Happy Halloween!

In celebration, I will be streaming "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and indulging in several Reese's Peanut Butter Cups courtesy of my care package! Hint hint: the mail system works internationally :)

Thursday is usually either my free day or my SUIS day, but tomorrow will be neither! In the afternoon I'll be going with the Arts Education program coordinator Daria to check out the "Trash is not Trash" project. I'm, of course, writing an article for the Mongol Messenger English newspaper about it, but I'm excited to get to see a project in-process.

Friday then is my friend and Fulbrighter Hannah's show at the Red Ger Gallery. I've seen some pictures of her work already, but I'm looking forward to the full show experience.

Said goodbye to Alex last night...thus officially begins the exodus of the 2012 friends. Trying to look forward to the memories I can still make before people head off to their next adventure and to then look ahead to all the neat people that will arrive for 2013. Understandably, most people center their time in Mongolia around the summer. I'm unfortunately tightly constrained by the academic year if I want to get funding and health insurance for the next cycle, but I figure the winter will be quite the experience. And who knows, maybe I'll hole up and doing some creative writing yet :)

Hope wherever you are and whatever you do to celebrate Halloween that it's a blast!

Fragments from a Glorious Weekend

This evening I went to dinner with Tachibana and Undraa, a Japanese Mongolist here in UB for a conference and my Mongolian friend/big sister and former Fulbrighter to IU respectively. We ate at a bistro just outside a movie theatre on plush brown couches surrounded by glossy pictures of food, like you do in the crazy metropolis that is UB. I was sitting there munching through my meatballs and cheese, and I was suddenly struck by the realization that I could follow the entire thread of the Mongolian conversation. Here is the topic of the conference Tachibana is attending, a question about a prominent scholar, the expense of his hotel compared to another one that has an Indian restaurant on the second floor, a mutual friend has moved to New York state with his wife and small son, etc. Sure, there were words I was unfamiliar with and I didn't contribute much to the conversation, but I understood it.
There are many times here where living in a foreign country with a foreign language makes me feel small and incompetent. So it was wonderful to have this evening, an outing where no one was purposefully pandering to my skill level, to realize that I really have made progress in three years.



And now for something much more facetious, the Babushka nesting dolls being attacked by the dreaded Mongolian death worm.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_worm

And

It was, indeed, quite the weekend

In which I attend a modern dance performance

Tonight I went to "Duruu" or "Stirrup", a modern Mongolian ballet. The story goes that during the time of the Xiongnu (Hunnu), some Mongolian men were out hunting and trampled the eggs of the cranes. The cranes, lamenting the loss of their young, decide to curse the Mongolian warriors. After saying their goodbyes to their mothers and wives, they ride off to battle. But here the curse of the cranes is fulfilled: their iron stirrups break and they all fall to their deaths.
The moral is that when we fail to preserve and protect nature, in the end we all suffer. Or as the program puts it, "If nature sets revenge it returns bitterness"

I unfortunately got a bunch of blurry pictures, but believe me when I say the movements were fascinating and the costumes and music beautiful. Though a purely contemporary piece composed for this year's competition, it had a lot of elements calling to Mongolian traditional art performance. For example, the 'mother' dancer (who I later found out was also the choreographer) began her piece using traditional folk dance (or Bilgee) hand motions. The poor trampled crane eggs were represented by three extremely talented contortionists, another art form traditional to Mongolia.

It was fascinating to see cultural heritage become contemporary, both through modern dance movements and through the message about the dangers of environmental degradation (a growing problem in Mongolia due to desertification, global climate change, and mining). A great night!

The entry posters for Duruu

Inside the Opera and Ballet theatre

Lamenting the broken crane egg(s)

Cursing the stirrups

The warriors heading off on their journey, about to meet a tragic end

Assorted images

If a picture is worth a thousand words...pretend I've been updating more than I have been.

A gift from the latest Arts Council board meeting, this is a business card holder. Now I just need to print some business cards...

Most of my postcard stamps looked like this...really pretty, but I had to mutilate a lot of Mongolian empires to get the stamp free.

I went to UB mart's grocery this weekend and bought a few ridiculous things. Two of the best finds were a huge block of cheddar cheese (!!!) (there is also yak cheese made in the french tradition that I have plans for at some point) and these squirrel candies. I have no idea if they taste any good, but anything involving chocolate and squirrels is definitely worth $1.80

The head table at the wedding reception. You see the traditional tower topped with tsagaan idee (white foods= dairy products) and what I like to call the "fat back". Luckily that's not what we ate for dinner.

Bride with lots of relatives and friends

The receiving line. Changed into traditional garments, the bride and groom accept their gifts. Every person has a chance to share their good wishes with the group before kissing the new couple on both cheeks.

And finally, snow! Winter has arrived...though it's mostly melted two days later.

Short but sweet

Today I went to the black market for the first time in five years on the hunt for cheap but appropriately gaudy babushka wear. Flush with middling success, I have decided to host the Halloween party and am looking forward to filling my large, rather empty living room with new and old friends.

This evening I went to the wedding of a friend of a friend. There was food, singing, dancing, and several cute children.

Though UB can be big, dirty, smelly, scary, difficult to navigate, harsh, etc....
Today, I enjoyed the company of several wonderful people and met several more warm and welcoming people.

Random thoughts:

The mother of the bride would not be satisfied until I kissed the cheeks of a beautiful little girl not once, not twice, but three times. Later she pulled me firmly into a picture and said "Bayarlalaa" afterwards, pleased that I had made an effort to celebrate her daughter's special day and to learn her language.

I saw old men in deels and cowboy hats, old men in suits and ties and government medals, young men in suits and shades, and women in deels and dresses and scarfs and hats and beautifulness all get down on the dance floor courtesy of the DJ.

All the guests presented their gift(s) to the new bride and groom and gave a speech to the whole audience, giving their good wishes and words of wisdom to the community in honor of the special day.

Toasts were made in airag and vodka. I drank a lot of fruit juice.

During their first dance, the couple was serenaded by a friend who encouraged the audience to sing along and then other couples to join them.

There was a western style cake and a ceremonial cutting, without the face-smashing.

The bride entered in a tiara and white wedding dress, beautifully decorated, and the groom in a suit and tie. They changed in the middle of reception into traditional deels, and the bride wore a pearl-styled headdress and the groom a cowboy hat.

I took a few pictures, which I'll upload soon. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more, better ones from my friend Ariell, who was kind enough to ask if I could come and acted as the official photographer.

For now, I'm off to sleep...a scattered, unexpected, and special day.

Some days end with chocolate cake and beer

So heading into my second full week of working with the Arts Council and actively dissertating, every day is an adventure. I'm also on a quest this week to finally firmly establish terms with my university. I really like my Mongolian advisor and most of the people at SUIS, but I feel like the administration doesn't really understand what I'm doing and what a Fulbright scholar is. I've received enough moral and official support in the past few days to the point that I feel comfortable better establishing my boundaries. I will do a language hour a week at the SUIS building and some website editing and that is it!

In other shenanigan news, I went to a party across town this past Saturday that took two hours to get to due to traffic. I met a Mongolian woman who teaches at an American university who loves Maeve Binchy books, just like my mom. I wore jeans for the first time to the Arts Council on Monday because I was a bit cold, and then I found it that Monday was the board meeting. Besides the board meeting being interesting in and of itself, I walked away with a tuperware full of delicious food from the catered lunch leftovers, a fancy business card holder courtesy of Khan Bank (the location of the new Red Ger art gallery that the Arts Council runs), and the staff took home a whole chocolate cake that we ate after work with some lukewarm Tiger Beer (which I politely sipped). I am apparently going to go to Halloween party with friends as the middle Russian babushka doll, which should be ridiculous and fun and awesome.

And then today I spent entirely too much time geeking out over Surveygizmo and all the cool things I do with an online survey for my research questions. It makes me a bit sad I can't do it for both organizational survey types, since it seems to handle Cyrillic characters really well too. And it exports SPSS files....it's pretty great, and it's free since I'm a student.

The rest of the week is pretty busy, which is both good and bad. I probably won't be able to do anything not-research related until Saturday. A goal of mine is to buy postcards this weekend. So if you've bothered to read this much, please email or facebook message me your address! I have a few postcards promised already, so you might have to be quick to make it into the first batch. But no worries, I'll be here long enough to send plenty :)

And lo, a plan forms

My weekly schedule for the foreseeable future:
Monday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council, 4 pm staff meeting
Tuesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Wednesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Thursday: 3 to 4ish pm language hour at SUIS, meet/drop off documents for my Mongolian advisor Dolgorsuren to inspect
Friday: 2 to 3ish pm language hour at SUIS building 2 (school of civilizations), try not to freeze on the long walk there and back

Thursday/Friday mornings: read/translate things, do errands, etc.

I'm not super pleased to be going to SUIS and SUIS #2 every week, since it is a distance to walk and it's going to get coooooooold here. But it sounds like these will be opportunities to practice my Mongolian/bring thorny problems to a regular group as well as get to speak English without feeling too guilty. And who knows, I might break down and start taking taxis on Fridays.

My advisor also seems to understand that when February rolls around and I start doing interviews that I will scale back these language hours drastically so I have more time/flexibility to offer my dissertation research respondents. I'm hoping by that point too the administration at SUIS will feel that it was sufficiently worthwhile to 'sponsor' me.

In any case, the people I will be working with most closely for most of the time, Dolgorsuren and the ACM staff, are all excited that I'm here and working patiently with me to communicate. I have great hopes that this research will actually be collaborative and have a life here in Mongolia after I leave.

I'm currently still on track to get my survey mailed by December, which is the first big hurdle. I also have a feeling that I'll need to break my reading/translating/discourse analysis up into chunks of time as opposed to day-long sessions, but that's not the worst either. At the very least, the point is to get my hands on as much as possible, and if need be I'll work on translating and doing discourse analysis next year back at the U.S. And then whenever I am craving tacos or a teriyaki chicken sandwich....

Let me tell you this, if I do end up getting my research leave in January, you can bet I will have all my meals planned out well in advance. This is not to say that I haven't had tasty food in Mongolia or that the grocery hasn't provided, but there are some things you just can't get in Asia. And of course, there are then some things here in Asia you can't get in the U.S. I fully anticipate strong tsuivan cravings to haunt me for the rest of my life.

And on that note, I'm going to go make dinner :)

The Joys of Grocery Shopping

Spice packs written in Russian, German soups, and a whole jumble of other languages (Turkish? occasionally Italian. Korean. Some form of Arabic?) And just occasionally Mongolian. even rarer English.

You may have guessed that I went to the grocery this morning for a big food haul. More details on that later, but for right now I need to ask my German studies friend Sasha for help....

Behold, the most photographed (box) of soup ever!!

I get the general gist that I pour some water in a cup and let it sit, but I'm just curious if you know exactly what it says, Sash. If you are even more intrigued I can take a picture the back ingredients, which appear to be promising me natural flavoring, oh ho!


Also, you might find it amusing to know that applesauce is not shelved with fruits and jams in Mongolia, it is placed in the baby food section. Really, Mongolians, really?

Getting Acquainted at ACM

So, the dissertation begins! This was my first week with the Arts Council, and overall it went well and I may even know all 11 of the full-time staff.

I am failing a little bit on my side (non-research official) project to experience Mongolian cultural heritage through “participant observation” though. Due to weekend travel and working the first three days of the week, I missed the UB Art Fair in its five day run. This week also marks the 20th anniversary of the Morin Khuur (Horsehead Fiddle) State Ensemble, and my plan to go to the second (of three) concerts was foiled by the tickets being sold out/no longer being sold (the concert was starting only five hours after I tried to get a ticket). Or at least that's the general message I interpreted from the ticket seller. My transactional Mongolian continues to need people to be patient and speak slowly, which is understandably not the way transactions work.

In terms of the research collecting itself, right now I am overwhelmed by documents, some of which are bilingual but many of the most intriguing are titled in English and then written in Mongolian. I sense there will be much, much translating in my near future. But what better way to keep warm during the winter then snuggled up to the computer with a dictionary and mug of hot milk tea? I mean, there are more enjoyable plans to be sure, but I'm looking forward to growing my Mongolian vocabulary. I am also, however, not wanting to create extra work for myself. The shared server the Arts Council uses is a maze of file folders, occasionally organized by year, sometimes by project, and sometimes by expediency. I'm sure as I continue poking through past projects, building my funding database, and helping out on new projects that things will fall more into place.

In any case, I work at the Arts Council only three days a week, so tomorrow I head back to SUIS to meet with my advisor, hopefully get my passport back (complete with permit), and have my first English conversation hour. But that's all tomorrow afternoon, and in the morning for the first time in several days I can sleep as late as I want!
Simple joys are still worth counting :)

Steppe-riders Weekend

Steppe-riders really isn't located so far outside Ulaanbaatar, but even a hour and a half drive makes a world of difference. The rolling hills, nice (and sometimes chilly) breeze, and the stars at night...

The main reason we went though was for the horse-back riding. Despite a childhood fascination with horse books, I really have not ridden very many times. I think I've ridden a horse maybe five or six times before this weekend, so I'm not the world's most confident rider. Luckily Mongolian horses are fairly short, so if you were to get bounced out of the saddle the ground wouldn't be too far away.

We arrived at the ger camp and decided to postpone lunch until after our ride, which was probably a wise decision. I asked for a slow, nice-tempered horse and was given Donkey, so-named for his grey, donkey-like color. Of course, this caused me to try to remember all of Eddie Murphy's best speeches from Shrek. As we went up and down rolling and sometimes rocky hills, at times we were "a Donkey on the edge".

Me and Donkey, off in search of waffles.


To get Mongolian horses to go, you are encouraged to yell "Chu!" at them. This is rarely effective, and the slow horses especially tend to stick in packs and only move as fast as their friends. With enough encouragement from our guides/herders, however, there were prolonged periods of fast trotting. Fast trotting is incredibly hard to adapt to and makes you feel like any moment you may well bounce out of the saddle. Rarely, however, the horse will progress into a canter, which is faster but sooo much smoother. During the trotting, I tried my best to remember tips about how to post, with varied success. All in all though, it was a really fun experience and a beautiful day. Temperatures in the 60s, few clouds, a light breeze, and good company.


After our ride and a hearty lunch of tsuivan, we did a bit of hiking in the surrounding hills.

We stayed overnight in the ger camp, enjoying new and old friends and some chicken potato curry for dinner. After abstaining from the airag (fermented horse milk) and vodka drinking games, it took some finagling to get our wood stove in the ger burning. But once it was going, in my sleeping bag and two blankets on top I was quite comfortable throughout the night. In the early evening it was dark enough and pleasant enough for stargaze for ten or twenty minutes, which was incredibly beautiful. In the U.S. it is so hard to get far enough away from light pollution to really see stars, but in the Mongolian countryside you can see as many as you want for as long as you can stand the cold.


The next morning after a breakfast of fried bread with jam, a few of us headed out a short second ride. My horse this time around was a real sweetheart who loved to go fast, but a canter is really much more enjoyable than a fast trot. It was another beautiful day, and I'm glad we got to go a second time. After that we headed back to the city, bouncing around in our van, and then had a hearty lunch at Stupa Cafe. Now I'm off for a well-needed shower and to rest my bruised bones. Definitely worth it!

That Escalated Quickly?

I had my first meeting today with the Arts Council of Mongolia, a really awesome Mongolian NGO with an unfortunately hacked website I can't show you. They were originally going to be my visa sponsor for the Fulbright, until I discovered I needed to be affiliated with a university. The ACM is about to become my work home away from work home, or whatever less confusing term there is for: place where I have a personal desk, computer, and email account. I met today with the financial director to go over my expected research plans and the ACM's needs, and I'll start on Monday! They work Monday-Friday from 10 to 7 (Lunch break from 1 to 2), so I think starting out I'll try to work full-time three days a week. It's a great group of ladies (plus one male intern), and the organization is fully bilingual which is fantastic for me. I get to doublecheck/edited pretty much everything, which means I get to read/analyze pretty much everything and get to see how such topics are written about in Mongolian for different audiences. Plus, the ACM covers all the arts, so another opportunity to hear about shows/exhibits/films/concerts/etc.

The real meaning: my dissertation research officially starts collecting data as of Monday!

Talking with Dolgorsuren yesterday, I realized anew that this is an excellent time for my research topic (trying understand how Mongolians understand and manage cultural heritage and how that is impacted by international funding). Only a few months ago, all government activities/organizations/committees that dealt with "Culture" have been moved from the former Ministry of Science, Education, and Culture to the new Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism. We'll see if this indicates a growing shift in how Mongolia considers its cultural heritage and how it wants to preserve it for the future, but I'm excited to investigate.

Leaving aside the academic talk, since I know this blog has a variety of readers: Mongolian countryside time!

I've ridden a horse five times in my life, two of which have been in Mongolia. (I have also ridden a yak and a camel here). I am not, by any means, a great rider. I think horses are beautiful, but we don't seem to communicate well.

I have been camping (tent/ger) a decent number of times, including a few times this past spring. The last experience I had camping in ger was actually in Pittsburgh and about this same time of year...and I was the coldest I have ever been in my life. The weekend here in Ulaanbaatar is supposed to be 60s and sunny (probably the last hurrah of warm weather), but the evenings are going to be 30 degrees. I've been advised to bring a sleeping bag and warm clothes...no kidding. My sleeping bag is pretty decent gear: it packs really small and is certified to 0 degrees, I believe. Right now I'm feeling fairly confident and actually more worried about what to wear during the day while riding (helmet and half-chaps are apparently provided). I'm also debating about whether or not to bring my camera...pictures I get to upload myself when I want vs. the possibility of it getting broken/lost/other unfortunate incident.

I know the blog has gotten a bit text-heavy though, so I'll see what I can do next week.

I hope you all are enjoying the fall! Please, eat lots of pumpkin pie for me. Apple crisp is something I should be able to make here, so don't worry too much about me though. ;)
Enjoy your weekend, however you spend it!

Trying to Do Two Things in One Day...

When I last wrote, the specter of HIV and a shitty (literally) toilet loomed large. I am happy to report those demons are vanquished (knock on wood?). Wednesday I got all of the official paperwork I thought I needed, and when I dropped it off at my university the International Affairs worker didn't say anything about getting retested here in Mongolia. He instead informed me that he was taking all the international students to the Immigration Ministry Thursday at 10, so it would be good for me to show up. Oh advance notice and details...

Once I showed my landlady the problem, she got a plumber stat, went out and got the new hose from a store, got the plumber back, and then sat with me awkwardly as we tried to politely ignore the noises and smells of replacing a drainage hose. TMI? Believe me, there are some sights no one ever needs to see. I am proud to report that after some diligent cleaning by the plumber and then myself that the bathroom is in top condition, and it should ideally last well beyond the ten months I'm staying here. The plumber even fixed the slow draining sink while he was there, so fingers crossed that this is the only problem I'll have. My landlady is really nice, and if her English is about as good as my Mongolian when it comes to day to day necessities at least we are both trying and usually manage through a hodgepodge of Monglish to understand each other.

Today I had two goals, both involving SUIS: go with Guenbat to the Immigration Ministry to obtain my long-term residency permit and then meet with my Mongolian advisor, Dolgorsuren. I suppose when I saw just how many international students Guenbat was doing the paperwork for and knowing how far away the Immigration Ministry is that I should have expected it to take five hours. I killed some time by chatting with some of the Inner Mongolian exchange students, a few of whom fondly recall Atwood bagsh (the professor of Mongolian studies at Indiana University). There was, however, a lot of sitting and waiting and then quickly leaving/lining up/doing something. Note to self, always always carry a book/article. I started reading my Mongolian/English dictionary at one point.

Anyways, an hour later than I had originally planned, I finally met with Dolgorsuren. We went over my research questions and methods (which my Mongolian language teacher at IU helped translate for me one afternoon) and she gave me two books to read for background. We have some tentative research plans in place, and I'm hoping to nail done specific logistics with the Arts Council tomorrow. Overall, a very promising start.

I checked back in with Guenbat, since I hadn't gotten my passport back. According to him, my passport will be returned in exactly one week with an approved long-term residency permit....there should be no further paperwork necessary on my part. Fingers crossed that this is true and that my last bureaucracy hurdle is over.

In any case, I am looking forward to getting out of the city this weekend for a bit and just concentrating on enjoying being in Mongolia. There's also an art fair opening this weekend at the Zanabazar Art Museum, and a concert series next week of the Morin Khuur (horse-head fiddle) state ensemble. It's not exactly related to my research topic, but I'm hoping to partake of the UB arts and music scene, time, weather, and expense permitting :)

First Full Week in UB ambles along

This weekend I mostly nested in the apartment, unpacking and settling in. I did attend a dinner party Friday evening that introduced me to several Fulbrighters and other expats, and it is quickly being helpful this second week (story to follow).

Monday I went with the landlord's daughter to get what I thought was the proof of residency. That and a fixed, properly working toilet have yet to obtained, but cross your fingers that both will be resolved tomorrow. Monday evening I received a text message from my friend and SUIS intermediary that SUIS (my sponsor university) would require me to retake the HIV test here in Mongolia, presumably for some part of the long-term residency process. I have since gotten conflicting reports about whether or not this is really necessary/how Mongolian bureaucracy actually works. I am not particularly enamored of the idea of getting an unnecessary and possibly expensive test done, especially not when my HIV test in the U.S. should still be within the valid time frame. We shall see...

But most of today and the rest of this week involve nice, friendly folk. I was planning to meet my friend from this summer's SWSEEL class at 1 for tea, but I ran into my new Fulbright compatriot at the Stupa cafe while eating lunch (more tsuivan!). One week and I'm already running into familiar faces...in traditional expat hang-outs, but still. After a nice lunch, I met up with Ariell on time and we went to Nayra cafe and got some excellent coffee and delicious hot chocolate, respectively. We developed grandiose baking plans for my oven (cookies! pies! crisps!) and discussed UB's best Indian and Italian restaurants. Ariell leaves for a countryside research visit soon, but I'm excited for fun plans when she returns.

Lest you think that my time in Mongolia will be spent entirely in UB, however, I plan this weekend to join an excursion of Fulbrighters on a overnight horseback trek (called stepperiders, if you are inclined to google). I'm not a great horseback rider or the best camper, but I'm looking forward to seeing the countryside for the first time in too long and getting to know more people.

To cap off this afternoon, I had a meeting with the cultural affairs officer at the US embassy here in UB. Even though this is my third time in Mongolia, I had never been to the US embassy before. The security process was a little unnerving, but the guards were very friendly. As I was leaving, one of the guards asked how long I was staying and complimented my Mongolian pronunciation- praise indeed! The CAO was extremely friendly, and hopefully she and the other cultural assistant can give some advice on successfully navigating the long-term residency process and (possibly) some research leave...TBD.

Tomorrow I hope to conquer the khoroo office, the SUIS international relations worker's strange requests, and my toilet problems. Tonight, however, I am going to cap off a rather good, friend-filled day by opening my first Mongolian jar of nutella.

Hope you are well, dear reader, wherever you are and whatever you're doing today.