Viva FIFA!

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months you are well aware that yesterday kicked off the 2010 FIFA World Cup (no pun intended).  Futbol is not the favorite sport in Mongolia, they'd much prefer wrestling (traditional, Sumo or otherwise).  Regardless World Cup is pretty big here this year.  Various beer garden-esque tents have popped up around UB with soccer balls and World Cup logos painted on their sides.  The Prime Minister even called for a curfew extension for all UB bars in light of the upcoming matches (alcohol still limited to midnight or earlier).  I'm not usually one to follow sports, but I'm pretty keen on watching soccer and thus have been pretty excited for the next month's festivities. 

So for the first game of South Africa versus Mexico I joined my friend Batmunkh and his "home-boys," as he put it, to watch the match on the big screen.  I ate dinner with the Spring 2010 SIT students prior to and took the bus into city center to meet Batmunkh.  He said we were going to meet his friends behind the central library, but when we arrived I was a tad surprised by the venue.  A large, colorful circus tent had been erected in an empty space between apartment buildings.  Through the gaping flaps I could see a smoky haze over a gathering of people all facing the west end, their faces aglow green of the Johannesburg stadium's grassy field.  We walked in and met a group of his friends, ordered a few Jalam Khar beers and sat back for the game.

At one point Batmunkh leaned over to me to ask if I wanted to bet on the winner.  "How much?" I asked.

"How much do you have?" he replied.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out 100 togrog (about 7 US cents) leftover from my bus fare and showed it to him.  "Which team are you rooting for?" I asked.

"Ladies first."  So, for sake of home-field advantage, I placed my 100₮ on the table for South Africa hoping to double my money at the end of the night.  No shortage of excitement nor jollity were present throughout the match, but I had no such luck.  When the match ended in a draw half the crowd started to disperse and only the die hard fans (or those too inebriated to walk home) remained, planning to sit out the next two hours to wait for Uruguay and France to take the field.

While I would have loved to stay for the next match I was thoroughly exhausted and my eyes were burning from the lofting cigarette smoke.  So after saying my goodbyes I returned home for the night beginning to recognize that World Cup probably would not be conducive to my work these next couple of weeks.

Mongolian Bling

Today was the start of the American Center for Mongolian Studies' (ACMS)Second Annual Conference sponsored by the Luce Foundation. The topic this year is "Cultural Practices in Post-Soviet Mongolia" and the ACMS has invited several educated speakers to discuss their work regarding the arts, language and religion in relation to identity shifts following the 1990 revolution. Today featured a keynote address by University of Cambridge scholar Dr. Carole Pegg and a panel discussion on the arts such as khoomii, or traditional throat singing, and ballet. The evening followed up with the first public screening of the documentary film, "Mongolian Bling" at the Khaan Bank Theater.

I had actually met the Australian writer, director and producer of the film, Benj Binks, a week ago at the Ozomatli concert.  When I asked him what he was doing in-country he said he was producing a documentary film on the Mongolian hip-hop culture.  Having heard the NPR story (although in retrospect of this film, while NPR called it a feature it should really be called a brief) and having heard a lot of the music in my time spent in Mongolia I was thoroughly intrigued by his project.  He mentioned he was screening it at a conference the following week and when we connected over the upcoming ACMS event I went into a state of anticipation that was only relieved tonight.

Binks said that idea for the film started to manifest in 2007 when he came to Mongolia with a few friends and limited understanding of the Mongolian hip hop scene.  He filmed 120 hours in three months time and discovered a network of characters all worthy of attention, thus, Binks and his team continued to shoot the film over the past three years.

"Mongolian Bling" chronicles the uprising of hip hop since the early 90s and the collapse of socialism. It follows three primary hip hop artists, Quiza, Gee and Gennie, (as Binks put it, a commercial, an underground, and an upcoming rapper) to illustrate the story.  They tell how hip hop has enabled them to express their opinions about the government, its corrupt policies and neglect to the Mongolian people.  It's also served as a tool to reach youth whereby they can promote their Mongolian heritage and history to a group that may be becoming an apathetic generation.  Moreover, the film introduces a slew of aspiring and/or inspired artists, many still in secondary school, who wrote about societal issues like alcoholism in addition to the government.

The artists words and messages were passionate and powerful and I think the film has the definite potential to put modern Mongolian culture on the global radar.  But I think what really made the film great was its investigation into the unique juxtaposition of Mongolian hip hop and traditional culture, noting distinct parallels between the two.  For instance, a shaman interviewed in the film said how shamanism has made hip hop possible and inspired a lot of its characters.  He noted the similarities between shaman dances and rappers' movements, which are sharp and quick like an imitation of the animals, and an ability for both shamans and rappers to say a lot of words on just one breath. 

Despite a few technical difficulties the screening was impressive and very well received by the audience.  Binks said he expects the formal screening to occur at the end of the year.

Ozomatli

My neighbor Stephanie knocked on my door on Friday evening asking if I was busy for the night. Apparently the L.A. born band Ozomatli was playing a concert on Sukhbaatar Square (reportedly the first American band to play such a venue) and a whole group of ex-pats were going. We went to Budweiser, a pub off the square, for a nice, cold Chinggis while The Lemons were playing an opening set and set off to the square during the intermission. The square was already heavily populated with a wide age-range of Mongolians. There were about four successive ropes orbiting the stage and we managed to get under two before we settled. The last two kept about twenty meters between the stage and the crowd--a lot of empty space for a concert...

It was a pick-pocketer's dream: the start of the tourist season and a huge crowd of people packed tightly together. I left everything but my house key and about $3 at home and watched as several young boys situated themselves between a few of my friends and I slyly unzipping purse pockets and backpacks. I pushed aside the ones that I saw, but I'm sure they made out pretty well that night.

Ozomatli, who according to one of the fans in our group, was finishing a world tour and stopped into UB on their way back to L.A. Whatever brought them to Mongolia, however, was not enough incentive to get them to learn a few key phrases in Mongolian and as such their entire show was a trifle hilarious. The music was pretty good, but their requests for the crowd to jump, shout or repeat certain words yielded only the response of the small group of Peace Corps volunteers happily dancing as if they hadn't been to a concert in 26 months. As hard as Ozomatli tried and as many charades as they attempted, the crowd just couldn't translate their requests.

At one point they had a few members of the famous Moriin Khuur ensemble come out for few a jam sessions. While the language of music may lessen the impact of any cultural barriers it still took them a few failed attempts before they got into a groove. The back and forth with Ozomatli's lead singer and one of Mongolia's famous throat singers was particularly entertaining.

The band finished their set, took a bow, thanked the crowd for their welcoming, albeit confused cheers and left the stage. At this point even the hard of hearing could figure out where in the crowd the Westerners were as the traditional encore cheering was only sparsely heard. The rest of the Mongolians surrounding me began pulling out their mobile phones and leaving the square. And as the cheering started to die out I wondered if an encore would even happen. Is it too much of a blow to the ego for a band to come out with a weak encore request? But one of the evening's emcees came out onto stage and began to plead for the crowd's cheers. She explained (in Mongolian) that Ozomatli wanted to hear their hoorah. Once she rallied enough support and those who had started to leave turned back around the band re-emerged on the stage. The lead singer prefaced their song with a request which, this time, was promptly translated: everyone jump. And that's all it took--just some translation. The encore was good and the crowd finally connected with the group. A few beloved (and admittedly adorable) Mongolian kids even took the stage to jump along with them.

We went to a pub following the show for a few beers and the night turned into te recital of many (most being non-pc) jokes. One of my favorites was delivered by a Mongolian friend of the group:

There's an American, a Frenchman and Mongolian stranded on this desert island and they come across this interesting looking bottle. They rub the bottle and this genie appears and says "because you have released me I will grant you each three wishes."

The American says: 1) I wish I were back home in America. 2) I wish was rich. 3) I wish I was famous. The genie then grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

The Frenchman says the same: 1) I wish I were back home in France. 2) I wish I were rich. 3) I wish I were famous. So the genie grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

So now only the Mongolian and the genie are left. The genie says "okay, now it's your turn. What three wishes do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while and then says, "I wish I had some vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and the Mongolian gets a bottle of vodka.

When he finishes the bottle the genie says to him, "okay, well you still have two more wishes. What do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while looking out at the ocean surrounding him and then says, "I wish this ocean was vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and turns the ocean into vodka.

While he's drinking the ocean the genie starts to get anxious and says, "okay, come on, what is your third wish going to be?"

The Mongolian sits down and thinks some more. Then in a slurred reply he says, "well I can't drink this all by myself. So I wish for those other two guys would come back here to help me."

Mongolian Immigration Registration

U.S. citizens staying in Mongolia for less than 90 days don't need to obtain a visa before entering the country. But I found out last week that foreigners staying in country for less than 90 days, but more than 30 days have to register with the Mongolian Immigration Office, lest they get stopped, held and/or fined upon attempted exit. This registry must happen within seven days of arrival and I had about three days left when I found out. Phew. Said immigration office is in a shiny new building located several kilometers away from UB's city center. Convenient, absolutely. It would be at least a thirty dollar taxi ride out and back which I wasn't enthralled about. Luckily my neighbor recalled that I can take the bus, "I think it's the number eleven?"

I had two days left to register, so I thought if the first day turned out to be a failure for taking the wrong bus or some other mis-step it wouldn't be the end of the world (or result in an exit fine). So I hopped the number 11 near the flower center a few blocks from my apartment cautiously carrying any and all important documents that the immigration office might like to see (their website was down and thus their list of '"things to bring'" was unavailable) hoping to return with legal status.

I didn't exactly know where I was going so once we skirted the city limits I kept my eyes out for any building that looked official. I got off the bus near the new sports stadium that's still under construction and wandered through some empty fields (with the exception of some milkweed, which my allergy loved...) towards the only building in a three kilometer radius that could possibly house immigration. Sure enough it was a success.

I won't bore you with the details of the registration process. I will only say that it took me three hours and the wait felt somewhat like this.

Hoorah! I'm legal now.

Mother and Children's Day

Yesterday was Mother and Children's Day, a national holiday in Mongolia that occurs annually on June 1st. The day of celebration is a variant of International Children's Day which was proclaimed in 1925 at the World Conference for the Well-being of Children. I had heard that in UB the festivities would start at 11am on Sukhbaatar Square, but I didn't quite know what to expect.

I had fallen asleep after a much appreciated early morning skype date only to be awoken an hour later by horns, yelling and cheering. I looked out the window of my new apartment (which is a hop, skip and jump away from State Department Store) to see a long parade passing by along Peace Avenue. I grabbed my camera and headed down to see more.

I followed the parade down to Sukhbaatar Square which was packed with people. Multiple stages had been erected for dancing, singing and contortion performances and vendors had set up shop selling everything from sea buckthorn juice to umbrellas to games and toys. One particularly entrepreneurial pair set up game where for 500₮ you got three chances to knock over a pyramid of old paint cans with a ball of packing tape.

The music, games and celebration echoed across the city until dusk. I suspect that it would have gone longer, but the strong gusts of an evening dust storm chased most of the families home.