Birthday Week

By Charlie

NOTE: This special blog entry is the first Five Snout article to come with musical accompaniment. Download this mp2 file and listen as you read. The music needs no introduction or explanation, but it does come with a story which you will read below.

CLICK HERE FOR THE MUSIC

Part 1: The Diplosluts

I looked down at my shot of vodka and wondered if I would drink it. When I looked up, the Prime Minister of Mongolia was raising his glass. I raised mine to meet his. We toasted and drank.

That was Tuesday night and the first of five excellent parties that I attended last week, which was decreed Birthday Week by the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia.

Had Birthday Week been less hectic, I would have by now completed a lengthy entry about the Prime Minister’s cocktail party and how Jimmy Walker and I crashed it. But birthday celebrations got in the way and this momentous party crash will only get a brief mention.

Jimmy has friends and relatives in high places – and not just in UB. His network of informants tipped him off to the Prime Minister’s party. We put on our suits and walked purposely into the parking lot of the Khan Palace Hotel. As luck would have it, the acting US Ambassador arrived at exactly the same time. We drafted off him and slipped unnoticed into a second floor meeting room.

The UB ambassador corps was in full attendance. All my boyz were there, including the communist contingent representing North Korea, China and Cuba. I would definitely like to throw back a few shots with the North Korean Ambassador, but we don’t have a language in common. The Cuban, on the other hand, speaks excellent English and we talked for 40 minutes while we waited for Prime Minister Enkhbold to show up. The Cuban’s main concern these days is that there is a pernicious wood eating fungus on the loose in his embassy. A major fumigation is needed to save the furniture. There’s a lot more I could say about this guy. He is, I believe, the only active Communist Party member that I have ever met. And he is a true believer who participated in the Cuban Revolution. “So you’ve met Castro over the years?” I asked. “Met him? I have been his representative for over 40 years!” Okay, that was a stupid question.

The Prime Minister was only 40 minutes for his own party. When he finally arrived, his speech was a miserable collection of predictable feel-good proclamations and clichés. It seems that poverty, pollution, corruption and all things bad will be eradicated from Mongolia by the end of the year. There have been protestors in the streets of UB everyday for the past two weeks, but there was no mention of them or their demands. Aside from voicing their opposition to a controversial mining project in the Gobi, these protestors are also calling on the new government (appointed just three months ago) to resign.

There is a word used in UB to describe people like Jimmy and me. Since we so love to hobnob with diplomats, our wives and their allies call us “diplosluts.” And I don’t deny it. When it comes to partying with the ambassador corps, I am a filthy whore.

A much nicer party immediately followed the Prime Minister’s event. It was a going away party for Vandy, Jimmy’s wife.

Part 2: The Keggy’s Walkabout

Thursday was the actual Day of My Birth, which happened to coincide with a semi-regular potluck. We crossed our fingers for some warmer weather, but were seriously disappointed. It was frigid, Mongol style, with temperatures just slightly over 0 degrees F. Grillmeisters Sean (left) and Jimmy had to put on their winter hats to avoid permanent damage from the cold.

They cooked well and the feast was tremendously tasty. Mongolian meat is everything that it is cracked up to be. It doesn’t hurt that this meat was cooked over excellent charcoal made in Mongolia.

We ate two cakes and I opened some presents – including a glove warmer, a Mongolian flag, and a bag of Mongolian rocks.

Things did get out of hand. Vandy (left) and Margaret did a farewell dance, since Vandy was on a plane to Seoul approximately three hours after this picture was taken.

The Keggy did a great job at this party and we managed to drink him dry. This came with the usual side effects, including some affection from Dan, last year’s Mongolia Luce Scholar. That’s Grillmeister Sean, our host, on the right.

Friday could have been an off night, but I chose to keep the momentum going by attending the weekly drinkfest at the British Embassy.

Part 3: In the Khublai VIP Room

Rachel and I started thinking about this party in January. We thought at first that we would host a major extravaganza at an ex-pat lodge in a nearby national park, but that quickly proved to be beyond our means. Then we thought that we would have the event at the neighborhood Korean place, but then I got ill after eating there. We considered having the party at our apartment, but that seemed like a lot of work.

So we eventually ended up in the hands of the delightful staff of the Grand Khan Irish Pub. This the third Irish pub to be built in UB, but it is the only one that could actually be at home in a suburban US strip mall. In other words, it was perfect.

We reserved Khublai VIP Room between 4 and 7 PM. But by 4:05, nobody had arrived. Rachel occupied herself with text messages and I wondered if, in fact, we have no friends in UB.

Then we were surprised by a steady stream of Mongolian friends, all of whom apologized for being 5, 10 or 15 minutes late. One of the early arrivals was our Mongolian teacher, Sovda. She gave me a Mongolian party hat.

The rock star wearing the dark shades in that picture is Zaya. We met her a few weeks ago when we returned from to UB from Cambodia. I was in the midst of negotiating with some sketchy airport taxi drivers when Zaya swooped down and said, “Come with me!” The taxi drivers were pissed to have lost a fare. Zaya was happy to have some American friends to join her on the drive back to town. In exchange for the ride, we bought her 5,000 tugrus worth of gas – about a quarter of a tank.

Another early arrival was this young lad who, at the age of exactly two months, honored my birthday by wearing a tie for the first time in his life.

Joe Nelson was also there, enjoying his last Saturday in UB before escaping to China. Lucky lad!

People ordered drinks from the open bar and people kept coming. It was a wonderful mix of Mongolian and ex-pat friends.

And just before the stroke of 5 PM, the entertainment arrived.

They looked liked typical Mongolian youth, only slightly more scruffy. They staged their equipment on the terrace and then brought it into the Khublai VIP Room.

And in a matter of 5 minutes, the UB youth became an amazing band of traditional Mongolian musicians.

Even as they tuned before the first song, I knew that we were about to be mesmerized. And when the first note came, the room was captivated.

They played seven songs. Their first song is the first mp2 file posted above. I have posted that song because it shows the amazing range of this band and their two extremely tall throat singers. This is the guy with the really deep voice.

Note the official stance with the hands grasping the belt.

Many guests arrived after the music began. They enjoyed the performance from the hallway. That’s Norwegian missionary pilot Jan Tore peeking through the door.

Rachel’s colleague Jimmy helped to organize this wonderful performance. Mongolian Jimmy (left) should not be confused with American Jimmy.

Rachel and Jimmy teach English together at the UB Children’s Palace, where this band is based. They reduced their usual performance fee in acknowledgement of Rachel’s association with the Children’s Palace.

What more can be said about a birthday present of traditional Mongolian music performed by Mongolian youth in the VIP room of an Irish pub in Ulaanbaatar? Very little. The pictures and the music tell the rest of this story.