Horses, camels, cows/yaks, goats and sheep
by Rachel Mongolians count their winter with the nine nines. These are nine groups of nine days, beginning on the winter solstice, that mark the span of winter. The third and the fourth nines are usually the coldest, but I am afraid this year breaks with tradition. We are now well into the 5th nine, […]
Continue ReadingBy Rachel Thankfully my annoying stomach ailment moved on in time for me to have my own Tsaagan Sar experience. Today, the third day of Tsaagan Sar, I went to the home of the oldest person who works at MEA. Silly me asked if they take turns hosting the work people each year, but oh […]
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By Charlie I dragged myself to work today in frigid temperatures and was surprised to find half of my colleagues dressed in their finest traditional Mongolian dels. I felt hopelessly underdressed in my un-pressed purple shirt and green corduroys. My office mates spent the early morning sitting around our meeting table, regaling each other with […]
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By Charlie Thank God for Scotch Whiskey. The usual drink of the Mongolian New Year is vodka, but Mongolians seem to appreciate a fine Scotch. This fact made my first Tsaagan Sar pleasant, if not somewhat inebriated. Tsaagan Sar means White Month. It is the lunar new year celebration. You’ve heard about the Chinese New […]
Continue ReadingBy Charlie It is just before 10 AM on Monday morning. Rachel and I are sipping coffee, watching the BBC, sitting around in our pajamas and reading the torrent of wonderful e-mails that we received overnight from so many friends back home. These e-mails were all responses to the mass e-mail we sent recently announcing […]
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By Charlie When in Shanghai, be sure to visit the Planning Museum so that you can study this: Also, when disposing of Pernicious Garbage, please be certain to use the correct Special Reclamation Orifice. And when you return to Mongolia, be ready to take a bath in some of the nastiest water ever to come […]
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By Charlie We could be spending this year eating our way through Asia. From Thai, to Vietnamese, to the many tastes of Chinese food, there is a great variety of delicacies on this continent. Sadly, the good food never made it to Mongolia. There is no other way to put it: Mongolian food is just […]
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by Rachel Last week Charlie and I took a brief vacation from Mongolia and ventured back south to China. We stopped for one night in Beijing, visited Jason and Lauren and revisited our love affair with Chinese food. Then we headed to unexplored territory: Shanghai. This was promised as the city of the future, and […]
Continue ReadingBy Charlie [I wrote this on the weekend of January 13-14, right after the dual collapse of the Mongolian government and our old blog host, blogzy.com.] It snowed on Wednesday night, hours after members of the Mongolian People’s Revolution Party walked out of Parliament. The next day, the big ticker at the Government Weather Office […]
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By Rachel One of the benefits of a poor postal system is that Christmas could well last three or four months here. Some packages get delivered to the Asia Foundation office. The rest of the time we have to go to the Tuv Shuudan, or Central Post Office. A few Mondays ago we appeared with […]
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