Heritage as a social process

On Saturday I did something rather different from my usual weekend plans- I took a bus out to the northeast of the city, to the edge of the ger district, and visited a Buddhist monastery built in the late 1700s. A friend/colleague of mine has been tasked by the Minister of Culture, Sport, and Tourism to develop a proposal for the restoration of the monastery and to start women's crafting collectives that can sell their work to tourists, and she had asked me for advice. As part of the process, Zula, my friend Kip, and I headed out to see the site and to do some photodocumentation.



After asking directions from a guy at the corner gas station, we twisted our way to the door and just walked through- no visiting fee, no guard, nothing. It was a big disconcerting after months of experiencing monasteries as museums, but Danbadarjialin is very much a community heritage site.



Artists, schoolchildren, and old men enjoying their alcohol (and leaving broken glass everywhere) all use the monastery grounds as public space. But it is also a practicing monastery and has been active since the transition in 1990. There are maybe ten-fifteen practicing lamas there now, compared to the 100 that lived there before it was closed in 1937 by the Communist government. They only use the main temple in the summer because there is no heating system, the rest of the year they use a specially made ger.



Temple ger with the ger district in the background


We were able to meet with an administrator of the monastery and discuss the proposal process, so it will be interesting to see how the next steps proceed. Since I am leaving in a few months, I of course will not able to help with any implementation if any grant is successful, but I'm pleased to be part of the process and found Saturday's visit fascinating, as I saw several more types of structures at the monastery than I've seen before.









It was a sunny, hot day and a long trip back home again, but it was a great experience.