immigrants, and always appeared as the friendly old man. He was part of the Tegel experience just like the chaos in front of the check-in counter, the stressed-out check-in clerks having a cigarette in some corner, and the joy of meeting someone arriving from Mongolia cf. the emotions when accompanying someone to the airport, or the stress of finding someone who would take some stuff to Ulaanbaatar. He did of course look elderly, but definitely in good health. Uudraa would sometimes make fun of his accent. Once or twice he even said Hello to Uudraa - maybe because she already looked familiar, or because he remembered her from the one time Uudraa had a problem with immigration, or from the time when she first entered Germany. At that time, he greeted all of the newly-arrived exchange students, and asked them to show their dictionary - part of his job at immigration, I suppose. Uudraa was the only one who produced a pirated copy. But Mr. Vietze just smiled.

The best reminder of Prof. Vietze is probably the success of his dictionaries. A revised edition of both the German-Mongol and the Mongol-German dictionaries was published early this year, and pirated copies of older editions are easily available in UB. When learning languages like English, French, or Chinese, the existence of good dictionaries is often taken for granted, but it is with the languages that only few dictionaries exist for that you realize how valuable they really are.

my take on the results of the election

2008-07-02T18:07:00.004+02:00

Note: This is not much more than a personal rant. For serious information, eyewitness accounts, etc. try here, here, here, here, or your favourite news site. For some additional pictures, try here or here.

When I went to work this morning, I met my neighbour in the lift. He immediatly asked what is up with Mongolia - he knows where Uudraa is from - and I, half jokingly, replied that one of the parties was set up because they lost the elections. At that point I did not yet know that people had been killed.

Let me first point out that I am extremely cynical towards the claims of the DP. They found out that they fared worse than expected, and began throwing around accusations. This is no unfamiliar pattern, the MPRP in 2004 did roughly the same. The night after the election the DP had still been confident that they might succeed even in places like Zavhan or Uvs. I still remember the post from the currently shutdown olloo.mn website, with the invitation to watch the Eurocup finals at the DP Headquarters. Just too bad they apparently did not realize how the German team did not accuse the Spaniards or the referee of cheating, and how the German fans did not start to riot.

Is this a conflict between communism and democracy, or corruption and transparency? Hardly. At best it is a fight between two groups of businessmen. At least this time Erel and Buyan won't have their seats in parliament. Golomt seems to have made it, though. Unfortunately, I have to agree with bilguun at asiangypsy that this turn of events is not entirely surprising. With parties that, even if hardly distinct, treat each other like the scum of the earth and are always happy to accuse each other of every possible kind of malice - at least so long as they do not form a coalition - it's no surprise that supporters get carried away at some point. Add a number of (probably) bored young men and alcohol, and political hooliganism seems not so much out-of-place.

As for the riots themselves, it seems as if this could all have been better contained by a police better trained and equipped for crowd control. It might also have helped if some of the "leaders" had gone out and tried to defuse the situation. I have seen this work in Germany, I don't think it would have made the situation worse in Mongolia. But maybe they were not sufficiently confident of their leadership qualities.*

What else can one say? I just hope people begin to realize that mudslinging and violence are no ways of conflict resolution in democratic society, and that the country one day gets honest and competent leaders.

For those who read German, someone has posted a much more enjoyable rant here.

*Update July 5th: In a letter previously posted on Thomas Terry's blog, Elbegdorj said that he actually spoke to protesters four times - but apparently to those on Sükhbaatar Square, not to those in front of the MPRP building.

Last sentence ("For those who read German ...") slightly rephrased for clarity.

Elections!

2008-06-12T13:32:00.006+02:00

Mongolia's next elections are scheduled for the 29th this month. Some serious and competent commentary can be found at Asiangypsy. The last parliamentary elections led to mutual accusations of fraud in some electorates, and the Democratc Party is already starting to voice some prophylactic objections. The General Election Comission, on the other hand, has now given the data of all potential voters to the parties, and also made each citizen's data available on its website: If you know your registration number (either from your birth certificate or from your I.D. card) and your name, you can find out where you are registered, what your birthday is etc. Of course with Mongolia's generally, let's say, pragmatic attitude towards paperwork, I won't rule out that there may be people with more than one registry number. On the other hand it seems hard to say how this would affect the outcome of the election. Btw. the GEC website also let's you 'vote' on proportional vs. majority voting system.

Uudraa lives abroad.

I personally find the election campaigns budgets of the candidates especially interesting. They were capped at several hundred million MNT (several hundred thousand USD) per electorate district earlier this year, which should break down to several USD (5$ ?) per voter. At my last-but-one district to Mongolia in late summer 2006, we witnessed some of the by-election campaign in electorate 46, western Hövsgöl. The incumbent MP of the region, from the DP, had died, and now the MPRP and, to a letter extent, the other parties poured in rather large amounts of capital in order to convince people to elect their candidate. Our visit at Uudraa's grandmother, whose summer encampment is roughly half-way between Bürentogtoh sum center and Sangiin Dalai nuur, was just in the days running up to the election. Several jeeps from the different parties would visit grandma-in-law, and most of them would leave some small present.

A DP campaign convoy. Uudraa's father did not want to come closer. He is a prominent MPRP member in the area and did not want them to see him in the company of some suspicious foreigner.

Gündalai's People's Party left a bowl with the face of Chinggis Khan, the Democratic Party left a big insulation can that features prominently on most of the pictures I made these days. The Irgenii Zorig Nam only reminded that she and Grandma were old acquaintances, appealed to female solidarity, and left a ticket for a disco in the sum center, but the MPRP would, on several occasions, hand out a total of 40.000 MNT, plus two glossy magazines, one for children and one for juveniles.

Let's fight honestly! (DP poster, Mörön)

On the morning of election day, Uudraa's grandmother was visited by three men on two bikes, to collect her vote. They and Grandma were joking around a bit, and - just for me, I guess - conducted the voting process in an especially correct manner, with Grandma making her cross behind the curtains of her bed. Of course they knew each other, and probably also knew at which party Grandma made her cross.

The MPRP candidate, Ö. Enhtuvshin, was the one who won this by-election. It would be easy to ascribe it all to the amount of presents given to the voters, but Enhtuvshin is also much more prominent within the MPRP than the DP candidate was within his party. He would be more likely be able to effect certain perks for his voters, like connection of the sum centers to electricity and cell phone networks. As far as I know, this connections to electricity and cell phone services are now largely completed, though I am not sure if this is really all due to Enhtuvshin.

Short tale from the Soviet Union

2008-03-28T14:57:00.003+01:00

Or, more precisely, about some visitors to the Soviet Union: It was in the 1980s when my grandmother and some coworkers from her LPG (East German agricultural cooperative, roughly equivalent to negdels in Mongolia or kolkhozes in the USSR) for made a touristic trip to Leningrad. I'm not sure about the background, it may have been some kind of award, or they just wanted to go there.

In any case, in these days foreign tourists in the Soviet Union, even from socialist brother countries, were usually kept under watch, only led around in groups, only allowed to see what they were supposed to see etc. My grandmother's group came from a Mecklenburgian village and for some rather natural reason also were interested to see what villages, or agricultural cooperatives, in Russia looked like. But when they asked their guide if this would be possible, she flatly rejected, and quite angrily.

The conclusion left was rather devastating - "they are so ashamed of their villages that they can not even show us one". East German villages were never particularly tidy, and some of the male members of the group might have seen Russian villages back in WWII, so the impression probably was all the worse. In any case, I am sure that what their relatives remember to this day are not the pictures brought home from the trip (nice or not, altered or not, wrongly labeled or not), but the information that the Russians were so embarassed by the state of their countryside that they did not dare to show it to East German visitors.

Tömörbulag

2008-03-12T16:59:00.007+01:00

I actually did not see much on last year's trip to Mongolia. Once in Mörön, I was rather lazy, tried to learn a bit for university, lent Uudraa and her parents a hand one or two times, or watched Sumo in the afternoon. One evening Uudraa and I would go to some free concert - the motto was "Our Future" - in Mörön's stadium, mainly because Mongolian schlager is always nice to listen too. But we got cold early and the music was not as groovy as we had hoped for, so we returned home and then only heard boos and whistles in the distance, from the apparently not-so-amused audience. Some days later we saw a recording of the show at a local TV channel, the problem obviously was that the organizers of the show insisted on interrupting the music shows with speeches by a rather zealous - Uudraa immediatly compared him with Kim Il Sung - Korean missionary. I guess that his words had to be translated into Mongolian did not help, as did saying that Mongolia was so poor because her citizens were no Christians.

Of course we would visit quite a number of Uudraa's relatives, and we also made two-three daytrips to the autumn encampment of Uudraa's grandmother. But there was almost no bigger excursion, as Uudraa did not have the time and I was reluctant to venture out without her.

On the one excursion we did make we were kind of freeloaders, the entourage of Uudraa's aunt. She is some darga (boss) in the aimag's women's association, and in this function she had been invited to join the celebration for the 70th anniversary of Tömörbulag's sum hospital. I think showing us around was actually the main reason for the aunt to go there. Tömörbulag is a sum about 75 km southeast of Mörön in the Bügsiin gol valley, or just across the Erchim nuruu ridge. The road across this ridge is not very difficult, but the last kilometers to the pass are quite steep, and we had had a small accident there three years ago (469 tipped over, no injuries). This time all went rather fine, and Uudraa circled the ovoo on the pass three times and offered some cookies just in case it might help some day.

some photogenic hills in the evening sun

The sum center itself was remarkably tidy. Tömörbulag's specialty is a certain sort of cashmere goats, and apparently this does pay off. The hospital was a two-storey building, with something like 20 rooms (very rough estimate). We were given a room at the end of the upper floor, complete with heaps of sweets and dairy products, a bucket of airag and a bowl of arkhi (the milk variant). The hospital had also ordered vodka bottles with a commemorative label, but I don't remember if we had any in our room at this time. I also don't really remember what we had for diner, probably Buuz, Bansh or Khushuur.

A programme had been organized for this anniversary, and after dinner we went to the local Ulaan Bulan (Mongolian equivalent to the Culture Houses in other formerly pro-Soviet countries). Uudraa's aunt took her place on the stage, together with other present officials and a lama. The place was really full, and we returned to our room in the hospital to get us some stools. The official programme began with a prayer of the lama - the sum mayor explained afterwards that since the celebration was related to health and well-being, they thought this was a good idea - and afterwards the hospital staff were honored, given awards and presents: rice cookers, DVD players and the like. Tömörbulag was not connected to Mongolia's power grid, but apparently the people hoped this would happen soon, or they had strong solar cells. I assume the former though, as the local MP is B. Erdenebat, back then the minister in charge of the power lines. Then, the officials handed out their presents, Uudraa's aunt had brought some decorative picture - just the same picture as the representative of the Democratic Party, whose turn fortunately was after Uudraa's aunt's. One of the hospital staff had apparently been gone over, as afterwards a man from the public took the microphone and complained that this doctor had always done a good job, and just because he is from Dornod is no excuse to ignore him. He got quite a deal of applause.

The cultural part of the programme was carried out by the hospital staff, pupils of the local school, and by a singer who had decided to start his tour across the sums of Hövsgöl just the following day and in Tömörbulag. Afterwards, there was supposed to be a disco, but Uudraa and I decided to first bring the stools back to the hospital - not that they had helped us much, anyway - and we never made it back to the Ulaan Bulan.

Back in our room, Uudraa's aunt had begun to chat and have a drink with some of our hosts - I think we may have brought one or two vodka bottles from Mörön, just in case - and we thought it would be a bit rude not to attend. Gradually, the room filled with ever more people, until there were about twenty-five, including the singer and the representative of the Democratic Party. Thus it was really out of the question to leave, and we just took part in the celebration and enjoyed ourselves as well as we could. From time to time I would go outside, under the excuse of taking a leak, but also to catch some cold fresh air and get my head a bit clearer. The corridor then always looked as if a search party was roaming around, with numbers of flashlights hushing through the darkness. The hospital had two electric circuits, one probably 220V, powered by a diesel (?) generator, and the other one probably 12 or 24V, powered by solar cells. But the diesel generator was now needed for the celebration at the Uulan Bulan, and the solar power stored in the batteries ran low rather fast. The lights would go off for five minutes, then work again for some time. But the intervalls during which they worked got ever shorter, and those during which they did not work ever longer, and in the end we lit candles.

At around three o'clock a.m. I decided to find some place to sleep. I left under the excuse that I would need to go outside once more, and then returned not to our room, but found an unlocked examination room and lay myself on the stretcher. The Democratic representative had actually indicated a desire to discuss some issues with me, but to this I could not pay attention now. I did not even pay attention when Uudraa, fearing I had been lost, started to look for me, and only when they started a systematic search of all rooms did they find me and place me in some other bed.

The next morning, we all had a slight hangover, although having not slept much was probably the bigger problem for Uudraa and me. Uudraa's aunt as honoured guest of course had it harder, but she coped remarkably well. The democrat had forgot his glasses in our room, and she could not hide some Schadenfreude (the paternal part of Uudraa's family is rather pro-MPRP). The celebrations had in fact only begun, there were horse races and a wrestling competition, and for lunch we went up into the mountains and had a picknick. We could have stayed for another night, watch the opening concert of the singer's Hövsgöl tour and maybe make some more acquaintances, but Uudraa's aunt preferred to return to Mörön, and so after we had filled the remaining airag into a canister, and after Uudraa's aunt had had a last row of drinks with the hospital's head nurse, we said goodbye to or hosts and drove back to Mörön.

The father of S. Bayar, the current Prime Minister of Mongolia, apparently hails from Tömörbulag. But back then, Bayar was, if anything, a man of the future, and the hospital's 469 was a present by Erdenebat, as could be read on the car's door.

From the bookshelf: P. Hulova, Kurzer Abriss meines Lebens in der mongolischen Steppe (A short story of my life in the Mongolian steppe), Munich 2007

2008-03-10T22:12:00.003+01:00

This book is actually not from my own bookshelf. I bought it as a desparate present for my mother when Christmas was approaching, and she had stated that she would like to go to Mongolia one day, too, so I thought giving a novel about Mongolian women was not the worst possible choice.

Petra Hůlová is a Czech author, just a few months older than me. She published the book in Czech in 2002, which happens to be the year in which I made my first trip to Mongolia - in fact, the first time I travelled abroad on my own. I know I was very young back then, but then I was always quite of nerdy and we all know that girls grew up quicker. The cover text points out that Mrs. Hulova studied Mongolian and spent several months in the country, but in this interview she implicitely states that she actually had Czech rather than Mongolian characters in mind when writing the book, and I think this does shine out a bit.

The novel tells the fates of five women from one family: three sisters, the mother, and the daughter of one of the sisters. They seem to be originally from Bayanhongor, but three of them spend most of the book in Ulaanbaatar. The story is set in a kind of time hole, a strange mixture of socialism and late 1990s, extended to a period of 40-50 years, during which the sisters grow up, have children themselves, and become old. This setting is of course a rather obvious detour from history, on the other hand it makes the story more focused on the characters of the protagonists instead on outside events, and to me this worked.

There are some other detours from reality that IMO did not work so well or were just unnecessary, like that in real life, naadam races are for distinguished by the age of the horses, not of the riders. And there were some inconsistencies - more inconsistent than the average first person narrator, anyway - but this may be due to the translation. For example it is almost impossible not to conclude that the Nadaam in which Magi competes is in Ulaanbaatar. Two specific points of critique are the translations of "Kulturní dům" (Uulan Bulan in Mongolian) to "Kulturzentrum" - the proper socialist term here is Kulturhaus - and of whatever "bowl" means in Czech to "Lavoir" - many German readers will probably interpret this as another Mongolian term, not as Austrian for an ordinary "Schüssel". I also was not entirely convinced of the use of untranslated Mongolian words. I of course know what hüühdiin tsetserleg, nohoi, manjin etc. mean, but I don't see what is gained from not just writing kindergarten, dog, and so on. And furgons are called furgon in Mongolian, not kibitka (or is kibitka an untranslated czech word here)?

To cut the bitching, I actually liked the book. The characters were interesting, the text read well, and the book is far from being completely off. It may not be the great novel about Mongolia in the 1990s, but it definitely is a nice change from Weeping Camels and Yellow Dogs. Not that there is anything wrong with these, and without this franchise we might not have seen a translation of this work into German. Last not least the outer cover is quite a beauty, both for the material used and for the picture.

I don't expect this book to help my mother understand Mongolia - or, only in the sense that Franz Kafka's Great Wall stories help developing a basic understanding of China.* But worth reading it is.

Price: 9 Euro (cheaper if "used")
Rating: 4/5

* I actually always felt that Kafka's works helped me a lot in understanding the most important things about China. Not necessarily the Great Wall stories, but The Verdict, maybe also the Metamorphosis and The Castle, and others. My brother is now in Slovakia and he sais that Kafka goes a long way towards understanding that country, too!

A furgon ride

2008-02-07T23:53:00.000+01:00

My 2007 visit to Mongolia was somewhat accidental: By early July, Uudraa decided that she would have to fly home at the end of the month in order to help with her family's business, and in mid-August - I had worked for two weeks at a construction site in Grafenwöhr, Bavaria - I decided that my funds were sufficient for following her. That is, I had enough money for a plane ticket to Beijing and back, plus the visas and the expenses for overland travelling between Beijing and Mörön. I was a bit lucky that plane tickets (with Emirates, after all) were still available at a very reasonable price. Everything worked extremely well, and four days after setting out from Berlin I reached UB at the very end of August.

Uudraa and I had taken the same route - sleeper bus to Ereen, UAZ 469 across the border, train to UB - on our two other visits to Mongolia, and the route taken on my first visit to Mongolia had also been quite similar, so the ease of getting to Ulaanbaatar was not really surprising. I was, however, somewhat surprised just how much I liked being back in Mongolia. What you hear about the country when you are in Germany usually centers around crashing helicopters and incompetent politicians, or family problems. But when you are there, you see that life goes on, that the centre of Ulaanbaatar is actually experiencing a construction boom, that the power and cell phone networks are being expanded in the countryside. Or maybe it was just the feeling that Mongolia is still Mongolia, that the sky is still blue. Or it was the sight of those admirable Mongolian women that made me so euphoric. In any case, the chaos at the Mongolian border checkpoint, the train journey to UB, even the guy with the golden tooth at UB station who tried to make one of the telephone ladies cheat on me (in Mongolian) and then asked me to take his taxi (in English), they all kind of warmed my heart. Also, it was cool to understand at least some of what was being said around me.

Ever since my first trip to Mongolia in 2002, I have been a big fan of riding the furgon. I think the moment that got me in was when the driver just left the paved road to Kharkhorin. He simply turned right and then followed a dirt track, but seemingly without lowering speed. I guess the fascination wears off quickly when you have to use one outside of your vacation, but so far this has not happened to me. I never could really sleep on that 16-20 hour, 685 km rides to Mörön, but I still love it.

The furgon I took this time had the usual 15-odd passengers on board, plus two drivers. I sat in the back, but I know from experience that sitting in the backward-looking row behind the driver is not much of a problem to me either. The passengers were mostly regular people, one drunk with a small daughter, one drunk without, a woman from Buryatia with an about 13-year old daughter. Before departure, some friends of the single drunk passed vodka around in the removed lens of the interior light (they put the lens back afterwards). On the way, the drunk with daughter kept on telling that the very small woman next to me was Öndör Gongor's daughter, that the Buryat woman was his Dondogdulam, that I was his friend etc. The other drunk was a bit of a troublemaker, but fortunately sat far enough from me to not cause me any problems. During the night, however, he did bother the Buryat woman a bit, and then got into a small quarrel with the other drunk. I couldn't help admiring the two girls, how the Buryat girl always cared for her mother, and the other girl kept her father from fighting with the other drunk. The Buryat girl was utterly excited when we drove through the Khanuin gol the next morning, some 150 km before Mörön.

In Rashaant, about 90 km from our destination, the driver would pick up two more passengers with very cute, roughly three-ear old, red-cheeked twin daughters, plus some more baggage. By now, Mörön was only two and a half hours or so away, and after we had crossed the Selenge river about an hour later, people began distributing sweets and samar. A last short stop was caused by one of the girls from Rashaant getting sick from the samar, and then we already crossed the last small pass before Mörön, shortly thereafter passed the marker for the sum border, a big plastic deer with an ovoo, and then rode into town. I was tired and shaken after the bumpy ride, but convinced once more that the furgon leg is the best part of travelling to Mörön on the cheap.

Love parade 2008 in Ulaanbaatar

2007-12-16T15:23:00.000+01:00

They are certainly working on it. If you wait to the end of the video, you even see crowds. The video does not really give a date (assuming the (c) 2004 is for the music), but judging from the lack of traffic, it might have been one of the car-free days this summer.

two articles

2007-05-04T17:50:00.000+02:00

There have lately been two better-than-usual articles on Mongolia from the German press. One is from the Berliner Zeitung and deals with artisan miners at the Altan Dornod Gold mine, the other one is about traders in Ereen. I really like the second one, even though I think it contains some small errors. Or maybe I'm just ignorant about Korean beer brands other than cass and Hite.

On the book front, I am currently reading Morris Rossabi's somewhat hyped work Modern Mongolia. Being about 60% through, I have to say that I am not terribly impressed so far. Maybe it is because I don't belong to the target audience, but so far, the book has added little to my understanding of Mongolia.

On the stylistic side, I found his account is remarkably dry and lifeless. Of course there is something to be said for favouring accuracy over style, but then I found Rossabis descriptions of the political processes rather unconvincing as well. Most of the first part of the book reads like "Ganbold, Elbegdorj and other proponents of free market economy, as well as the representatives of the world bank, wanted [insert policy here], hoping for increased economic output. The democratic reformers , like Hulan and Zorig, and the guy from Save the Children UK, opposed this move, fearing it would lead to higher poverty. Despite their objections, the Hural approved of [insert law here] on [insert date here]." There seem to be no personal attitudes, no dynamic political situation, no pressing issues of the day.

Regarding the content, Rossabi is highly critical of how foreign aid for Mongolia has been used in the past, and quite in favour of a stronger state sector and apparently higher taxes and tariffs. That foreign aid has been - and continues to be - less effective than it could have been is probably a given, even though IMO Rossabis comparision of nominal percentages of foreign transfers in Mongolia's GDP pre- and post- 1990s leaves something to be deserved: in the socialist era, highly-trained specialists earned a lot less money than they would earn today, and the terms of trade were probably also more favourable. Today, a lot of money seems to go to counselors and surveys. So, any good critique on the way money is spent should be welcome. Unfortunately, Rossabi comes across inconsistent at times, and some statements seem outright strange. He, rightly, says that people in the countryside lack market access, but warns against spending money on large infrastructure projects because they give more opportunity for graft. To demonstrate that privatization of herds has led to poverty, he gives livestock-per-family counts for 2002. Why not for 1998, when the total livestock count was 30% or so higher? Why doesn't he give a breakdown for different kinds of lifestock - probably a family owning 30 horses would be considered better off of than one owning 120 sheep? Why does he seem to think that the informal sector of the economy is useless just because it doesn't generate income for the state? And where did he get the idea that the madness that Ulaanbaatar's traffic has become is mainly because of those cars owned by foreigners and the newly rich?

I am also missing some deeper discussion of the role of extended families. From what I know, they are one institution that has played the greatest role in poverty alleviation since the fall of socialism. Rossabi discusses the need for programs, but apparently not the current status. Or maybe the role of extended families is just too self-evident for him, but then for a general audience used to the idea of a nuclear family such a discussion might have been informative. Other things that don't seem to be, but might have worth being, included in the book are the role of Mongolians working abroad and sending money home, and what countries like Japan, South Korea or Germany spent development aid on.

That said, I have never written a book, and even get a bad mood from reading my old blog entries. I have read some books, though. C.R. Bawden's Modern History, for example, makes a really good and informative read, even if it is 40 years old now and the 20th century stuff - inevitably, at the time of writing - contains a lot of speculation.

Tuya's Marriage / Hyazgar

2007-02-17T14:48:00.000+01:00

As mentioned, this year's Berlinale Film Festival had two films about Mongolia (in the wider sense) in the competition. I had so far seen both likable (Story of the Weeping Camel, Storm over Asia) movies set in Outer and not so likable (Mongolian Pingpong, Urga) movies set in Inner Mongolia, but these year's movies fit into neither category.

Tuya's Marriage is set either in Ningxia or in Alxa, and contains everything that makes the area fascinating - deserts, camels, and women with colorful headscarves against the dust. Tuya's husband is incapacitated since an accident someyears ago, and when she gets injured in another accident, both realize that the family needs another breadwinner. They decide to get divorced and find a new husband for Tuya (Yu Nan). What I found refreshing about the movie was that the director Wang Quan'an didn't content himself with showing some semi-idyllic pictures and really seemed to know his bit about Inner Mongolian culture. Or at least he didn't portray his characters as a bunch of retards that can't even identify a table tennis ball or set up a TV receiver. The style is typical Chinese 6th-generation, with problematic stories set in the not so well-off stratas of China's society and a general low budget look. I like this stuff, so I really enjoyed this movie.

What seemed a bit off was that the movie's language was Chinese, not Mongolian. Uudraa and I were at the premiere, and I asked the director why he had not filmed in Mongolian (unfortunately, I forgot to thank him for his great work). He said the reason was that the (non-professional) cast, albeit Mongols, spoke Chinese as their first language. He didn't really convince me, but then, there are plenty of examples were authentic languages didn't make the movie any better. Mongolian Pingpong and Apocalypto come to mind.

Hyazgar by South Korean (?) director Zhang Lu is another example. The movie is set either in Dornod or Dornogov' (judging from a DOD-6000 license plate number) and deals with a herder named Hungai (Bat-Ulzii) and a female North-Korean refugee with son (Seo Jung and Shin Dong-ho). Sounds good on paper, but unfortunately the movie is complety disconnected from reality. No need to discuss every little detail, but why does Hungai ride from DO to UB, and how can he leave his horse somewhere at Zaisan and later return to DO on the very same animal? And, maybe most importantly, why does the movie show Mongolian men only as a bunch of rapists? Now the film's English title is Desert Dream, and in a dream of course there is no need for consistence with real life - but then you have to ask what the point of the whole movie is. Another problem for me was that the movie is really ... really ... slow. I'm not against calm movies, and I have, in the past, enjoyed movies that almost made me fall asleep, but here it was really too much. There actually were one or two athmospheric takes, but at least for me they weren't atmospheric enough to sit through 120 minutes of boredom. And definitely not worth the € 5.50 admission. Had we not been able to spot J-Lo on her way to the premiere of her new movie, I would have felt badly cheated.

My advice: If you don't like the movie after 10 minutes, you won't like it after 100 minutes either.

Ratings:
Tuya: 8/10
Hyazgar: 3/10
Ping Guo (another movie in the competition): 8.5/10

Two movies about Mongolia on Berlin Film Festival

2007-01-26T17:38:00.000+01:00

The Berlin Film Festival, which starts next month, will feature two films set in Mongolia (in the wider sense). One is a Chinese film, set in Inner Mongolia and called "Tuya's marriage", the other is a Korean/French Coproduction called "Hyazgar" ([at the] border?), probably set in Mongol Uls. Both movies are in the competition, so I have hope they're alright. Or at least better than Mongolian Pingpong. And both even seem to have an actual plot!

UB-Murun

2007-01-26T17:14:00.002+01:00

We only spent one night in UB. On the afternoon we arrived, we met with Uudraa's youngest sister Jaagi and Odgoo, a cousin, and visited the new (to me, anyway) Buddha Park and Zaisan. In the next morning we visited Jaagi's family-in-law and saw her four-month old daughter for the first time.

UB: between past and further past

In the afternoon we arranged a furgon ride to Murun. Ever since my first trip in 2002 I have loved the furgon. I don't really know why, but my first ride left me completely euphoric. Maybe it's how it makes you experience the wideness and the character of the countryside. Or that you've always something to tell afterwards, even if only how, in the morning, you repeatedly fell asleep only to be quickly and brutally woken up by your head swinging against the window (sigh). I still know how I felt deep respect for the passengers on the backward-looking seats. When Uudraa and I went back from Murun to UB on our 2004 trip, I realized that looking backwards is less of a problem than sharing the bank with four other adults.

This time, we had the furgon almost for us alone, with only three other passengers altogether. The trip became exhausting for other reasons: Uudraa met B., a friend's brother on the market. He was living in the streets now, making money from selling stolen goods to earn his next bottle of booze. He asked Uudraa to give him some money to call his brother (Uudraa's friend) in Japan, and she went with him to try to contact the brother. They couldn't reach anybody, and in the end she decided to take B. back home to his mother. So far so good, unfortunately we let him go collect his belongings on his own. He returned only after the driver had looked for him, heavily drunk and with no further belongings except a comb. And then he of course got on our nerves for almost the complete trip, getting aggressive first, telling "Uudraa egch ee" all kind of nonsense for most of the night, finally getting weepy and sleeping not before six a.m. the next morning. I was really fed up most of the night, but when the morning came and he fell asleep it got better. Apart from this the ride went OK, and we were in Murun only 16 hours after leaving UB. I don't know what B. is doing now, but I hope he is alright.

Cable ferry between Rashaant and Tosontsengel, in Hövsgöl

Zamin Uud - UB

2007-01-26T16:57:00.000+01:00

Traders in Zamin Uud

Our train

Zamin Uud had not changed much over the last two years. The station was still new, and there were still some suspicious kids around. We didn't see any Chinese tour groups this time, however. What I had not expected was that being in Mongolia would really feel different than being in China. I guess it must have been the secure and self-contious look people had over here, or maybe all post-socialist countries somehow feel similar. Anyway, I felt a bit like at home. Uudraa bought tickets for the last coupe of the train's last wagon, and we slept very well.

Our train, again

Bayanhot - Höhhot - Ereen

2007-01-26T16:49:00.000+01:00

After four nights in Bayanhot, we went on towards UB. The shortest way would have lead through Ömnögov, but since we were unsure about both the status of the border crossing (seasonally closed? open for foreigners?) and about further transport, we decided to take the safe and well-tested track via Ereen/Zamin-Uud.

We left in the afternoon after a last big meal with our hosts. One of our friend's relatives had secured beds in the sleeper bus to Höhhot, and we left Alxa on yet another apparently new highway. At dinner in Wuhai, a coal town on the Yellow River, we chatted with some Inner Mongolian passengers, and early next morning we entered Höhhot.

As the bus to Ereen already left at 8 o'clock a.m., we didn't see anything of the city. The only significant thing for me was the bus station's toilet, which proved that chinese queuing habits and a lack of doors don't mix well.

The bus to Ereen was almost a wreck even by Chinese standards, and it took us about 7 hours to get to the border. After passing Shilinhot I got really depressive when I saw that where the way to Ereen had been an old one-and-half lane road only two years ago, the Chinese had now almost completed a 4-plus-parking-lane autobahn. The old road was still visible at some places and really loked incredibly narrow. To me it seemed as if Mongolian politicians can't even stop occupying themselves with projects like moving the capital, reducing the number of aimags to four, or renaming UB even when China's progress is showing right at Mongolia's doorsteps.

In Ereen, we left the bus right before the market,and quickly found a 469 to bring us across the border for 50 Yuan, plus fees. As usual, the driver waited until his vehicle was full, in this case with eight other passengers plus some luggage. More interesting to me was the fact that apparently most 469s in Ereen have now put the back seats to the very back, creating more space between front and back seats and therefore making it much much easier to load and unload luggage. Crossing the border went just like before, just that we now had to pay for the emigration AND for some additional fee, called something like "communal infrastructure fee" that the border police (!) give you a receipt for. When I first crossed this border with a German friend in 2002, before the current checkpoint had been built, the Mongolians just handed the banknotes over together with the passports, and we two pleaded ignorance and didn't pay anything. But now I followed the local way...

Thus we left China. I can say I really enjoyed the time in Inner Mongolia. We were treated like kings, saw a lot, and learned one thing or another. Five days is of course a very short time, and just like before, I wanted to see more. But now we finally were to enter Mongolia.

A Visit in Inner Mongolia - Hatan Gol

2007-01-15T20:22:00.000+01:00

... a.k.a. Yellow River. On our third day in Alxa, we once again made a detour to Ningxia and went to the Yellow River near Zhongwei. After approximately 2 hours on a new road through the desert, we arrived at a theme park built around a famous sand dune right on the banks of the river. 65 yuan admission per person wasn't really cheap, and all the fun (sand sleighs, one-man cable car, all kinds of sand mobiles) or phoney (cable car, camel caravan) stuff cost extra. Walking around in the sand was great, though. My tip: this part of Ningxia is full of sand dunes that you can have for free and on your own. Just make sure you don't get lost.

km 111

wildlife along the road

the yellow river, from the south

wildlife on the southern bank of the yellow river

sanddunes close to Tenger sum

A Visit in Inner Mongolia - Alxa Zuun Khiid

2007-01-15T19:48:00.001+01:00

Lower part of the monastery

On our first day in Alxa, we visited Alxa Zuun Khiid (eastern monastery). At least I think that was the name, with the Chinese name apparently being Guanzong temple. It is located 30-40km south-east of Bayanhot on the western slopes of the Alxa mountains. The monastery was founded in 1756 and houses remains of the 6th Dalai Lama. While the road to and the area around the main temples are impressive enough, further up in the mountains is another part of the monastery with a pagoda, a temple around a small cave and a lot of hadags (blue silk ribbons) in the rocks. The hadags are thrown up there by the monks, but how they remain there was a bit mysterious to me. Uudraa says they are prepared with dough or batter before being hurled. Most of the lamas were apparently Mongolians (not surprisingly), and they would ask Uudraa all kind of questions about the status of religion in Mongol Uls, if there were many temples there etc.

Lama throwing a hadag

The area is, however, also of natural, not only artistic, beauty. The mountains and canons are impressive and great for walking, and what is an arid and barren semi-desert below looks almost like the mountains around Dresden once you are above 2500m. There are tons of mushrooms in the woods, but the Chinese will probably find them all before you.

Being a tourist spot in Inner Mongolia, the area is of course not really that wild and unspoilt: The hiking paths are paved, there are picnic areas every 200 metres, and the upper parts of the area are closed around 15.30. But then, you can buy your bottled water up in the mountains for a reasonable price, and the outlook is probably still just as great. I say probably because we couldn't see any further than 500-1000 meters. Still, highly recommended and worth every fen of the Y35 admission.

A visit in Inner Mongolia - Bayanhot

2006-12-21T19:01:00.000+01:00

Bayanhot, the place our friend is from, is about four hours by bus from Yinchuan. Some maps mark it as Alxa Zuoqi because the town is the capital of the Alxa aimag's eastern hoshuu. If you take an older map (prbly post-GPCR-era), the whole aimag might be marked as part of Ningxia, but today it forms the western part of the IMAR again. The aimag is famous for camels, autumn colors, deserts and for being the home of China's space center. Our friend was sure the facility is not open for tourists "because China is a socialist country", but I don't really know whether this is true.

Western edge of Bayanhot's central square

Detail: pseudo-ger and occasional vertical inscriptions. Plus one of the more humble Chinese streetlights in the foreground.

Anyway, Bayanhot looks like your typical Chinese city, the only Mongolian elements being Mongolian inscriptions and decorations on some buildings. One hardly hears Mongolian spoken in the streets, and even our hosts generally found it more convenient to use Chinese when talking to strangers. But then, of Bayanhot's 120.000 inhabitants, most are probably Han. There are also some Hui muslims, and the town has a mosque - one that we did not visit, however. As we only spent one full day IN town, we actually didn't see much apart from the license-built MiG-19 (or -17) on the central square and the stadium, which is probably bigger than any stadium in Mongol Uls. What is nice is that on clear days, you can see the mountains.

License-built Chinese Mig-19 (or -17?). Decommissioned either in 1999 or 2001. What looks like an antenna is actually a disco flashlight tube for the dance group that meets on the square in the evening.

We did, however, see a lot of restaurants, as our host's family is rather big and apparently all the sisters and brothers wanted to invite us for a meal. The food was usually a good mixture of Chinese and Mongolian cuisine and accompanied by quite a lot of alcohol - standard requirement was at least one glass of Inner Mongolian liquor or beer with every person present. Anyone that you would want to honor, anyway. Of course, the good thing is that singing gets easier after some glasses.

The stadium

A Visit in Inner Mongolia - Yinchuan

2006-12-20T20:41:00.000+01:00

Since flying from Germany to Beijing and travelling to Ulaanbaatar overland is considerably cheaper then taking the direct MIAT flight from Berlin, Uudraa and I once again decided to start our vacation in the Middle Kingdom. The difference to former visists to China was that this time, we would actually spend more than 60 (2002) or 24 (2004) hours in the country before crossing into Mongolia. A good friend would visit her family in Alxa (the 'x' is a chinese one, i.e. reads similar to "sh" in english) about the same time as we would set out to see Uudraa's, and she had invited us to come over and see her. We arranged to meet in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia autonomous region, because it is the next big city. Our first day in China had been a bit exhausting, but when we woke up in a sleeper bus the next morning, rolling on a (new?) four-lane highway, past corn and sunflower fields and closing in on Yinchuan, we both felt great. Meeting our friend was remarkably easy - a taxi from some suburb to the central station, and a phone call - and we decided to see the mausoleums of the Xi (Western) Xia dynasty before leaving for Alxa.

Yinchuan's train station

Western Xia was a Buddhist dynasty founded by Tanguts in the 10th century and eradicated by the Mongols in 1227. They are famous for the introduction of very complicated chinese characters in order to spread the Buddhist doctrine, and for their mythical creatures. The mausoleums are situated west of the city, on the eastern slopes of the Helan Shan or Alxa Uul mountains. There are 13 mausoleum complexes in total, and the whole area seems to be thinly covered with ruins. One complex with a seven-storey high mausoleum is open for visitors, with the usual stuff you expect from a Chinese tourist site. The museum is alright, though.

This is what the mausoleums look like now. Behind the mountains begins Inner Mongolia.

And what they looked like before.

It's been a while...

2006-12-20T20:39:00.000+01:00

What did take so long? I think the first reason for the long break was my summer vacation. But also the idea that writing about Mongolia when you are neither in the country nor speak the language isn't really worth it got notably stronger. Third somehow Mongolian news seem to be all quite similar lately. Or I got used to it. Some minister making statements here, some new civil movement there, and I could have sworn the idea to give each MP 250 Mio Tugriks to spend on his own whim has been around before, too.

Anyway, I decided that, at least until I achieve newspaper-reading level profiency in Mongolian one day, I will concentrate on subjects that I am really competent in. The beginning will be this year's summer vacation.

problems with the 500.000 tugrik law

2006-07-28T13:44:00.000+02:00

Uudraa and I actually thought about getting some finacial support for our upcoming trip to Mongolia by registering a marriage there. Since the German embassy thankfully isn't too hasty about checking Uudraas documents that were sent to them in January, we thought we'd be in a good position to get those extra tugriks without anything like work involved. Unfortunately, it now seems that the terms on which we would be entitled for some government money are everything but clear and more or less subject to arbitrary interpretation by a former justice minister.

UBPost has the story, which still leaves me a bit confused. We do not have any children yet, but could there be a problem because I knew Uudraa before 2006? What if she got pregnant before our marriage? And, more generally, what about marriages where only one partner already has children, or about extramarital children born after January 1st, 2006? And what are these restrictions good for in a country where children born to unmarried parents are perfectly normal?

watching the fifa world cup in ub

2006-06-27T12:14:00.000+02:00

Germany is in the quarter finals, Holland is out, and Der Spiegel's homepage runs a story about football fans in UB, reporting, among other stuff, that Ulaanbaatar has more big screen showings than Dresden (Dresden: zero, UB: apparently more than one). Unfortunately, the article isn't available in English, so decide yourself if it's worth reading or if you just take a look at the pictures.

charles taylor flies to den haag

2006-06-20T16:51:00.000+02:00

...and this means Mongolian peacekeepers in Sierra Leone will have one prisoner less to guard. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is currently still uploading pictures, but this one is already my favourite.

man loses life in anti-mining protest

2006-06-16T15:03:00.000+02:00

A 64-year old member of Gundalai's People's Party lost his life on wednesday during a protest rally at the Boroo gold mine (approx. 130 km north of UB), apparently in a confrontation with security guards at the Boroo Gold mine. The protest was lead by Gundalai himself and apparently took place within the mining area. There is a short english-language article on montsame (you can use the generic password they provide).

This is yet another very tragic incident in a discussion that could, and should, take place in a much more rational manner. No matter what consequences are drawn from the events, nothing will bring that man back to life.

a monument for a.i.filatova

2006-06-13T15:44:00.000+02:00

mongolei.de reports that Mongolian Sumo hero Dagvadorj a.k.a. Asashoryu took the opportunity of Children's Day to inaugurate a monument dedicated to A.I. Filatova, "longtime head of the mongolian children's organisation" [transl. from mongolei.de] at the Nairamdal youth camp. Now Filatova was indeed something like the founder of said camp, however her primary occupation for many years was not that of the head of the Children's fund, but that of a first lady - she was Tsedenbals wife from 1947 on.

I knew Mongolians often have a different perspective on their socialist past and their socialist politicians than I am used to from Eastern Germany - where I am from, SED politicians are at best percieved as laughing stock - however I admit I was somewhat surprised to read about that monument.

For a more detailed view on A.I.Filatova, take a look at sergei radchenko's website [-> The avgay factor].