Mongolian Kitsch

15April2008

French Graffiti/Mongol Wrestling

Posted by JonHaley

Keepin’er fresh! If not always consistent or relevant. I’ve only got another month and a half out here so I’ll forgo any formality and start throwing up a bunch of random posts as they happen. Here’s two:

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26March2008

Volunteer Model…

Posted by JonHaley

…But not model volunteer. Here’s one for the WTF! Mongolia category. Another volunteer, Clare, who works at a university for fiber-arts and fashion, invited me and a few of the other volunteers to be models for the school’s annual fashion show. Apparently, they only wanted men as the women had many more costume changes to make, and I guess they wanted foreigners, because hey let’s face it, we’re kinda funny looking! We did two night shows at a swanky hotel, got some free food afterwards, and obviously did something none of us would ever have been even remotely considered for back at home. In case you are wondering what my qualifications are, here’s my best guess:

1. I’m foreign (a novelty I’m afraid I can’t help)
2. I can walk in a straight line, execute turns and stops, while not becoming lost, confused or falling over.
3. I can tolerate sharing a changing room with the very nice Mongolian models and spending the evening swaddled in fine wool, cashmere, yak and camel very likely making an ass of myself.
4. I was somehow able to keep a straight face through it all.

My future as a human clothes-hanger doesn’t look all that promising, but I can definitely say I have a lot more respect for the modeling profession — it’s harder than it seems for sure. Anyways, a very fun experience, and photos I will look back on for years to come and laugh my ass off (at myself)!

19March2008

M-pop

Posted by JonHaley

I must have heard this song at least once a day on average over the past month and a half, it’s got to be the number one, but I’m not sure if there’s an official chart out here.

Mongolian music (to me decidedly a misinformed foreigner) seems to fall into one of a few categories: traditional stuff (Hoarse fiddle, long song, throat singing, etc. which I like for sure), country-pop stuff like this selection below (which, sorry, all sounds pretty much the same too me, but then I don’t speak the language and probably miss a lot), and finally the youthful hip hop and hard rock stuff that is frantically rebelling against the first two.

While I can’t really appreciate Javkhlan (sounds a bit like ‘javelin’), on a musical level, I can definitely vouch for his popularity, and this particular song shows some nice scenes of (romanticized) Mongolian rural life. From what I gather, he wrote this song as a tribute to his passing mother, and features a few hundred Mongolian mothers in the background. The title “Eejiin Chanasan Tsai” means “Mother’s Boiled Tea”.

Check out the video below or HERE:

26February2008

Hacksin’ at the “Military Rest Center”

Posted by JonHaley

25February2008

6 Months Down, 3 Bonus Months to Go

Posted by JonHaley

A few days back was my 6 month anniversary of being in UB, FUNgolia, and it sort of passed without any explanation. This should be the end of my short-term NetCorps volunteer placement, but earlier in February I put in a request to extend for an extra three months and VSO was happy to have me continue on.

For the most part I am very happy about staying as there are lots of really important projects for me to work on out here, and there are many places around the country that I’d still like to visit. However, looking back on the past 6 months, I can’t say I’m super happy about what I was able to accomplish. If I was going home right away I would feel like my placement failed to make any really important changes even though a lot things got started. So these next few months are a bit of a rescue mission where I hope to tie up any lose ends and finish any projects that have been stalled.

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