Short tale from the Soviet Union

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Zaisan

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

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