another stimulating week of lectures. Oyun, leader of the Civil Will Party, sister of Zorig the assassinated leader of the young democrats, and geologist rounded out the week along with one of the VPs of Ivanhoe Mines (who are trying to develop a site called Oyu Tolgoi, perhaps the largest gold/copper deposit in the world.) Oyun went on and on about it, which was great for me (she was even more enthusiastic than me, a suprise. She wanted to know my name and thought that I knew all of the current market prices for copper, gold and oil). I've read alot about her, but not about her mining views/history. Anyways, I could go on and on, and probably will later. It seems like no one on this program has done a project on (corporate) mining. (Someone made a film about the so-called "ninja" miners, who go solo and pay no taxes, pollute the hell out of everything, etc.) So, they both gave us materials, and I have somewhere to start my project from.
Other than that, Jargalsaikhan, another civic movement leader, the secretary of the People's Revolutionary Party (who are currently in power), and some others I'm forgetting or not sure I mentioned or not. Ganbaatar may have been mentioned last post, he's the head of National Soyombo, important civic movement, also good for discussing mining. And Undarya, an independent political consultant, who ended by quoting Frank Herbert. Made my day.
So, now we are off to Dadal tomorrow, generally agreed to be near the birthplace of Chingis Khan (at the junction of the Onon and Balj rivers). Good taimen fishing, I read. Maybe I'll get a chance. My family lives pretty close to Dadal, the "county" seat. A two, five, and fifteen year old, and a grandma. Baatar told me a little about them, mostly that they are good people, hard-working, but a little shy.
The ethnic group there is the Buryats, who also live on the Russian side of the border. The main ethnic group in Mongolia is the Khalkhs, according to them the B's are card-players, gamblers and drunks, but also leaders and very hard-working. They suffered the most under the 30s repressions, partly because of Stalin but also because there were many intelligentsia among them.
So, it'll be a two-day drive, over half unpaved. Wish me luck. I don't get carsick often, but it has happened... I know I won't be hung over at least, I've yet to find a decent vodka. Haven't tried Chingis himself yet though.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Everything went pretty smoothly until we got to China, where we found out after getting to the gate that they had rescheduled our flight because of "bad weather in Ulaanbaatar." We waited for awhile, Geoff showed up, after a bit there was another announcement in Chinese, and people started moving, but we really didn't notice. A Chinese guy came over and told us what was going on; they wanted to bus us to a hotel. So we went along after gathering everyone who was looking for food, and stood in line to go through an x-ray machine for some while. We got on the buses and drove in almost a circle, it was strange because there was a very heavy fog, and many buildings falling apart, and people riding bicycles, clear out there. I was near an American guy (there were several Americans and Canadians on the flight, actually), I think he might have been the first of the old hands to claim that China Air had just stolen our flight for another group; Lantern Festival is approaching, so many Chinese are going home. When we got to the hotel, some people were pretty excited... "Hot springs resort! I'm not going to Mongolia, just stay here!" It was pretty nice. Very new, large rooms, and we got free lunch as well from a large Chinese buffet. So we hung around for a few hours, I got in a few hours nap, and we were off again.
Things went smooth from there, we got through the security line pretty quick, then the plane. I sat next to a Mongolian girl, who spoke good Russian and English. She works for a Hural (Parliament) member, and was coming home from India. When we finally touched down, it was only a two or so hour long flight but felt like forever, there was a little snow on the ground, yellowy vegetation, quite like getting in at YIA. They just renamed the airport after Chinggis Khan, we noticed quickly. Our bags were there, Ulzii (our adminstrator) was there, we got on a bus and headed to a hotel, it was great. Ulzii greeted me with a "privet," and knew my name... Russian is coming in handy here and makes me cool.
The next morning we walked to our school, down a main avenue, and turned off into a side street, and then a typical-looking house. We have a ping-pong room, library, lecture room (with portraits of the khans), sitting room, and kitchen, and offices downstairs, storage below. Ulzii introduced me to Surmaa, who makes us lunch, because of my Russian. She made us some boiled beef and Olga-style borsht (no beets) for lunch, and they got us pizza. We went through some health stuff with a doctor, syllabi and schedules with Ulzii, and did language. It was good for me, I know my numbers solidly now, and feel more confident about my pronunciation.
-----
There's more to write about now; we had a good day of "touring" with the language teachers, Zaya, Tuya, and Baganaa, and yesterday visited the embassy (and met with the US ambassador, the political and economic advisor and the public affairs advisor), and had a lecture on history and civilization by a professor from the National University.
Our tour day consisted of first going up to the mountains to the south, the Bogd Khaan. They built a monument in the 70s there to Soviet/Mongol cooperation on the site of an old ovoo, or Buddhist rock cairn. The ovoo has returned, with prayer flags. There were several Mongolians there, it was a great view and a great monument, all around an awesome place. The monument has a lot of graffiti, except on the mosaic murals, which are pretty far above the ground, but not out of reach judging from some of the other graffiti. After that, we went on to the main square, Sukhbaatar Square. In the middle is the famous statue of Sukhbaatar, the main revolutionary hero. There is now a new front to Government House on the north side of the square, including a new statue of Chinggis Khaan, part of the 800 year celebrations of last year. We then stopped at a nice restaurant near the square, the Red Horse, and had some Mongolian fare, and continued on to the National History museum, which was impressive, reminiscent of the history museum in Moscow. They spent a good deal of time on pre-socialist Mongolia, of course. All of the signage was in Mongolian and English. the last activity was seeing a dance/song performance, of course of the "tourist" variety, but it was with real throat singing, musicians, even contortionists.
The embassy visit was pretty amazing. It's a little away from the center and of course took awhile for everyone to get through the metal detectors, etc. but the time we spent with the ambassador and advisors was pretty amazing. The new ambassador has only been on for five months or so, he met last semester's group at some function, then attended all of their final presentations and had them to his house for dinner. Ulzii said later that the previous ambassador was not really interested, the embassy attitude in general was "don't talk to us unless one of your students is dying." The embassy talk was given only by the public affairs advisor, the ambassador stopped in briefly to say hello then. Anyways, the current ambassador wanted to here all of our ideas for projects and told us several times how important he thought these kinds of programs are.
The impression I got from their presentation of policy was very good, things have changed since the early transition days, there was great emphasis on the especially unique situation of the Mongolians. They talked about Mongolia today as a "great success," which I can see, as they said there is no assasination or imprisonment of journalists and political opponents (I also discussed this with Zaya at the museum, she said the same), less corruption, and even the economic growth rate is growing. Anyway, the manner overall was also very genuine, relaxed, generally undiplomatic. The public affairs officer, Alexei, gave everyone a book about Danzan Rabjaa, an important monk of the 19th Century that he said some "itinerant Canadian Buddhist" had dropped off. We are going to his monastery, so now it's required reading.
After that we went back to school, and had a long discussion period with Ulzii. We talked about street children, the performance, Russian-Mongolian relations, Sino-Mongolian relations... It was really difficult for me to say anything, I feel very at home here, everything almost strikes me as similar to Moscow. I can even speak with many people using Russian, and my Mongolian is at a level where I can at least read most signs. But it was of course very stimulating to hear from everyone else. I'm very happy to find Geoff, who is very into cultural theory, and others who have great interest in linguistics, archeology, etc.
The lecture by the professor was very interesting, he touched on the "anthropology" of the Mongols; relating them to the Koreans, Japanese, and even a little to the Russians. He placed great emphasis on differentiating them from the Chinese. He also talked about China as a threat to the US. 40% Chinese investment in Canada... I had no idea. The Mongolians do still distrust the Chinese, but their attitude towards Russia is still more favorable then I had hoped (great, of course. I don't need to worry about speaking Russian at all). There is still even a sizable "Russian district."
Things went smooth from there, we got through the security line pretty quick, then the plane. I sat next to a Mongolian girl, who spoke good Russian and English. She works for a Hural (Parliament) member, and was coming home from India. When we finally touched down, it was only a two or so hour long flight but felt like forever, there was a little snow on the ground, yellowy vegetation, quite like getting in at YIA. They just renamed the airport after Chinggis Khan, we noticed quickly. Our bags were there, Ulzii (our adminstrator) was there, we got on a bus and headed to a hotel, it was great. Ulzii greeted me with a "privet," and knew my name... Russian is coming in handy here and makes me cool.
The next morning we walked to our school, down a main avenue, and turned off into a side street, and then a typical-looking house. We have a ping-pong room, library, lecture room (with portraits of the khans), sitting room, and kitchen, and offices downstairs, storage below. Ulzii introduced me to Surmaa, who makes us lunch, because of my Russian. She made us some boiled beef and Olga-style borsht (no beets) for lunch, and they got us pizza. We went through some health stuff with a doctor, syllabi and schedules with Ulzii, and did language. It was good for me, I know my numbers solidly now, and feel more confident about my pronunciation.
-----
There's more to write about now; we had a good day of "touring" with the language teachers, Zaya, Tuya, and Baganaa, and yesterday visited the embassy (and met with the US ambassador, the political and economic advisor and the public affairs advisor), and had a lecture on history and civilization by a professor from the National University.
Our tour day consisted of first going up to the mountains to the south, the Bogd Khaan. They built a monument in the 70s there to Soviet/Mongol cooperation on the site of an old ovoo, or Buddhist rock cairn. The ovoo has returned, with prayer flags. There were several Mongolians there, it was a great view and a great monument, all around an awesome place. The monument has a lot of graffiti, except on the mosaic murals, which are pretty far above the ground, but not out of reach judging from some of the other graffiti. After that, we went on to the main square, Sukhbaatar Square. In the middle is the famous statue of Sukhbaatar, the main revolutionary hero. There is now a new front to Government House on the north side of the square, including a new statue of Chinggis Khaan, part of the 800 year celebrations of last year. We then stopped at a nice restaurant near the square, the Red Horse, and had some Mongolian fare, and continued on to the National History museum, which was impressive, reminiscent of the history museum in Moscow. They spent a good deal of time on pre-socialist Mongolia, of course. All of the signage was in Mongolian and English. the last activity was seeing a dance/song performance, of course of the "tourist" variety, but it was with real throat singing, musicians, even contortionists.
The embassy visit was pretty amazing. It's a little away from the center and of course took awhile for everyone to get through the metal detectors, etc. but the time we spent with the ambassador and advisors was pretty amazing. The new ambassador has only been on for five months or so, he met last semester's group at some function, then attended all of their final presentations and had them to his house for dinner. Ulzii said later that the previous ambassador was not really interested, the embassy attitude in general was "don't talk to us unless one of your students is dying." The embassy talk was given only by the public affairs advisor, the ambassador stopped in briefly to say hello then. Anyways, the current ambassador wanted to here all of our ideas for projects and told us several times how important he thought these kinds of programs are.
The impression I got from their presentation of policy was very good, things have changed since the early transition days, there was great emphasis on the especially unique situation of the Mongolians. They talked about Mongolia today as a "great success," which I can see, as they said there is no assasination or imprisonment of journalists and political opponents (I also discussed this with Zaya at the museum, she said the same), less corruption, and even the economic growth rate is growing. Anyway, the manner overall was also very genuine, relaxed, generally undiplomatic. The public affairs officer, Alexei, gave everyone a book about Danzan Rabjaa, an important monk of the 19th Century that he said some "itinerant Canadian Buddhist" had dropped off. We are going to his monastery, so now it's required reading.
After that we went back to school, and had a long discussion period with Ulzii. We talked about street children, the performance, Russian-Mongolian relations, Sino-Mongolian relations... It was really difficult for me to say anything, I feel very at home here, everything almost strikes me as similar to Moscow. I can even speak with many people using Russian, and my Mongolian is at a level where I can at least read most signs. But it was of course very stimulating to hear from everyone else. I'm very happy to find Geoff, who is very into cultural theory, and others who have great interest in linguistics, archeology, etc.
The lecture by the professor was very interesting, he touched on the "anthropology" of the Mongols; relating them to the Koreans, Japanese, and even a little to the Russians. He placed great emphasis on differentiating them from the Chinese. He also talked about China as a threat to the US. 40% Chinese investment in Canada... I had no idea. The Mongolians do still distrust the Chinese, but their attitude towards Russia is still more favorable then I had hoped (great, of course. I don't need to worry about speaking Russian at all). There is still even a sizable "Russian district."
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