Of Mongolians, Russians, and the Chinese...

NOTE: I get lonesome sometimes. Bonus points to anyone who posts a comment.

Maybe because it's so friggin' cold all the time - or maybe just because they're not Russian - Mongolians seem to be a really friendly people. You can't afford to be an asshole in such an unforgiving environment, I think. Another consequence of the cold (according to my new friend Rob, one of the Peace Corps kids and future anthropologist) is that Mongolians don't really open their mouths when they speak, producing this beautiful guttural language. Unfortunately, the Russians burned most of the books over the 75 years of their de facto control over the country, so the language is rather limited. (Mongolian hip-hop thus sounds kinda like M.O.P. with less-hardcore instrumentals).

I can't really do justice to how cold Ulan-Bator is this time of year (fun fact: it's the coldest capital in the world). One night I went out to get Indian food with some Peace Corps kids -who spend most of their time in one-person gurts 500km-700km outside the capital where it really gets cold - and one of them had the fantastic idea of walking back to the guesthouse. Now I can die knowing how miserable it feels to walk over a mile in -29 degree C. Then again (moment of sheepish/awkward self-awareness), that's probably the only reason one goes to Mongolia in February.

Lonely Planet describes Ulan-Bator as "a place that by no stretch of the imagination could be called beautiful," and despite the massive coal power plants billowing yellow-brown smoke on the edge of town, I found it really grew on me. Western business attire and cell phones are common now, but there are also plenty of folks walking around in fantastically colorful about-to-sack-a-Chinese-wall robes and pointy boots. Downtown features an even number of Soviet-design concrete apartments and traditional yurts. And the cars are all British-style, yet people inexplicably drive on the right. A palimpsest, if you will. It's all very confusing, in a charming sort of way.

Despite the book burning and wholesale annihilation of 1/3 the male population (including tens of thousands of Buddhist monks) Mongolians still love the Russians for one simple reason: they hate the Chinese even more. (Apologies, incidentally, for the totalizing and monolithic generalizations about races/nation-states in this blog... it comes with tourism). The Chinese and Mongolians have been going at it for, literally, a couple thousand years, most recently coming under Chinese domination during the Qing Dynasty in 1691. The tumult around the collapse of the Qings in 1911 and the October Revolution in Russia produced a period of instability in Mongolia, but by 1924 an independent (from China, anyway) Mongolian People's Republic was declared. The Mongolians are still so psyched about that that one of the top pop songs recently was an ode to Russian-Mongolian relations, and overlooking Ulan-Bator (which means"Red Hero") is a fantastic Russian mosaic paying tribute to the Unknown Mongolian Proletarian Hero. When the Soviet Union fell, the Mongolians followed right behind in transitioning to multi-party democracy and neoliberal capitalism in 1990 (though, interestingly, 99% of the country's land is still publicly owned, which probably makes sense if you're a nomad). And they put mutton, or mutton fat, or some other mutton byproduct in absolutely everything they cook, vegetarianism being, you know, a Chinese thing.

I didn't get a real good sense of the nightlife, on account of 14 Mongolians having died on New Year's after it turned out the vodka they were drinking was actually METHANOL. (This is why vodka costs 1/3 the price of an orange, apparently, and it made me glad I'm more of a plastic-bottle beer guy than a methanol-vodka drinker). Since the vodka producer put methanol not only in his company's bottles, but lots of other companies' bottles, as well, the government put a month-long prohibition on all booze for the month, on the bar scene was thus a little subdued. Just as well, more time in the unbelievably gorgeous countryside. On a side note, the Mongolian authorities quickly tied to the tainted vodka to the Chinese.