Kitchen Decorations

Merry Christmas all!

I’m traveling around right now—Danielle and I thought it would be nice to visit some of our friends for Christmas—and as I’ve been in other people’s homes I’ve been reminded of one of the great things about Mongolia: the kitchen posters. They often contain odd combinations of food, most of which cannot be purchased in Mongolia, flowers, which also can’t be purchased in most of Mongolia, alcohol of some sort, and brightly colored backgrounds. Food ranging from fried chicken legs to breakfast burritos has shown up on kitchen walls throughout Mongolia. Here is just one sample from the multitude of choices.



I used to find these oversized posters hideous but now rather enjoy them. I’m thinking about starting a collection and papering our kitchen in a montage of these colorful pictures. I’ve also considered starting an export business. Oh the possibilities with these things!

The moment you've all been waiting for...

Although there were some excellent guesses, no one really got the right meaning of "Winter's person's one eye is blind." I guess the most similar idiom we have in English is "to turn a blind eye." I actually encountered this saying twice in one day and both people explained it to me in the context of clothing or footwear. As a general rule, Mongolians are more fashion conscious than your average American (I can't speak for the rest of the world), but, as I was talking to one friend about how dirty and scratched my lined winter boots are, she responded with this phrase and told me that it meant it was okay to wear stuff that wasn't as fashionable but was warm or more functional in winter because people don't notice, or they turn a blind eye. Nice that for a few months of the year I can "dress down"!

Who knows...?

I recently learned a new saying in Mongolia that, if I translate it literally is, “Winter’s person’s one eye is blind”.

What do you think this means?

You might be in Mongolia if...

1. You have a picture of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) on your wall.
2. You slip up and call your cell phone a “hand phone” when speaking in English.
3. You guard your peanut butter with your life.
4. It got dark today before 5pm.
5. You’ve seen a camel cart on the street in the last two days.
6. You consider 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) to be warm for this time of year.
7. You think that pink, blue, or green walls and orange floors are normal.
8. The appearance of or lack of hot water determines when you bathe.
9. You have a collection of graph-paper notebooks, used for a wide range of things, that sport covers ranging from Harry Potter to Korean stars to cars to wildlife.
10. You are disappointed at the warm winter weather because it means you can’t use your balcony as a walk-in freezer.

Thankful for food...

There are some areas in which I’ve become a stickler for tradition—one of them is Thanksgiving food. Thanksgiving, in my mind, is embodied by family and food; I can’t have the family since the Pacific Ocean and a lot of land separate us, so I better have the food! Since Thanksgiving is this week I thought I'd tell you about our menu--which we'll be enjoying Saturday since Thursday is a normal work day in this part of the world...

Chicken Legs: It would be near impossible to find a turkey here so we settle for the nearly equally rare chicken legs. This is my first year to have to cook them; I’m a bit nervous!

Cranberry Sauce: Sent across the Pacific by special request, it helps complete the holiday.

Fruit Salad: When I was a kid we always had a fruit salad that included coconut and baby marshmallows; over the past few years here I’ve stumbled upon a canned fruit mix that, when mixed with yogurt, marshmallows, and coconut (the latter two being from the States) makes quite a good substitute for the salad of my childhood.

Green Bean Casserole: For some bizarre reason, the past few years we’ve been able to buy canned green beans in one of the stores here in town. Cream of mushroom “whatever you happen to have on hand” soup is really easy to make from scratch, and my parents have been so kind as to send the necessary fried onions for the top. Yum! This year, although we’ve already got the onions, we haven’t yet been able to find green beans. There is one other place in town I can check—otherwise we’ll have to fill the casserole with something else!

Green Salad: This one is a bit less normal—the only green leafy thing here is cabbage, so sometimes we settle for a tray of veggies (cucumber, bell peppers—if they are being sold at the market, carrots)

Jello Salad: A nod to the mid-westerners in our crew; it’s a tasty mix of jello and fruit.

Mashed potatoes: not a problem since potatoes are so abundant here.

Rolls: Of course they have to be made from scratch here, but when you live in a place like Mongolia, you learn how to do things like that…

Stuffing: It could be made from scratch but the lovely mix my parents sent tastes so good!

And for dessert we’ll have Pumpkin and Apple pies. Yum!

So you see, we manage to be fairly traditional even out in the middle of Mongolia.

P.S. You'll all be relieved, I'm sure, to hear that the trial run for cooking chicken went smoothly and was delicious! (Okay, so it really was just another excuse to eat valuable chicken...but it was still good!) AND, drum roll please, on my hundredth lap around town I finally found green beans; so we get to have our lovely casserole tomorrow after all.

More on music

So I learned the other week that a music group I like broke up several months ago. Here in Mongolia, you get exposed to a very strange mix of music. Sadly enough, one of the things Mongolia has done is introduce me to the international pop and hip-hop music scene…Yes, in all honesty, I actually like some of that fluffy music now. Smash!, this group I like, was a Russian duo that sang in English, but also had one French song. They were a relatively new group, and had been around about two years, I think. A few weeks ago I noticed that only one of the guys was appearing in a live performance that happened to be on TV; this set me wondering what had happened to the other guy. Let me tell you, trying to find information in English about a Russian group is near impossible! They had a website that had info in English but that hasn’t been updated since December 2004. The little other news you can find in English is quite sketchy and not fit to be read. Finally I found something that said they’d broken up. Why, I don’t know. It seems that one guy has kept the name Smash! and the other guy is now singing under his own name. It’s sad, because they always looked like they were having fun singing together. Another one bites the dust…

Public Notice

This is the time of year when I disappear under a big pile of homework and teaching. I will emerge in a couple weeks, hopefully unscathed for the most part, at which point in time I'll have more stories for your education and entertainment. Thanks for your patience--all five of you.

Concerning an Outhouse and a Pig

I went to the countryside a couple weeks ago. As always, it provided some near-death interesting experiences, one of which involved a pig—which in and of itself is worthy of note in Mongolia. I haven’t always gotten along well with pigs. I had a particularly scaring experience at the county fair when I was little, in which a large mama pig decided that she should have the french fries I was nibbling on. Granted, she was in a pen, and I was outside the pen, but you don’t really think about that when you are two years-old and something 10X your size lunges at you! Oh, right, the countryside… when you are in the countryside there are generally only two places to relieve yourself—either in the great wide open, or in the very occasional outhouse. The area we were driving through was amazingly flat so I ignored my bladder until we stopped at a home possessing an “outhouse”; it was “out” alright, but there was no “house” about it! It was quite the sight to behold; a roofless, doorless, and nearly floorless outhouse being held upright by two wires, attached to opposite corners, that were staked into the ground. It must be quite exciting to use at night since not only were there very large gaps between the floorboards, but there was there a hole in front of it and one behind it! As I was using this “outhouse” I heard snuffling and snorting that was getting closer and closer. At the same time, my coworker was beginning to sound panicked, “A pig, a pig! Oh! Oh! It’s coming closer, Oh! The pig is coming!” We had seen the pig on our way to the outhouse, but it had been a ways away. I was quite uneager to meet the pig at eyelevel while balancing on planks in a rather unstable structure. I exited just as the pig’s snout poked around the side. I’m sure that my coworker has never seen someone leap out of an outhouse with quite so much speed or momentum! The pig, having done its work by unsettling the foreigner, ambled back to the patch of grass it had been rooting around in before.

Mr. Dogs & Me

A friend asked if Danielle and I wanted to go to a concert and we surprised her by actually saying yes. So the next night found us rushing to get to there on time. Silly us. We are in Mongolia. When we arrived, the doors were still closed, and closed they remained for another 30 minutes. When they finally were broken down opened, a ruckus ensued—never mind that the seats were assigned. Everyone wanted to enter at once, and Danielle and I foolishly forgot that we had the option of waiting for everyone else to push and shove through… There is nothing quite equal to being packed like cattle, on steps, in heels, while trying to avoid stepping on people (an offensive thing to do in Mongolian culture). We made it to our seats without any major blood loss and waited for the show to begin.

The concert was T. Delgermurun and the group Mr. Dogs. T. Delgermurun is famous for being a member of Nomin Talst (a well known Mongolian group) and Mr. Dogs is made up of some of his childhood friends. The hip-hop/rap music wasn’t bad but it was very loud. It was my first real concert in Mongolia (I know, I know, I’ve been here how many years?!) and I was surprised to notice that the other people in the audience, while they knew and enjoyed the music, didn’t even bob their heads. In fact, I’m not sure they were even blinking. Since there were only a couple hundred people there, I’m sure Danielle and I entertained the people around us entire audience as well as the singers, with our inability to sit still with the music going. They kept encouraging people in the audience, especially the kids, to get up and dance, but no one moved. Then they resorted to bribery and coercion. They offered a signed hat (that both Danielle and I secretly wanted) to the first person up dancing (but we didn’t want it that badly…) and their back-up dancers started pulling people up from the audience. Of course, since Danielle and I sort of totally stand out in any crowd here, and since our seats were next to the aisle, they made us dance—with all the kids—who came up to our waists. (Did I mention that we are tall compared to most Mongolian women?) Of about 20 people dancing, only four were adults... Both Danielle and I had adult students in the audience and were somewhat embarrassed for them to see us; however, most of our students are under the misconception that we dance well, so perhaps this “dancing at the concert” experience just made them think we were a little cooler. After one song we slipped back into our seats to continue our simple head bobbing and foot tapping for the rest of the show.

On the way home we decided that we should go to concerts every week more often.

On Not Being Russian and Other Such Stuff

Well, since I think my blog readership is now up to a whopping five people (besides myself) I thought it was time for another post.

Mongolia and Russia used to be very good friends and still like each other fairly well; in fact, Mongolia was the second communist country in the world. Many changes occurred in Mongolia due to Russian influence and input; the alphabet was changed, architecture and cities became drastically different, the educational system, governmental structure, and military were all greatly altered. Because of this close relationship, all Mongolia school children studied Russian; I’m not certain, but I believe that until recently, Russian was the official second language of Mongolia.

Up until the late 1980’s there were many Russians living and working here in Mongolia. Since most Mongolians knew Russian, there was little need for the Russians to learn Mongolian. And, since for several decades Russians accounted for 99.9% of the foreigners in Mongolia, it is often assumed that I am Russian because I don’t have a small Mongolian nose or dark hair. “Is she Russian or English?” I hear people asking each other as I walk through the market (that I’ve been walking through once a week for the past four years). Groups of school children will greet me by saying, “Hello” and then they'll say, “Ooh, I said hello to that Russian woman…” and occasionally one of their friends will reply, “She isn’t Russian.” Taxi drivers will start talking to me in Russian and will continue trying to talk to me in Russian even after I tell them, in Mongolian, that I don’t speak Russian. Shopkeepers will occasionally answer my queries in Russian, which can lead to utter confusion for all parties. This is all fine except that I don’t actually speak Russian. My spoken vocabulary is limited to: Yes, no, what’s your name? My name is ______. I am American, tea with milk please, thank you, let’s go, 404, Happy New Year, I don’t know, and (ironically enough) I understand.

I thought that I’d help people out a bit by telling them, in Mongolian, that I’m not Russian so as to eliminate some communication problems. Enter the “I’m not Russian” shirts… should you, too, have this problem, you can purchase the shirts at Mongol Mama at Cafepress.

Scotch

My coworker and apartment-mate, Danielle, and I entertain ourselves by writing songs about life in Mongolia; it’s become tradition for us to perform at least one during our organization's Fall training each year. This year's hit was “Scotching Fiend” to the tune of “Dancing Queen”. There seem to be certain phases that everyone goes through as they adjust to living here, and one of those phases involves an obsession with scotch tape. Scotch, as it is called here, is between one and two inches wide, comes on big rolls, and can be used for anything. Last spring I went through a phase where I was scotching everything; especially any teaching aides that I created—to make them last, you know! Anyway, this scotching phase is what gave birth to our song. Enjoy!

Scotching Fiend
I can scotch, I can jive, having the time of my life
See my skill, watch me work, I am the Scotching Fiend.

Friday night and I need to know what is the best route to go
For fixing the toilet, for picking up cat hair
I think I need some scotch…

It’s a great thing to keep close by
It works for anything; just give it a try

Covering your papers, filling window cracks
I’ll never go back

And when I get the chance

I am the Scotching Fiend,
Giving things such a lovely sheen
Scotching Fiend, cover those papers—keep them clean
I can scotch, I can jive, having the time of my life
See my skill, watch me work, I am the Scotching Fiend.



The Scotching Queens, I mean, Fiends...





For those of you who also struggle with scotch addictions, you'll be happy to know that you can now get your very own "Scotching Fiend" shirts! Once again, Mongol Mama is the place to go.

Inner and Outer...the perpetually confusing aspect of Mongolia

To properly address this item, we must delve into a little history.

A long time ago, the Mongolian tribes were united by a great and fearless leader named Chingis Khaan (KH is actually a hard H sound--not a K sound). If you've never heard of him, it's because we were taught to call him Genghis Khan, much to the dismay of the Mongolians. Chingis Khaan and his descendants managed to conquer the land from China to Europe. At that time there was focus on the exchange of goods, culture, and religion in the Empire's capital. Eventually, this empire began to loose its power and most of the conquered peoples were able to live independently once again. After a couple hundred years China gained control of what was left of Mongolia. Fast forward 200-300 years. Some Mongolians, tired of being under the Chinese, approach Russians for assistance. In 1911 Mongolia fought against the Chinese and gained some independence. However, not all of Mongolia was given autonomy and thus it was divided into Inner and Outer Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is still a part of China, Outer Mongolia, usually referred to simply as Mongolia, is its own country. I work in the country of Mongolia.

Because I don't have a map with me, the "hand illustration" will have to suffice.

Warning: semi-graphic content do not read if you love horses!

Horse intestines have a variety of textures--chewy, squishy, tough, tender...it all depends upon what part of the intestine you are eating and how it was prepared. The flavor is a little gamey but not bad

As for the white blood sausage...I was so puzzled when my student told me what they were that I asked her repeatedly to explain how they were made. What she told me is that when left for a certain amount of time, horse blood separates: red and white. The white portion is then put into a cleaned out portion of the intestines and boiled or steamed (I'm unsure which she meant). It has a smooth, gelatinous texture and a mild flavor. The most difficult thing about eating WB sausage is the fact that it is what it is.

Eating unusual foods is part of life when you live in a foreign country. At home I can cook what I want (provided I can come up with the ingredients) when I go to someone's home I need to eat what they serve me or risk offending them.

I haven't come across any desserts here that are genuinely Mongolian, however they have adopted some things from other countries. There is now an abundance of hard candy in Mongolia, and people here will often serve store-bought cakes (perhaps brought from the capital or Russia a week before) for special occasions. I am dreaming of the day that someone learns to make a moist chocolate cake with good frosting. In the meantime, cake, for me, is something that nightmares are made of.

Proposals & Marriage

Someone asked me if I ever was proposed to, and the answer is yes...in ninth grade, but I'm guessing that the intention of the asker was to know if anyone ever proposed to me in Mongolia, to which my answer is no. However...by Mongolian standards I'm getting a little old to not be married or at least have a kid or two; as a result I often get scolded by coworkers and taxi drivers alike. This is a subject that people in Mongolia feel very free to comment on. I've been told by a taxi driver that I should have Mongolian children (why this was so important, I'm not sure); I've had people tell me that I should marry a Mongolian so that my language skills would improve (since we all know that is the only reason people get married); One individual, who takes great delight in asking me if I've gotten married yet, likes to tell me that I should get married because I need someone to fix things in my apartment. The list goes on... What I've tried explaining is that people from the USA tend to get married later in life than Mongolians; what I lack the Mongolian vocabulary to explain is that I'd rather be single than be married to the wrong person, and getting married just for the sake of being married is lame.

A Public Service Announcement

I have the cutest, sweetest nephew in the whole entire world. Like a good auntie, I firmly believe in cornering innocent bystanders and showing them pictures of the kid. It seems that after a mere eight months of Tommy's life, I have more pictures of him than of my whole childhood; now the only questions is how to get all those pictures back to Mongolia while keeping my suitcases within the airline weight limits. Perhaps I should forgo some of the extra clothing items I was planning on taking. Who really needs long underwear in -30 degree weather, anyway?

And now, a few words to the kid: Thomas, you are sweet and fun and cuddly and adorable. Just because Auntie is going away for a while doesn't mean she doesn't love you. True, I will miss your first steps, your first words, and your first birthday, but I made it for your first Christmas and your first teeth; I was your first evening babysitter--your parents went to a Giants game for your Daddy's birthday. Even though I don't get to see you most of the year, in the summer I get to spend lots of time with you! Plus, I give you bragging rights--how many other kids will be able to say that they know where Mongolia is, much less that they have an aunt who lives there. Monkey, I love you so much--don't you ever forget it!

A little more about food

Having grown up in California, I love fruit and vegetables. In my town in Mongolia, I can buy potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, cabbage, onions, garlic, and, on occasion, tomatoes and cucumbers. Apples can be bought year-round and at three or four points in the year I can get kiwis, bananas, grapes, mandarins and nectarines. I would say, that aside from my family, and from basic lifestyle changes, the thing I miss the most is variety in food. If I decide that I want a lettuce salad, I'm out of luck. If I decide that I want Mexican food, I have to make it with whatever resources I can find. It is a challenge, but it can also be fun. Living in Mongolia has done wonders for my cooking skills!

Food

The two main ingredients of food in Mongolia are meat and dough. There is an abundance of meat in Mongolia, although in recent years the price has been increasing. The type of meat that you can buy varies from place to place. In my town we can buy beef, mutton (sheep meat), some goat, and horse. In some parts of Mongolia you can buy camel and yak meat, too. The dough is simply made from flour and water. A variety of Mongolian foods are made with meat and dough (and occasional other ingredients).


Buuz, the kind of dumpling shown above (with a pickled salad), are made of meat, fat, onion, a little salt, and a little water wrapped in dough and then steamed.


Bansh, above, contain the same ingredients as buuz, but they are smaller and are pinched differently. Bansh are generally cooked in soup.

If you used the same ingredients again but made the dumpling flatter (sort of like a quesadilla) and fried it, it would be called huushuur. If you cut up the dough like fat noodles and stirfried some meat and root vegetables (carrots, turnips, potatoes) and then cooked it all together, it would be called Tsuivan. Tsuivan is my absolute favorite Mongolian food and is best when topped with a slightly spicy Russian ketchup.

Mongolians also eat a lot of soup, although, I should warn you that even vegetable soup in Mongolia must contain meat or it wouldn't be considered a real meal. Rice stirfried with meat and some root veggies is also a common meal.


Some of the different ethnic groups in Mongolia have different foods as well. One of my friends, who is a Buriat, served me this meal of horse intestines, white blood sausage, and beet salad.

A little help please...

I need a bit of help thinking of what sorts of questions to answer in my FAQ series. If there is anything you would like to know, please post a comment and tell me. It would make my life easier.

FAQs 1

1. Where is Mongolia?
Mongolia is a Central Asian country located north of China and south of Russia. It is a land-locked country and so has no true oceans. However, in Mongolian, the word used for "large lake" is often the same as the word for "ocean". Another free fact: several of the lakes in Mongolia are salt-water lakes.

2. What language do they speak?
Mongolians generally speak Mongolian. It is nothing like Chinese or Russian; in fact it is actually related to Turkish, Kazakh, and possibly Korean. Until the last century, Mongolians used a script borrowed from the Uighurs. Currently the Cyrillic alphabet is used.

3. Are you fluent?
This question still, after four years, sends me into a fit of giggles. Mongolian is not an easy language to learn, in part because it is unlike any other language I've ever tried to learn. Can I communicate? Yes, of course, but there is still so much vocabulary and grammar to be learned! Even people who have studied Mongolian for ten years feel like their language skills need a lot of improvement.

How to ask questions

When people learn that I work in Mongolia, they generally are curious. Unfortunately, the questions that come out of their mouths are so broad that I stutter and stumble and end up at a loss for words. Questions such as, "What is it like there?", "So, is it really different?" and "So, tell me about Mongolia." terrify me. I do much better with more specific questions. What's the food like? What's the weather like? What does it look like? What are the people like? What is the exchange rate? By asking the more detailed questions, you ultimately will get your broad questions answered, and with a lot less confusion on my part. When I do try to tackle the broad questions, I never know if the person asking wants the one sentence answer, the five-minute answer, or the two-hour speech; more specific questions alleviate this issue.

I'll be answering a series of frequently asked questions in upcoming posts. If I don't happen to touch on a subject that you are curious about, please ask!

Seasons

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

By far, the biggest changes from season to season is the weather. Winter, which is about eight months, is cold--really cold. It actually doesn't snow that much since Mongolia is a land-locked, very dry place. In Spring it could be hot, cold, calm, windy, dry, rainy, snowy, dusty, or nice all in the same day. Mostly it's windy and dusty, and everyone is tired. Summer is generally hot with some rain around August. Fall is short.

Altargana

Welcome to Altargana, the Buriat version of Naadam (a Mongolian festival held every July). As for Altargana, the story goes that about 12 years ago, some Buriats from Mongolia, Russian, and China got together and, seeing a need for more interaction and celebration between the Buriats scattered across the region, it was decided that they should have a festival every two years. And, because the Nadaam festival of Mongolia is such a smashing success, and because Buriats and Mongolians are very closely related and so presumably have very similar athletic traditons, it was decided that Altargana would consist of the same three "Manly Sports" as Nadaam: Archery, wrestling, and horse-racing. It should be pointed out that women or girls may participate in two of the three "Manly Sports". These archers were marching in the opening parade of Altargana. They are wearing traditional Buriat clothing, which has some distinct differences from the traditional clothing of most other Mongolian tribes.

Progress

Well, in the past few days I have figured out how to post photos (although there is room for improvement in this area) and how to occasionally change the color of fonts--exciting stuff, I know. Next week you might be lucky enough to find even more improvements since I'll be spending the week with my nephew, sister and brother-in-law; one of whom is the star of a blog, one of whom picks the photos for the blog, and one of whom has figured out most of the backroads to blogging and whose knowledge I plan to draw from. Stay tuned.

The Ancient and the Modern

In the countryside of Mongolia you see an interesting mix of new and old. The ger (tent) has been used by Mongolians since before the time of Chinggis Khan. The motorcycle and solar panel are more recent additions.

The Highway

yup, that's really what most of the roads look like in the Mongolian countryside...

The Very First Post

Who knows what sorts of stuff will eventually appear on this page...

I am trying to get some stuff ready to put up this week. Hopefully everything will be sailing smoothly by the time I head back to Mongolia where I'll get the fun of posting while battling a dial-up ISP with personality!

Za, enough on this--time to get to work on some real postings.