Lost in Translation

My wife posted a bit on her blog about Mongolian idioms.  We had a great time with Boloroo last week and the conversation was a hoot.  Fact is, you don't know Mongolian at all until you can interpret the idiomatic expressions they use ALL THE TIME.  For my non language nerd readers, an idiom is a phrase that has an assigned meaning you can't get from what is actually said.  Like "they're gonna ship him up the river" means "They're gonna put him in prison."

I first learned this during the savings and loan scandal a few years ago.  A woman we had recently met had a son who had been implicated in embezzling $70,000 and was to stand trial.  Months later I met a friend of the woman and asked what had happened to the son.  "He's pulling fathers door" was the reply.  After pondering it a bit I decided it meant the young man had fled to the country side and was in hiding among his father's family.  When I brought my observation to a language teacher, she exploded into laughter.  "Your such a stupid student!" she said.  (And yes, even the nice Mongolian teachers will call their students stupid.)  Then she explained that pulling fathers door meant to ship him up the river.  Then I learned Mongols traditionally communicated with idioms and symbolic speech.

Without further explanation, here are a few more I have learned.  See if you can guess the meaning before scrolling to the translation below.

1. I'm going to see a horse.

2. It was like seeing a rabbit with horns.

3. I loaned him a dollar and sent out a river.

4. That woman's body has two floors.

5. Don't eat rice during your exam.

 - No cheating -

1. Easy one.  I'm going to the bathroom.  When said among friends you can later tell them if it was big or little horse, yellow or brown one, etc.

2. It was TOTALLY AWESOME.  Imagine the expression on her face when I googled a jack-a-lope and showed it to a woman.  She just about wet her pants.

3. I will never get it back.  We would say, "That's the last I'll hear from him."

4. Are you thinking "Her elevator doesn't reach the top floor"?  WRONG! (I laugh hysterically at my stupid students ;-).  The woman is PREGNANT!

5. Um . . don't chew gum?  Nope.  Made it too easy didn't I.  Don't cheat.

It isn't always that bad.  Some idioms are the same, like being "red faced" means either "embarrassed" or "angry."  Mongols also use sayings that parallel with ours.  For instance, "killing two birds with one stone" in Mongolian is "killing two rabbits with one arrow."  But it is still amazing what really happened in our brains at the tower of babel.  Really.  It's no wonder so many dictionary writers lose their marbles!

Bucket O' Guts

When I was a kid I remember my dad having a conversation with his boss, Bud Graves.  (aside: I credit Bud with the first rabbit I killed.  Funny story I might reminisce about later for my anti gun readers ;-)  Anyway, Bud was talking about some of the folk remedies people had when he was a kid. Oak bark tea was particularly unpleasant, but highly prescribed by Dr. Moms in Washington County before all the modern bottled medicine arrived.

On a similar vein, I recently spent a couple weeks with some guys in the north country of Mongolia, and for the second time enjoyed the medicinal delicacy I have named the "Bucket O' Guts."  Basically Dr. Moms here say each of the innards has a corresponding healthful benefit to our body (i.e. eating lung is good for the lungs, eating heart is good for the heart, etc).  Since I had contracted some kind of amoeba from bad milk product (i.e. had the squirts) I was advised to eat stomach and intestine to get better.

For the squeamish stop here . . . . 

I warned you . . . .

Stomach, tastes a bit like an inner tube soaked in fermented grass.  You really gotta work to get it down.  Intestine (both large and small) are filled with blood which coagulates when boiled, a bit like sausage if you really use your imagination.  If you like the taste when someone punches you in the mouth you would probably love it.  Being the good patient I sampled every organ (liver and kidney were particularly nice) then drank a cup o' gut juice.  Call me crazy, but that stuff was EXCELLENT.  A bit like hot broth on crack and steroids.

Effect?  Not sure if it was the Imodium or the Bucket O' Guts, but I didn't run to the crapper the rest of the day.

My writing not not good enough for you?  Okay sicko, here's your pic.

Safety First? Yeah . . right. Part 2

Sport number two is archery.  One I happen to have some skill with, but which is considered a waste when your as big as me.  On day two of Naadam I headed to the archery range to watch the competition and get some sweet pics.  This would be my second time to the field since we came to Mongolia, but this time was without the kids.  Meaning I could go to the best seat in the house.  "Where's that" you ask?  The sideline of course.  In a land with no safety regulations just find a space and fill it.  If this were baseball, they might just let you sit in your lawn chair behind the home plate umpire in a Roger Clemens vs. Randy Johnson game.

No play by play.  Just notice the angle I had for the downfield pic, and then that the archers shoot from behind their next youngest competitor.  That's right.  If you are in the youngest division, you shoot from in front of every other group (who are shooting at the same time).

You wouldn't want one of these "manly sports" to come without risk would you?

Safety First? Yeah . . right. Part 1

Mongolia's big Naadam festival is a three day stroke to the male ego through the "Three Manly Sports" of Naadam.  These are wrestling, horseback riding, and archery.  Ironically, women compete in both archery and horseback riding, but not wrestling.  Well, at least now anyway.  Legend says many years ago a woman entered the wrestling competition and won it.  Men were allegedly so embarrassed that for his reason today's Mongolian wrestler wears a very revealing open chested outfit to expose any female wrestler wannabes.  After all, these are the MANLY sports and we can't have women potentially ruining the last bastion of Mongol manhood.  Right?  So women, please polish your saddle and string your bow, but DON'T practice your half nelson or sleeper hold.

Speaking of wrestling, we had a staff retreat the week after Naadam and the MEN had a wrestling competition.  32 of us, well outside the bounds of workmen's comp, risked life and limb to win cups of sour horse milk (called arag).  Being the biggest foreigner, I was automatically enrolled and expected to win.  However, to the disappointment of dozens of adoring fans, I was found to be without the Mongol born skill set of wrestling.  That's right, I'm a lover and not a fighter.  That's why I have five kids and a good insurance policy.  But here is the play by play:

Round of 32: Grossly undersized, my opponent is about 1/3 my size. (no weight classes in pro wrestling here either by the way).  He put on a show until I picked him up and flicked him like a booger.  Nuff said.

Round of 16: Guy wants to become a legend.  Punk goes for a leg sweep and hit my shin like a moth hits a windshield.  Undeterred he dives at my knees to which I deftly put my hands on his shoulders and sit him on his pride before somebody gets hurt.  [and the crowd goes wild!]

Between rounds I pointed out this smaller guy who was really skilled.  The guy I was talking with said, "He is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and rated in the top ten in Mongolia."  I said, "What do you bet he could put me down?"  "Yeah right." he replied.

Round of 8: Me and Tae Kwon Do (wouldn't it figure!)  Now I know I am in trouble.  A shorter opponent has the advantage if he gets the tall one off balance, and this guy had just beaten a guy twice his size who actually knew how to wrestle.

First move, he goes strength to strength, man to man, . . . didn't work.  If he would have come in a bit more I could have pick and tossed him, but that was "if".  Instead he backed off, and gave me a hard look, concentrated for a moment, grinned (I swear to God he grinned!), then VOOM!  I see a flash of his butt where I know my armpit should've been, then  . . . clouds . . . grass . . . tree . . . ground . . . THUD . . . crack.  

What?  . . . Crack?  . . . What just cracked!?!  . . . Your rib you idiot!

That's right.  As I peel myself out of the grass, I feel a wincing pain that worsened for the next two days and never allowed me a peaceful nights sleep for three weeks.  All that for two cups of sour horse milk.  I need a better agent.

Blog . . What Blog? Oh yeah!

It's Monday here in good old UB and I have a confession to make.  I am probably the worst start up blogger in history.  Laura and I were talking last night and she mentioned her blog entry, which set off a series of thoughts in my mind as to when I posted my drafts I had recently done.  RECENTLY MY EYE!! They are almost two weeks old you goon!!  So after chewing myself out a while I said, "Okay, Monday I'll give some lame excuse then polish and publish my posts that I should have had out last week minimum."

On that note, being a fair student of the Mongolian language, I want to let you in on a humorous bit my Mongol friends enjoy.  I got the words from the Lonely Planet travel guide's glossary a few years back and and adapted it to a shtick I do here when Mongols are feeling out my Mongolian.  I tell them five words can give ANY traveler a basic Mongolian conversation.  They look at me like I'm out of my mind, then I say, "the words are: Chadaxgui (can't do it); Baixgui (don't have it); Margaash (tomorrow); and Magadgui (maybe) and Za 

(yeah, whatever)."  Now you can translate a conversation that goes something like this:

(Enter the restaurant, store or other business and begin your order)

Me: I'd like to buy a __.

Attendant: Chadaxgui

Me: Why not?

Attendant: Baixgui

Me: When will you have it?

Attendant: Margaash

Me: So if I come back can I get it tomorrow?

Attendant: Magadgui.

Me: So . . guess I'll come back tomorrow.

Attendant: Za.  (and goes back to watching the television)

I've done that bit for dozens of Mongolian friends and they absolutely crack up.  The reason why is they live it every day.  Seriously.  Not funny to you?  Guess you had to be there.

A Whole Other World

I'll continue the other articles later today, but have to get this in.  Chatted with a guard this weekend about the seasons of the year and asked when Mongols believe Fall started.  Thinking he would say the Fall solstice, I was surprised when he immediately replied, "the day after Naadam."  Naadam finished July 13th.  Wind started blowing from the north yesterday and BOOM this morning, July 28th at 8:00 AM, it is 47 degrees.  I am coaching a little league baseball team in one hour and I ask, how do you play anything other than a world series game or football in 50 degree weather?  Assuming it reaches 50.  Winds still blowing.  It could flurry before all's said and done.

The Xuree Tsam: Part 1

Now that I've caught my breath, I want to write those articles about the Naadam festival.  First the Tsam ritual dance.  At the risk of folks thinking I am a universalist (I am not), the Tsam ritual's nearest equivalent in Christianity is something between a Passion play and the Divine Comedy, but not really.  I am not an expert, but have spent a good deal of time making sure I don't say anything outright stupid in case a Tibetan Buddhist friend should visit this blog.  If you are a TB friend and know I have misrepresented the Tsam, please leave a comment and I will make a correction.  However, do know that our beliefs are in stark contrast to one another and that on a doctrine/practice level that will respectfully remain in tension.  There are several different Tsam dances, and I am not sure which one I watched.  Each dance as I understand highlights a different facet of Tibetan Buddhist doctrine and spirit activity.  It all takes place on a square with five circles and in the end forms a living Mandala. Since there was no one there to explain all the imagery going on (these are secrets guarded by the priests and commoners are not allowed to know them), instead of a play by play I want to introduce you to the main characters.

First we have the skeletons.  They enter and do a little dance to show they are in charge.  If you are not supposed to be in the circle they remove you.  Each character in the dance must pass between these two.  Interestingly, the myth is they were a husband and wife who were in a state of deep meditation.  A thief found them and skinned them alive, but since they were in a trance they never woke up and became buddahs.  Just don't let a cranky church usher hear about that one.

Next: enter Kashin Khan (King of Kash) and his six boys.  Why the boys were there I do not know.  Two of them did wake the White Old Man from his nap, but otherwise they just paraded around with their dad.  The king is a reincarnate character.  A big part of the dance is the cycle of rebirth that Tibetan Buddhists and many other eastern religions believe.  I witnessed people in the crowd praying to him throughout the dance.  (Notice the woman on the right?)

According to the mongolian newspaper article I read on it, the image of a buddha in the dance invites and is recognized as the presence of the buddha.

Next, Jahmsaran (sp?).  This wicked looking creature is . . . well . . wicked.  Isn't it obvious?  He's holding a human heart in his hand for crying out loud.  BUT here is where that fuzzy Tibetan Buddhist yin yang comes into play.  Good things are not ALL good, and bad things are not ALL bad.  Each (in their belief) has an element of the opposing trait.  Every good has something bad and vice versa.  So this evil looking guy, as I understand, serves a purpose that is . . um . . good, sometimes.  Well. . bad mostly, but in a way . . *>@&! . . never mind.  Anyway, the heart in his hand means he can grant heart felt desires.  I THINK he represents the antagonist in this case.  He must be appeased (again, I think) in order for the bad in the karmic cycle to be un-badified.  The reason he is so bad is he decided he was going to end sadness and make people happy all the time.  WHAT?!?  You got it.  You see if everything is good, that's bad in Buddhism.  So the worst thing you could decide to do is take away the bad, because that is what people stuck in the reincarnation cycle are here for, to have bad things happen.  Get it?  Now is the point where I know real tension exists between Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity, no matter how much the Dalai Lama wants to say we are all alike we are WAY different in how we view suffering.

Interesting?  Good.  This can sit for a bit and I'll do another article with the remaining cast later.  Originally I told Laura I would just write a couple paragraphs and throw in some pictures.  But I just CAN'T do that now.  So, for now I am going to let this digest.  Later I will introduce you to the black magician hero and the comedy relief.  Later I will try to put in words what I think is the plot of this tsam.

To the Woman I LOVE!

No frills here folks.  It's Laura's birthday and if I had my way with you all it would be an international holiday.  I love you Laura.  Happy 3(bleep)th birthday!  ;-)

Get Tsam for Free

Naadam weekend presented two really good (and free) photo ops.  One was a Tsam (religious masks) dance.  Even if it sounds boastful, I want it to be known publicly I learned of it from reading a mongolian newspaper article.  The other was watching the Mongolian archery competition at the Naadam stadium grounds.  More on those later, but suffice it to say both are free if you just happen to be passing through Ulaanbaatar on your way to . . um . . well, if your in UB.

The Khuree Tsam dance is actually a religious ritual, and I would never attend one being done for its real purpose.  However, this one was written in the stars to be done conveniently in competition with the first day of Naadam (the heaviest tour date in UB) and was summarily advertised in the newspaper.  Even though non-Mongolian readers (mere mortals ;-) would not know about it, I figured thrifty tour agencies would bring their customers to it to cut package costs, and a couple did.

Now I'm writing this for the lanky, long brown haired guy who was wearing an Aussie looking leather hat and carrying an out of the box digital camera with an "I can see the Mars lander" digital zoom and still had stickers on it.  Dude, you got ripped off!

I overheard your tour guides talking during the dance.  Afterwards they were taking you to a guanz (Mongolian for "hepatitis ridden greasy spoon") and then to the ARCHERY COMPETITION!!  For those with extreme short term memories, remember I said these were both free!  In the one in 6.3 billion chance this guy knows about my blog, I want to offer my condolences for however much you spent on your extreme vacation package.  The leg of it you did on July 11th could almost have been done for the taxi fare and a good tip (minus air fare). 

It's all good on Naadam weekend!

I figure I have spent enough time on the riot, let's talk about something fun (to me at least).

July the 11th through the 13th is the Mongolian festival called Naadam.  This type of festival is not unique to Central Asian peoples, but we have nothing like it in the States.  The closest thing I can compare it to is if you combined the 4th of July, the Olympics, and a county fair.  Almost everything closes for three days and the streets are quiet.

The festival centers around "The Three Manly Sports of Naadam" which are wrestling, horse racing and archery.  Each of these is written (or so I'm told) in the old Mongolian script on the mountain to the west of Zaisan memorial mountain.  In this picture you can see this and the Soyombo, which can also be seen on the national flag of Mongolian.

This year I am hoping to take some photos of the religious activities that are part of the event.  Some foreigners I've met think the Mongols are not a particularly religious people.  But I believe they practice their religion in ways so unfamiliar to us we overlook how deeply religious they are.  For example, one of the lead floats in the Naadam parade contains the Tsam masks.  If I can get a shot of it, you (like any tourist) will just see a bunch of people wearing asian looking masks, but really they are recognizing a pantheon of gods (the newspaper calls them  "burxad" which means gods, not masks) as part of their opening ceremonies.  Since our practices are so different we can look right over the religious aspect and just see a colorful float or tradition.

Think of it this way.  If you didn't know a thing about Christianity, what would a nativity float mean to you in the Christmas parade?  The meaning is not as clear as you might think.

Free at Last! Free at Last!

We have been liberated!  That's right, at midnight on July 5th Marshal Law was lifted.  We were no longer under curfew (meaning I could go on my 6:30AM walk) and we didn't have to carry ID (meaning I could once again look at police without patting my pockets).  I was even able to go back to work today.  Things will be slowly going back to normal . . . for a family living in Outer Mongolia.  Last week was filled with so many uncertainties that it was probably my least productive since returning.  But I sure caught up on prayer time.

For those just getting here, Sunday June 29th was the Mongolian mid-term elections.  According to reports the Socialist Party won by a landslide.  On Tuesday, July 1st, as the initial reports of the election results were coming in Democratic party supporters made a protest before the Socialist party building.  Things went from tense to explosive, a riot ensued, and the mob burned the historic Socialist Party HQ and looted the state cultural museum.  The next morning the president announced we were in a "state of emergency" and imposed marshal law.

There's a lot to say on what it was like to live under old socialism for a few days.  Granted it had it's limitations (like only one Mongolian TV channel and the papers were not published), but we had a lot more freedom than the old school communists would have allowed (the internet and cable television including CNN and BBC still worked).  Overall though, it was a phase you just prayed would pass.  And it appears to have done so.

If you would like to read more about the whole thing, the International Herald Tribune has several good articles on their website.  Try this one for a start:

 http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/02/asia/OUKWD-UK-MONGOLIA.php

You can also type "Mongolia" in their search engine for more stories.  

That was . . um . . unexpected

So, before starting this blog I asked myself, "what on earth would I talk about other than life in Mongolia."  Wouldn't you know the very next day we are in a "state of emergency" and under martial law at least until Monday, July 7!  The people of Mongolia, in protest to the outcome of the national elections, assembled in Sukhbaatar square on Tuesday and within hours it turned ugly.  For at least five souls now in eternity, it was deadly.

Martial law means we are under curfew from 10PM to 8AM, all media except the Mongolian National Broadcaster (MNB) is off, a barricade surrounds the center of the city, and things are . . . tense.  If you want more information about it go to the International Herald Tribune at:

http://www.iht.com/pages/asia/index.php.  

Type "Mongolia" in their search engine and it will pull up several good articles.

This obviously is not how you plan to START a blog, but I will share my insignificant part in the six degrees of separation.  Tuesday morning I was on my regular walk around the city center at about 6:30AM.  I rounded the north side of the parliament garden and here were these guys welding sheet metal to the wrought iron fencing of the parliament building grounds.  My experience has been that Mongols are not usually early risers, and outside of animal husbandry tend to put the work day off until about 9AM.  That being said, the fence was probably 60% complete at that early hour.  I thought, now what on earth are they putting this up for?  Walking east of there I passed through the university district and two schools already had long registration lines forming.  Again, very unusual since I am usually on these same streets alone.  

Where is this going?  Many of the demonstrators were young people 19-25 years old.  I had no part in the riots.  But hours after I passed by, these young people registered in their classes, steered clear of the metal fence and proceeded to the demonstration in front of the Socialist Party HQ.  A riot soon broke out, a fire started, shots were heard.  What I watched on television and heard through my window, they lived through.  And a few died.  

Sobering?  It is for me.  Eternity is a breath away for any of us.