I hadn’t had a shot of vodka since university, so while I felt privileged to be welcomed into this Mongolian family’s Ger for some of their kind offerings, I wasn’t sure how my inhibitions would hold out after a few shots, much less my gut the next day. However, I could not refuse the social bonding process that is the exchange of edible and drinkable gifts, so I drank whatever they offered. Plus, there was something about the smile on the father of family’s face that said, ‘I bet you can’t drink as well as a Mongolian’, that made me want to prove him wrong.
We were in Orkhon Valley of Central Mongolia; a beautiful haven of green and yellow hills, for which the sun shone perfectly in the afternoon, illuminating the precisely designated light and dark green segments of the mountains . Dotted throughout the valley were white specks, which were the Gers, standing as Mongolia’s greatest symbol. And of course, herds and herds of animals, sometimes so big, you couldn’t believe it was possible to herd them.
We had made our way here in an old Russian army van that we had spent the majority of our time in for the past 7 days and had become a member of our temporary family. It had taken us about 4 hours just to get a few km through the valley to our Ger, on account of the dirt road that had bits of volcanic rock sticking up everywhere. We had enjoyed the laughter inducing bumpy road trip the first couple days but after being tossed around like in a washing machine for many hours a day, by the 3rd day we were resolutely fed up of it.
Nonetheless, the journey had brought us to something I had been searching for. Not the vodka, actually, but a world which had been stripped of all the extras in life. Life back home had made pleasure more instant, pressure more real but nature more forgotten. Here, the background cycle of life fed its way into every activity of a Mongolian’s day. It was even symbolically represented in the way that we must only walk clockwise when walking into a Ger. This is because, traditionally they believe that it’s important to be in harmony with the movement and time of cycles in the universe.
Though it was the middle of August, the valley got quite nippy at night so we gathered round their crackling stove fire and inquired about life on the steppe.
The father reacted excitedly when I asked if I could take a closer look at the pictures of his family, and proceeded to bring out a large photo album. Of course the young boys which we had played soccer with earlier, were eager to make us guess which baby pictures were them. The baby girl sat on the mother’s lap all the while with her adorably big Mongolian cheeks, gazing at us and offering out her tiny hand. I never once heard this baby cry in the 2 days I spent there.
My guide told me that in Mongolian culture, it’s important not to show your vulnerability- I wondered if that was a trait all children are just born with or if there simply was nothing for the baby to cry about. After all, she had her entire family by her side all the time, including the extended family to give her anything she could so wish for.
This particular family’s Ger was simple but met the tradition of having the female’s sleeping area on the right side, the male’s on the left and the Buddhist shrine placed directly opposite the door. Stove in the middle, fermenting horse milk hanging by the door and a place for pictures of the family and that was about all they needed.
The framework of the Ger was an ingenious interlocking of wood and enveloped by animal skins. Mongolian’s were apparently quite the puzzle experts, and had invented quite a convenient architecture that could easily be folded up and transported. While in the capital I even visited a museum dedicated to the Mongolian love of puzzles. What a curious aspect of their culture.
I continued on with a 3rd shot of vodka, but really preferred the warmed Yak’s milk that reminded me of when I would have warm milk on winter evenings as a child. The cheese however, was worse than the vodka. I love cheese but this was cheese times 20; it was so sour and crumbly. I thanked them though and offered them some sweets I had brought with me from home.
This wasn’t the only family we stayed with while in Mongolia. We traveled many miles of horizons as far as the eye could see to arrive at Ger camps where no one in the world would know how exactly to get to (apart from our excellent driver). Obviously, these families were able to visit the small towns or capital for shopping or to send their children to school, but mostly they were content to live out their days as their culture has done for centuries, moving to a new location every cycle, without much input from the outside world. Mongolian nomads are the ultimate minimalists.
It seems like a cliché now to adorn and exotify such ways of life as being ‘liberating’, ‘serene’ and conducive to allowing one to be ‘closer to nature’. And I don't want to condescend but something has to be said for how cleansing an experience this can be for outsiders like us.
However, there is a select few who in making these claims and clichés, do distance their humanity from ours. Inevitably even an anthropology major like me can find it hard not to do so.
Upon making a request to the father of the family if he would tell our fortune which was traditionally done with the ankle bones of goats, he displayed a resignation in him and muttered some excuse. At first I thought that it could be a fun way of sharing in their culture but I got the sense that he felt I was asking him to do what every tourist he had met before had asked him to do.
I then reflected on the idea that I needed to consider the responsibility I had as a traveler when I visited places off the beaten track where not many foreigners visited. Perhaps my request would have been taken better by another Mongolian father but this experience alerted me to the importance of being sensitive to and not making entertainment out of a person's culture. I realised our being there was a privilege; not one we were to make requests of or treat as theatre but an experience in which we were to be subject to their offerings should they choose to give them.
In submitting to this, I think I was able to learn more and become humbled by their way of life. A little girl at another Ger later offered to play games with us with the goat ankle bones which proved to be its own unique experience as she put us to shame, beating us in every round.
What I learnt thereon and what humbled me most about this culture though was their lack of insatiability, which I am so used to in my culture and many others in Asia. In India, Vietnam, South Korea and Indonesia even, I saw a feeling of insatiability in the capitalist decorum on the streets, the scams and the longing for flashy clothes. But here, our tour operators and taxi drivers even forgot to ask us to pay, and I never was bothered by a street seller once. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think Mongolia, and I mean absolutely no condescension in this, seems to be the most content place I have ever been to.
As we left the Ger to go to bed, the family offered us their huge traditional silk cloaks to keep us warm for the night. It was quite a comical image of us leaving in these oversized outfits, a little tipsy from the vodka, but I couldn’t have felt warmer having met such kind and humble people.
