Tsagaan Sar

This blog is being posted for two, perhaps unequally important reasons:

1) For the general education of the American populous concerning a unique custom of the Mongolian people.

and

2) The repudiation of accusations that this blog is sometimes something less than informative.

Tsagaan Sar means, White Month. It is, in essence, the Mongolian New Year. Why is this month so very white? Because one must (insert a modal verb of your choice[?]) eat white food on this holiday. What is white food you ask? The answer is as obvious as you think it is. Yes, rice is white food. Buuz (see one of the previous blogs for the recipe) are also white (if you steam them long enough). And, forget thee not those white, sugar covered nuts which Tysen has only recently discovered. But let us not restrict ourselves only to food lest we leave out the white drinks: fermented mare's milk, milk tea, vodka (?), etc.

The celebration goes on for three days during which time people visit each other's homes. Upon entering a home the following procedure occurs without fail and always in this order:

1) Hold out a hadag (blue cloth) and say: "Amar baina uu?" or "Amar sain uu?" The person you are greeting may sniff your cheeks (like an Italian but no kissing).
2) Drink your milk tea. (Other drinks will be offered - take what you please but be warned that one shot is never enough, at least three if you start that monkey business...).
3) Have a snuff bottle handed to you. Be asked, "Are you newing well?" Say, "yes," and ask them the same when you hand back the bottle. You could take a bit and snort it if you want.
4) Eat buuz. Every time you want to be done eating your host will tell you to eat more buuz. "Id, id, id, id, id!" (Which sounds just like the command "eat" only with a "d" instead of a "t" at the end).
5) Have presents handed to you. If you are close to this person it may be something like a shirt and candy, if not...well, be happy with chocolate (I am currently the proud own of 6 choco pies).

Repeat this process as many times as you want/can. Do not let regurgitating buuz stop you. One volunteer ate 100 in a day. No lie. Check out the pictures.

"Against Happiness" (Book Review)

Against Happiness
In Praise of Melancholy
Eric G. Wilson

Americans have lost their appreciation of melancholy, argues Mr. Wilson in his somewhat poorly titled work (it is more in praise of melancholy than against happiness. Shock value, anyone?). Mr. Wilson believes that American culture is overly absorbed with being happy, and our forefathers better understood that life needs both happiness and melancholy to be truly meaningful. The author argues that one cannot help but be melancholy when one meditates on the human condition. The thrust of his argument is summarized well by the author's citation of Henri Frederic Amil:

"Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night envelopes the universe."

Understanding the temporal nature of, well, everything, leads the thinker from abstract, theoretical knowledge to personal experience. At this point Mr. Wilson brings in the big guns, quoting Blake: "To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is alone Distinction of Merit. General Knowledge [does not exist, while] Singular and Particular Detail is the Foundation of the Sublime."

Following Blake's cue, Mr. Wilson goes on to argue that this understanding doesn't end in a perpetual state of melancholy. Rather, this mindset frees the thinker from a trite existence and both allows us to enjoy the whole spectrum of emotions/states of being and forces humans into action (a rather blatant Camus rip-off).

His final message to his readers is one of encouragement: stand strong melancholy souls of America! "We want to be left alone so that we can brood for as long as we want. We want this because we feel most alive, most vital, when we suffer this confusion over the things of the universe."

By citing some of literature's most mentally disturbed character's Mr. Wilson's arguments unintentionally glorify artistic creativity over mental health, most readers will likely find this disturbing. Besides this, the author does little in the way of new argumentation. Rather he sums up modern thought concerning "meaningful" existence and throws in contemporary and personal examples to fill out these rather old ideas.

February Update

Oyuntugs and I are working with the other volunteers in the aimag to create an English language resource library here in Bayankhongor. Right now we are working on getting books, movies, music, and furniture for the room. The government has given us two rooms in the government center! We hope to set up our library during the summer and open this September.

Other news: Molon Khaan (my cat) almost died about 700 times last night. He ate one of my buuz so I put him outside. Our dog (Bombor) found him and chased him into the neighbor's hashaa. Molon waited on top of a shed and would not come down, even when I offered him a chunk of beef that I had just bought (it smells terrible in the meat "market" if you were wondering). This was the state of things at midnight. I gave up, tired from making about 150 buuz, and went to bed. At almost exactly 4 AM I woke up to the sounds of Molon and Bombor duking it out...on top of my ger. With my ceiling shaking and threatening to collapse, I went outside hoping to rescue Mr. Molon. By the time I got outside Molon had been chased back onto the neighbors shed. I grabbed my chair and broom and scooped him up, ran into my ger before Bombor could break in and gave Molon some well deserved fish. Realized at about 9:30 AM this morning that I failed to bring the rescue equipment (aka the chair) into the ger. Dogoo (an early riser) no doubt wonders what the hell I was doing outside with a chair last night.

The recipe for buuz for those of you who wish to celebrate Tsagaan Sar (see Nathan and Leslie's blog for real cultural information...).

First: Boil and mash whatever you want to put into the buuz: "real" buuz are meat (sheep or beef, though tempting do NOT use camel or horse meat, I am told that this is unseemly). I use vegetables. My Mexican buuz this morning consist of: peppers, garlic, onions, turnips, potatoes, carrots, and a TON of spices. After mashing it I put it outside to cool, tonight I will finish the process...

Second: make dough. Easy, friends, easy: flour, salt, and warm water. Shouldn't be super sticky. Roll it out and use a circle cookie cutter (whatever size you like) to cut...circles of dough...

Thirdly (hehe): put a dab of your (now cold) mash onto one of your circles of dough. Pinch the thing shut in any number of ways (experiment, it will be fun, or, more likely, frustrating...).

Number the fourth: Steam those little suckers for about 20 minutes and eat! If you have leftovers be sure NOT to re-warm them. Instead dip them in milk tea and pretend that they are tasty this way!

Enjoy!

Molon Khan.

Walking home from work Oyuntugs and I were talking about pets. Namely that Mongolians don't really have pets and Americans generally go gaga over them. Specifically I mentioned cats, as I noticed that no one here seems to like them. "It would be nice to have a pet," I mentioned.

A meowing noise was heard while I was tutoring the "ger English kids" (gEk?). Living in a ger, I assumed that whatever was making the noise had a 99% chance of actually being in my ger. We looked around: found nought. Mamu went outside to check the premises and came back in with a cat. The other two students were less than pleased about this (most Mongolians hate cats), so I told him to put it back outside.

Mr. cat decided that chilling out on top of my ger was the best of all possible worlds. When gEk left, the cat came in. "Oh, drat" said I, with all sincerity. The feeding of the cat was started immediately. My landlady came in and jumped approximately 3 feet when she saw the thing. Not terribly pleased. I asked in every way I know how (didn't take long) if it really was ok to keep it.

The naming process went as follows:
1) Mongolian name or other? Mongolian.
2) Normal Mongolian name or odd? Odd.
3) A Khan name (consult the calender with all the khans on it that Dogo lent to me).
4) The strangest names were written on pieces of paper by Mamu.
5) They were placed face down on the floor.
6) The cat was placed on the floor near the papers and we waited for him to step on one.
7) He chose: Molon Khan who ruled Mongolia from 1456-1462.

The next day saw Tysen buying meat in Mongolia for the first time. The cat was greatly pleased with his choice cut of beef. Milk was also purchased. A giant metal tumpin with sand serves as the bathroom and is cleaned daily I can assure you.

Pictures are forthcoming.

Small Talk

"We are at the Sky Theater," he said louder that the last three times, "We are going to the Big Department Store now."

Obviously they were confused, or we were confused-or, as is nearly always the case-we were both 50% confused.

"Where are they?" I asked

"At my hostel," he said obviously irritated that the problem proved what we both feared: our language ability was less than amazing.

"I told them that I have my stuff with me."

We crossed the street one lane at a time waiting for the land rovers, new compacts, and Russian jalopies to go by. The sounds of honking cars, though directed at us, was a pleasant change of pace after months of only animals noises (goats being my favorite).

"She's calling again," he said digging in his dirty green corduroy pocket for his Peace Corps issued Nokia.

The phone conversation was a repeat.

"No. No. We're coming to the Big Department Store," he said in Mongolian with unintentional measures of silence.

We kept walking. Now along a busy chilly street. Plenty of cars. No talking.

Maybe ten minutes later (at around six PM) we were reaching the Big Department Store. His phone was ringing again.

"Ok. Yes. Tree. Yes. I see."

"We will meet them by the tree."

"The tree" was an attempt (successful to be defined by the viewer) at a Christmas tree: a green cone with blue flashing lights (my interior decorator father's arch enemy). An overly-excited amount of tinsel.

"Is that them?" I asked, already certain it was.

He beat me to them. Necessary greetings were exchanged and we were finally on our way.

I thought we were. You would think that I would know better by now. We had planned to leave at two and it was already after six - of course we weren't going to leave now. Which only disappointed me slightly. I was done with this city: bought the food I can't buy elsewhere, saw the people I might not see again, and now wanted to get home (to one of them anyway). But I said only slightly. It is surprising how quickly a person can lose any sort of will when your situation seems out of your hands. Which happens quickly when you are not fluent in Mongolian.

We loaded our things into the van and discovered that other passengers were still shopping. We would wait for them of course. To a restaurant. Green tea put in front of us.

"No, no. We ate."

"Four beers."

"I don't drink."

"You should study how."

"I studied. Thank you."

"Three beers."

"This tea is good, huh?"

Attempts at chit chat. Lots of calls to his host mom's phone. Now one from the driver.

"Don't get it," his host dad said as they slammed the rest of their beers.

"Should we go?"

"Let's."

Ulaanbaatar...

...isn't as bad as I made it out to be when I first came here...Not that it's beautiful but it's manageable. The smog isn't as bad as I have been told and there isn't someone waiting to rob you around every corner.

Training went well: two days of useful information for English teachers and one day of quasi-silliness that is required to write a successful grant. Volunteers and their counterparts were isolated in a resort a little ways out of UB which greatly reduced my expected in-city time. During (I mean, after of course) one of these fascinating sessions Peder and I started a limerick write-off. He won by a landslide which caused me to flee to my area of hopeful victory: music. It turns out that Peder had never heard the limerick song. I figured out the chords and forced a volunteer who I know from Javkhlant sing the limericks at the talent competition: a huge success (1st place). I also managed to play a lean version of "Mad Rush" by Phillip Glass (which got me second place).

After coming into the city I thought that I would leave for Javkhlant on Sunday: no-go. The buses don't leave on Sundays. Then, Peder's Mongolian mom called to say that she will be coming into the city on today (Monday). This means: free, non-drunken, minimized awkwardness ride to Javkhland tomorrow!

Coming back on Saturday I expect, then do a little seminar for the college where my landlady's daughter works. Then I will pick up some goodies for my family in BK and head home on Monday the 29th.

Yes, the holidays...

I have previously mentioned my Christmas plans. New Years? Well, my school celebrated a bit early this year. Here is how the party went down (in fact, this is how every party at my school goes down...):

1) Start at least thirty minutes after the said starting time.
2) Have two MC's who speak in an exaggerated manner.
3) Sing songs: in groups, solo, duets (never are harmonies present...)
4) Watch dances (which are mysteriously the same ones you saw at the last party...)
5) Do "disco" which means any dance that isn't a waltz.
6) Have a director of a school speak.
7) Eat food (lots of meat, some oily carrots too if you are lucky).
8) After the students leave, sit around the table with the other teachers and drink all the alcohol in the building.
9) Ask for a ride home (it is cold and dark by now...).
10) The End

I get to do it again when I get back from UB.

Right! UB. I am leaving today and will be there for a week. The following week in Javkhlant with no communication.

My hashaa family taught me how to make "lazy buuz" last night and enquired about my hunting skills and marmot eating history. Ummm. In pleasant news I convinced them that they wanted to try putting some of my spices in the buuz meat: curry, cumin, chilli powder, etc., etc. Yeah!

Oh, I had an appointment to make snowpeople in the hashaa but our new snow (which is drop dead beautiful on the surrounding mountains) is too dry. The entertainment substitute: thai kick boxing until three in the morning. A limping Tysen was the result.

I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to tell upon arrival in Bayankhongor. Until then enjoy your holidays, stay warm, and drink lots of hot chocolate.