Is Femininity a Feminist’s Enemy?: Feminist Performativity between Berlin and Mongolia

First of all, I haven’t updated in a while, because I am no longer in Mongolia. Considering that this is a blog about gender in Mongolia, it is difficult to write about it when you are not there and immersed in it!  And although I miss it massively, I have to spend the next year in the West writing more concentrated and academically about my experiences (something I will post here when I am done!). That said, I am planning to be back in Mongolia next summer and will see where life takes me from there, but until then… I have to unfortunately stop writing in this blog. I am very sad about this considering that it has thousands of hits from people all over the world (who are you people?!??!) who are apparently interested in gender, feminist anthropology and Mongolia and that is incredible! So, I hope you read again when I revisit this blog in a year or so (which I will do – I promise… my time with gender in Mongolia is not over). Thanks for reading! <3 <3 <3

ok, last post.

******

I am back in Berlin and I got called a “Püppchen” today.

Püppchen??!!!

While riding around Berlin on my black men’s racing bike and grunting at people to get out of the bike lane, I got called a diminutive form of the word ‘doll’ and an image of myself listlessly propped against a wall, legs splayed, devoid of a voice, empty smile sewn into my frozen face flashed before my eyes. I knew I shouldn’t have put that eye makeup on today…

Seeking my refuge in the coffee shop that was my destination, I arrived and jumped off my bike to the immediate attention of a few well-dressed men.  The male gaze that confronted me hit me like a wave of ice water.  I realized something that I had largely taken for granted in Mongolia: As a white woman, I had been (relatively) free of the constraints of a male sexualized gaze.  My white skin shone like a beacon and blinded any other considerations of my appearance; I could largely do, say or wear anything and I was still a foreigner.  Most Mongolian men did not look at me as a possible partner, because my ‘otherness’ made me fall out of the scope of potentiality.  And thus, I felt relatively free in my body and appearance.

I miss how liberating that was… despite how twisted.

As I approached that coffee shop, I realized my year of non-sexualized corporal freedom was over.  My white skin does not (fully) protect me now; suddenly the small things on my body – my gait, my choice of makeup, my short skirt or my knee-length skirt, a black shirt or a tank top – lend credence to ‘view’ me, appropriate my body, categorize me… I feel like a walking billboard.

Being A Feminine Feminist

I am no raggedy ann!!!

Being called a doll evokes images of perfectly prepared, exaggerated femininity: clichés of airheads afraid to break manicured nails and giggling way too long at jokes that aren’t funny. These clichés fly in the face of everything about me that I think is feminist, but I refuse to let the sexualized gaze and femininity clichés I now encounter drive me to trade in my nail polish for a mohawk (although I could do both!).  Encountering so many awesomely strong, independent, intelligent – and very feminine – feminists in Mongolia has made me have a lot of critical reflections of what it means to be a feminist woman and how culturally shaped even this –ism can be.

Before going to Mongolia, I went through a phase where I decided I needed to trade in my various hair colors, prominent piercings and ripped clothing – completely acceptable in the Berliner context – for something less ‘shocking’ since I didn’t know what type of people I would be encountering. Walking into my first meeting of self-proclaimed, Mongolian feminists, I guess I was expecting to encounter a group that somewhat represented what I had left back home.  Walking into this group of highly stylish, fashion-forward, high-heel touting, cosmopolitan reading, brand name bag wearing, (occasionally) surgically operated women was not what I expected.

“Am I in the right place?” I asked myself.

Feminists can be dogmatic, too.

A few years ago after moving into my first leftist Berliner collective, I invited a friend of mine – who had been a former model – to my house to work on homework.  She was superficially involved in very different things then I was, but we got along very well and she was interested in the concept of my new residence.  We planned to work and then jointly eat with the rest of the collective, but those plans took a sour note when she entered wearing high-heels.  I tried to warn her (“…wear black and not too much make-up…”), but even I was shocked by the reaction she received.  The entire time and throughout dinner, nobody spoke a word to her.

Being myself completely aware – as a researcher of body ideals – what high-heels symbolically represent it is still completely unfair and generalized to conflate a woman’s personal choice to wear high-heels with complacency in oppression.

Coming from this background, I admittedly had to squelch my first impulse that this sexualized, femme fatale, “Sex and the City”-esque form of feminism I encountered in Mongolia was ‘wrong.’ How could embracing consumption and hyper-femininity be liberating?

Different means to reach a globalized end.

Feminism, like any other belief system, is historically and culturally specific.  In other posts I wrote about how Mongolia was the second Soviet country in the world, about the antipathy in Mongolia towards China, and also about the rigid gender divide in the Mongolian countryside, which all contribute to gender relations and feminism in Mongolia.

The ‘New’ Woman

This quote from an Inner Mongolian Cambridge anthropologist describes well two streams of political thought that exist in contemporary Mongolian society but developed during the socialist era: a tension between looking to the ‘ancient Mongolian’ past (Genghis Khan, pastoral, traditional culture, etc.) or to the ‘modern European’ future for inspiration.

“Mongolian nationalism during the socialist period was characterized by a tension between a desire for development towards a Soviet-oriented civilization and the wish to develop a national culture. The traditional identity was being transformed into the concept of a socialist ‘new Mongol’…This change of identity which had its background in the difficult relations with the Chinese, lent the Mongols the political and nationalist enthusiasm to deny themselves their oriental identity, and instead strive to be a ‘Western’ nation…(Sanders 1987:4-5)” (16).

As a result of the Soviet pressure to ‘modernize,’ a new stream of thought developed that pit itself against the old, ancient and Asian (also due to antipathy towards China): a ‘new Mongol’ who was Europeanized, modern, middle-class, educated, and progressive.  This philosophical stream still exists; only the criteria of modernity have changed to reflect free-market democracy.

This concept of the ‘new Mongol,’ and by extension a ‘new Mongolian Woman,’ was mirrored in my research regarding beauty ideals.  I saw different streams of beauty concepts that mirrored this philosophical divide; women alternatively look to ‘classic Mongolian’ and/or to ‘modern European’ concepts of beauty and try to balance the two.  And in the realm of plastic surgery, caucasianized beauty standards, and individualism through consumption, embracing these traits is a way of externally reflecting the ‘new Mongolian woman;’ the progressive, career-oriented, independent, educated, Europeanized, modern Mongolian woman.

In the context of traditional, rigid gender divides and the soviet mandate to curtail personal choice for the collective, to be an individual, making personal choices to buy products for yourself, to be able to earn your own money, and to express your femininity and sexuality (through reading Cosmopolitan magazine or in your appearance) is new and reactionary to the socialist era.  To express femininity is to be proud of your uniqueness.  To be an individual is revolutionary.

Feminism is culturally relative

Each form of feminism is a reaction to the specific cultural and historically circumstances and can take on many guises.  Although I think the hyper-sexualized appearance of urban Mongolian women can also be a limitation, I myself learned that I had to think twice as a white, Western feminist to understand that feminism can have multiple contexts, forms and shapes.  My form of feminism is not necessarily yours.  My history is not your history.

Thus, being back in the Berliner context, I notice keenly how one item – say nail polish – is culturally encoded and received completely differently based on where I am. The same nail polish that might be a representation of my individuality or agency in one context, gets me called a doll – a disenfranchised, objectified mute – in another.  A skirt in one context might be an expression of pro-sexuality liberation or a representation of commodified objectification.  It might help me relate to and understand women in one country, but bar me from entering feminist circles in another.

Somewhere between butch and ‘beautiful’

One of my research informants – a female Mongolian writer – told me about her own personal transformation from butch to stereotypical beautiful (again: culturally specific) a few years ago as a representation of her shift in her feminist approach.  She wrote about women and as such realized that by being feminine externally (and not necessarily internally) she had much more access to the women around her and to the female world in society.  She was proud to be a woman, and thus did not want to negate her femininity to emulate masculinity.  I myself noticed in my research that being more feminine in appearance opened up avenues to more anthropological informants, made them relax more, and allowed me to engage women on more levels.

Really there is no right way.  I was critical of hyper-femininity in Mongolia, but being back in Berlin makes me feel like the pendulum swung to the opposite pole, which isn’t much better and is just as limiting to other types of women.  And the onslaught of stereotypes, objectifying gazes, and belittling phrases towards feminized women in Berlin and Mongolia offer just as many surfaces to challenge gender norms in both mainstream and leftist culture as gender-bending does.  Besides… it confuses all those pundits who want to stamp feminists as ugly, baby-killing witches (as the Pat Robertson quote goes).

So, I’m gonna continue wearing my nail-polish, thank you! And still grunt at you to get out of my freaking bike lane.

No More than a Womb: A Woman’s Role Amongst Mongolian Nazis, Nationalism and Sinophobia

I suppose this is an entry that is long overdo. Despite the fact that I am now on the beach in Vietnam, have traversed several countries by train in the last few weeks, and am geographically veryveryvery far away from the windswept, bone-chilling sandstorms of the Mongolian spring, I am still writing about this country.

Before I get started, I wanted to explicitely state my intentions in writing this article: to point to the dangers, from a feminist woman’s perspective, of feeding the fires of extreme nationalism and/or ethnic blood superiority rhetoric. I by no means want to say that all Mongolians think this way; I am simply saying that these tendencies exist in contemporary Mongolian culture and why I perceive them to be limiting and dangerous. There are all types of people in Mongolia, just like everywhere else!

The reason I have been brooding over this particular issue recently – the issue of racism towards the Chinese, Mongolian nationalism and patriarchy- is an incident I experienced recently while in Beijing:

A few days after leaving Mongolia by train (and internally coping with the feeling of loss that came with it), I was trying to get back to my hostel after going to a bar late at night on the other end of town (and Beijing is a big town!). Unbeknownst to me, the trains stop around 11, so I ended up with a friend on the side of a freeway trying to flag down a cab. We weren’t alone; several others had also been ousted by the train schedule and were trying to get home.

I guess living in Asia has made me pretty good at recognizing face structures, cause I can now pretty much pick a Mongolian out of a crowd. And down the line a few meters from me was a man speaking English and not Chinese like the rest. I knew immediately that he was Mongolian and walked up to him to ask where he was going and if he wanted to share a cab.

“Ta Mongol hun uu?” I asked and the look on his face was priceless. Guess it wasn’t everyday that a white woman walked up to him and spoke Mongolian. We exchanged basic pleasantries and introductions, but that was all ruined by the following:

While my Mongolian counterpart hadn’t been looking, a cab had pulled up next to us. But, instead of waiting, a Chinese man who had been standing nearby got in the cab. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with this, since we had been talking and distracted. But once the Mongolian man noticed, he lost it:

“Get out you stupid fag***!” he yelled in English. “You stupid Chinese f***,” I am the blood of Genghis Khan, not like you you stupid, weak Chinese!”

He was flipping out. The Chinese dude in the car and the man standing next to me were screaming at each other. The Mongolian man kept yelling about him having the blood of the great, strong Genghis Khan, in contrast to his weak, ‘infertile’ Chinese counterpart. The man in the cab flicked the Mongolian off and sped away.

During this exchange a different cab pulled up. My friend and I quickly jumped in and left the racist Mongolian man behind still no better off than he had been 10 minutes beforehand…

But the entire thing left a very sour taste in my mouth. What a statement this Mongolian man is making about Mongolian culture while being in a foreign country! What an exchange laced with blood-based, fertility-laden allegories of national superiority.. yuck! If you hate China so much, why are you even IN China?

I had to write about it.

***

Sinophobia, or racism and/or hatred of Chinese culture and ethnicity, resonates very strongly with many Mongolians.  While traveling through the countryside during research (initially) on nutrition, herders would repeatedly tell me that they don’t trust fruit, because all fruit is from China and thus poisoned.  When I first came to Mongolia six years ago, gangs of orphans used to roam the streets of UB and accost travelers for money.  These gangs are conspicuously absent now with many people claiming that these kids have been taken by the Chinese and shipped off into the Chinese organ trade.  And, obviously due to the Chinese government’s usurpation tendencies, Mongolians fear that the Chinese propaganda machine will eventually turn its gaze to the wide and (mostly empty) Mongolian steppe.

This deep-seated dislike towards the Chinese did not solely arise on its own.  Rhetoric propagated by the Soviet Union in attempts to keep the Mongol nation from getting stronger played a large role in defining what contemporary Mongolians conceive as as “Mongolian.”  As I read in this article recently:

“In the first years of the existence of the [Mongolian] nation (note: which was founded in 1921), Mongols expressed a strong desire to create a Greater Mongolia that would include ethnically Mongolian regions of both China and Russia (Inner Mongolia and Buryatia respectively). The Russians were wary of the emergence of such a large political entity and they appealed to various tactics to create distance between the Mongols of the Republic of Mongolia and other Mongolian groups. As a result of these policies Mongolianness has come to take on a very narrow interpretation… Throughout the Socialist period, the notion of Chinese threat was routinely mobilised by the Russians for political reasons.”

So, although fears of economic dependence on China maybe legitimate and have a historical basis (I mean what country is NOT dependent on China?), many of these rumors are dramatized to serve a different purpose.  I asked the Mongolian National Nutrition Center about the fruit fears, which did chemical tests on Mongolian fruit and found out that the rumor regarding the poor quality of Chinese fruit entering Mongolia is simply not true.  It’s just an excuse to not eat fruit, but it proves a valuable point behind a lot of the stories and rumors circulating about the Chinese in Mongolian popular culture.  Hatred of the Chinese has proven to be a very good rallying cry to unite Mongolians in this unstable, increasingly globalizing world. Furthermore, it upholds ‘traditional’ patriarchal Mongolian culture at a time when women are questioning the traditional gender divide, and has led to the growing sympathy behind and rise of Mongolian ultra-nationalist groups like Dayar Mongol (whose flag prominently features a giant swastika), Blue Mongol and White Swastika.

Thus, it was super interesting to get into multiple conversations with the Chinese I encountered on my travels regarding Mongolia.  The Chinese citizens I talked to knew virtually nothing about their northern neighbor, except for one line in the official history book that stated that Mongolia used to be part of China. Considering how much time Mongolians spend talking about China it is odd to hear how little the Chinese think about them.

Woman = Womb, Man = Mongolianness

Mongolian nationalism plays upon already hyper-masculine Mongolian cultural tendencies and is especially appealing to young Mongolian men.

Setting politics aside for anthropology, if you look at any patrilineal society – a society in which a woman joins the man’s household upon marriage and inheritance is conveyed through the male’s family – a woman’s prime function becomes the continuation of the male bloodline.  Reproduction of male heirs is elevated and becomes a woman’s raison d’être in order to continue the male lineage. Thus, the preference in many societies for male children.

A Western vestigial of this patrilineal inheritance is the acquisition of the husband’s name upon marriage (which obviously still exists). In Mongolia, children get their father’s first name, which is then put before their own name… but the meaning is the same. According to ultra-nationalist rhetoric, you are your father’s child. You are of his blood. Your mother was just the carrier.

I also carried the weight of this distinction when I tried to define myself as half-American, half-German to Mongolians using the Mongolian word эрлийз (“erliiz”).  ’Erliiz’ refers to mixed-heritage children and could be translated as half-blood, which doesn’t sound so nice in whatever language you translate it into (i.e. Mongolian women calling me ‘Mischling’ while speaking to me in German).  The question that initially shocked me and subsequently irritated me was when I would be asked, after proclaiming my ‘erliiz’-ness, where my father came from.  I came to realize that my mother’s lineage was of secondary importance, and that my heritage was mostly defined through my father, something that irritated me and made me feel like my right to define my own identity (and those of any hypothetical children of mine) was being removed.

But this makes sense from a patrilineal and patriarchal societal standpoint.  Because lineage is passed down through the father’s line and children belong to that line the really only important ethnic marker of a child’s heritage is the father’s sperm.  And women become empty wombs without ethnic/national/identity markers.

A personal anecdote from my own life: The woman = womb, man = ethnicity standpoint is not new.  The reason my siblings, who are 20 years older than I am, do not have German citizenship is because of an antiquated German citizenship law that only allowed German heritage to be passed down through the father’s line.  Because my siblings only had a German mother – a non-ethnic ‘womb’ – they weren’t granted citizenship.  Just an example from Western culture of the same tendency, which points to being rooting in patrilineal/patriarchal nationalist societies that turn women into male heir, bloodline reproducers and remove their rights to their children (*cough*Nazis*cough*).  This law was revised in 1974.

The Extinction Myth

Mongolian Neo-Nazi Scenesters doing the Hitler Salute at a Metal Concert: One friend of mine who used to be in the scene told me that they just think it looks cool... at least that's why he used to do the Hitler greeting at concerts.

Nothing seems to unite contesting groups more than the idea of a joint enemy.  And China looms in the Mongolian cultural consciousness like a feral specter in the distance ready to pounce at the next available opportunity.  And this fear that China (and other foreigners) will one day take over and wipe the map clean of Mongolia has created a nationalist backlash.

I, myself, ended up at some pretty dodgy nationalist concerts while in Mongolia and I often felt unsafe.  However, my status as a white woman seemed to be less of a threat (although not completely safe, I am not an ethnic (sperm) driven threat to nationalist groups).  Thus, when the Mongolian man in Beijing was screaming at the taxi-caper culprit, he kept alluding to the superiority of his sperm, bloodline and thus strength, in comparison to the supposed weakness and infertility of the Chinese man.

I had the opportunity to see quite a few Dayar Mongol protests on Sukhbaatar Square at the end of last year.  The following statement from the organizations head, D. Gansuren, illustrates the extinction myth that feeds nationalist groups; the fear of loosing the bloodline and the need to defend the motherland against the evil invading foreigners:

“We should never forget that Mongolia was a powerful and great world empire. However, high ranking officials are corrupted and giving the land to the foreigners now. It should be mentioned that Mongolians are being beaten and yielded by foreigners who hire the Mongolians at lower wages. Let them do slave work in their own country. The ancestors of Mongolia did not sacrifice their lives to their enemy in order give the land to foreigners. That’s why I wish Mongolians would learn and have good examples from genius kings (referring to the Mongolian khans).  Also they should follow the slogans of the kings, regarded as superior for the Mongolian heritage. We wanted to reawaken nationalistic views to the public through protest. The swastika symbolizes peace, firm, forever and long life.” (an entry regarding the Mongolian meaning of the swastika is another post…)

My Body Belongs to… Genghis Khan?

A gender juxtaposition thus results from the sentiments of blood, ethnic and sperm-based superiority: If you are a in-group woman dating a foreign man, you are creating foreign children and thus a traitor. But an in-group man can date a foreign woman and have children without any repercussions.  The children that result from such a union have the sperm of the father and are thus of the in-group.

A French woman having her head shaved after sleeping with a German.

A Mongolian woman gets her head shaved by Dayar Mongol after sleeping with a Chinese man.

Resultingly, Dayar Mongol publically announced that any woman found sleeping with a Chinese man would have her head shaved (mimicking what the French did to young women who had slept with German soldiers during WWII and what Germans did with young women who had slept with non-Aryans).  Many of my foreign friends had to be super vigilant while walking around with a Mongolian-looking woman (didn’t matter if she was actually Mongolian), and most Caucasian men dating Mongolian women can’t go out in UB with their significant other for fears of getting beaten up.  However, I had no problem dating Mongolian men; in fact, it was widely encouraged by everyone I met and I was even asked if I wanted to have ‘Mongol babies’ (I do not.).

A great quote by Undarya Tumursukh encapsulates the dangers of extreme nationalism regarding a woman’s agency:

“Nationalisms turn the control of women, their bodies, and their sexuality into a matter of national importance by defining patriarchy as the core of national identity” (you can find her article here).

Mongolian Sinophobia uses reactionist fear to uphold a patriarchal tradition that limits a woman’s role to a reproductive function, and, due to the need for ethnic preservation, regulates who she can sleep with and defines whose children she bares.  No wonder all the pictures of Dayar Mongol are solely of young men!

I remember the first time while living with a nomadic herder family in Bayankhongor that the father of the family came up to his kids and grabbed his 2-year old son’s penis in a loving way.  He shook it, laughed and looked at me and went “mongol.. MONGOL!” as if to tell me that this boy’s member was the key to the continuation of the Mongolian nation.   I have seen this repeated in different families several times since.   This scene has taken on a completely new meaning for me.

Culture Clashes Part I: Collectivism vs. Individualism

This is a narrative on the insanity that is my life.

I just came back yesterday after spending five days with Zaya in two of the most eastern Mongolian aimags (aimag is a state equivalent) collecting a survey on body image.  I will write about that survey later (which is super interesting!), but this post is about me dealing with the absurdity of culture when I –a white, western woman- travel with Mongolians or alone through the Mongolian countryside.

The other side of the absolutely amazing experiences and time I have spent with some of the most remote people left on this earth is that I find myself very frequently incredibly irritated and/or confused by things these same people do.  I know this has to do with culture; there are just some behaviors and tendencies that have been ingrained in me since birth that clash with Mongolian culture.  Despite what the tomes of anthropological theory would have you think, no cultural adaptation can ever erase my white skin and my feminist, individualist (that each person’s rights are equal and should not be infringed upon – not in the neo-conservatism sense) leftism.

So, I decided I wanted to do a few posts on aspects of cultural particularities that either irritate me, fascinate me, or both (which is the most common).

Collectivism vs. Individualism

One of the more interesting for me, sometimes exciting, sometimes draining, aspects of Mongolian culture is its focus on the collective and the stipulation of putting your own personal needs and space second to the multitude.

Considering I have spent the majority of my life either in North America or Europe, the concept of individuality is one that has been rammed down my throat since day one.  The foundations of Western society (I think I can safely generalize on this one) revolve around the idea that each person is in individual with independent thought, ability, and desire.  So, what’s a girl to do when she lands in a collectivist society, where the thinking of her own needs first is not encouraged?

Even in the Mongolian language, a word for private space or sphere does not exist.  The closest description in Mongolian is the phrase “хувиа хичээх,” (huvia hicheeh) which essential means egocentrism.  Mongolian society is still largely a kinship-based, collectivist society (in the city it is less but still persistent) and that means most actions taken are enacted with the interests and repercussions on others, family, and not only the self in mind.

For me in my life in this country, this has cool aspects and bad aspects. 

The extension of collectivist thinking is that there is no private sphere, which includes physical, mental, and emotional privacy.  People historically lived in yurts/gers, where everything was done in a very very small space, so there was never any room for yours and mine.  Physically, people touch each other, hold hands, bump into each other, sit practically on you in tight spaces and get crammed together frequently.

I have woken up on several occasions in the countryside, like this weekend, cuddled by countryside men, which always jolts me awake.  After initially getting freaked out by these occurrences, I learned from others that these were very platonic attempts to keep warm.  Beds exist but are hard to move and most people sleep on the floor, so these cuddle attacks are only people trying to make the shared space nicer and warmer.  In busses, when packed like sardines for a long ride, my lap has been used as a pillow without my consent on a couple occasions, I have slept on other people, my shoulder is frequently up for grabs, and I have learned that I just have to abandon the idea that I have a private sphere around my body that is not encroached upon.  But it still bewilders me sometimes.

Even in relationships with others the abstract idea of mental privacy is a shadowy area.  The equivalent of “how are you” in Mongolian text messages is “yu hiij baina” (what are you doing?), which is quite innocuous until you start dating a Mongolian man who writes you seven times a day to ask you what you are doing (a tendency that has quickly ended most of my relationships with Mongolian men).  Last week while in the countryside, Zaya’s boyfriend wrote her over 300 text messages one day (she didn’t even blink an eye at this… this would be a relationship killer for me).  Simply the concept that everything you do is not shared with either your family or in your close personal relationships is not self-evident.

One of the cooler aspects of Mongolian collectivism is the openness to strangers (if you are Mongolian –this doesn’t always include foreigners) and sharing that results from it.  Although this can occasionally irritate me – for example, yesterday morning when an old man in the bus was thirsty so he grabbed the closest bottle, mine, and drank half of it – I generally really enjoy the increased sharing of Mongolians.  On long bus rides, frequently anything that is opened by anyone can be shared by anyone.  The idea that mine is yours is really prevalent and can be traced back to the nomadic lifestyle.

Historically, Mongolians had to travel a lot (obviously, they are nomads) and very large distances on horseback.  People were thus dependent on total strangers for yurts to sleep in and thus the tradition developed that any foreigner who entered a Mongolian household needed to be offered tea and food.

So, last week Zaya and I found a car from one aimag to another by standing at a gas station until we met a person who called a friend to drive us.  When we arrived in the following aimag after the 6-hour drive, we discovered that all of the hotel rooms in the entire area were full because of a conference.  So, the driver, who was distantly related to one hotel owner (of COURSE he is… oh the smallness of Mongolia) asked the hotel owner if we could sleep in his apartment.  And so we spent the next two days in the hotel owners’ apartment who shared all of their food and drink with us… and we chased after their kids like we were members of the family.  Mongolians are incredibly ready to open their home to any distant relative or friend of a friend traveling and feel obligated to give that person any food, drink or accommodation they require.  Their home becomes yours and I do love that about the collectivist nature of Mongolia.

Even when Zaya and I had to hitchhike back from one nomadic camp a few months ago, we knew that if we didn’t get a ride, we would just sleep on the floor of the nearest yurt.  <3

So, essentially, my getting pushed and pulled, sat on, my stuff being touched and used by strangers, me getting 20 texts a day from dates, NEVER being alone, living in tiny spaces with 10 people, having to share with everyone, and being quiet in certain situations because of the interests of others are all things that can potentially be very very very irritating to me.  But traveling through Mongolia and having family after family open their home to me, give me a corner to sleep in and a cup of milk tea is super priceless.

OK, so I have practically finished writing another entry on shamanism (because the hotel owner’s sister was a shaman who shamanized while we there and effectively freaked me out).  After that I wanted to write about gender and alcoholism…so… thanks for reading!

Hovsgol: The Mongolian Wild West

I know it has been two months since I have updated – I mentally slap myself on the wrist and will try to avoid that in the future.  I have just been SO BUSY!  Not to mention out of internet reach for the last three weeks since I decided to return to the place that kicked off my whole Mongolia obsession five years ago.  Namely: I returned to Hovsgol to surprise my first homestay family.

Ok, for those who don’t know what I am talking about: I participated in a study abroad program called SIT five years ago (the only study abroad program in Mongolia) that takes small groups of university students to communities of Mongolian nomads and places those students with families for extended periods of time.  In my semester, we had the great fortune of having two extended homestays: one in the northern region of Hovsgol, in an area known as Ulaan Uul (Red Mountain) closs to the Russian border, and the other in Bayankhongor in the Gobi desert.  I am still in contact with the program director and most staff members and thus when I heard that SIT was heading back to this Hovsgolian community with a new group of students, I asked if I could hitch a ride .

Ulaan Uul is in the very most northern part of Mongolia in Siberia where there are no roads and very few people, so getting there required an old-school russian bus (поргон) and over 20 hours of driving through Siberian taiga (if you are lucky and there is no snow as my return trip evinced: it took me around 40 hours to make it back to the city).  It is located in the Darkhan Valley, which is also well known because of the presense of the Tsaatan, reindeer herders, and now because of a recent influx of ninja miners in the mountains.  It is most probably the most beautiful place I have ever been and comparable only to (as a member of Mongolian parliament said to me) Yellowstone National Park or the Alaskan wilderness.

Since my family from five years ago did not have TV or electricity at the time I thought there was no way I could really inform them of my coming.  My plan was originally to just show up and say surprise and see their faces, but since my family was so fantastic, SIT had planned to give them a new student this year.  Thus, I was not ‘allowed’ to live with them, but SIT offered me another family.  So, basically I repeated what I did five years ago with a new family: except this time, I was older, everyone in the community knew me, I decided to do a beauty survey amongst the nomads which required extensive travel between the various families, and last, but by no means least, I can speak Mongolian.

After driving the 15 hours to Mörön (the capital of Hovsgol), picking up the new students, and driving another 7 hours to the local sum

Five years ago: This is a picture of my home-stay mom and dad that I took five years ago.

(district) center and another 1 and half to the remote community where we lived, I found myself entering the same ger (yurt) I had entered five years ago when I was picked up by my home-stay dad on horseback.  I sat down amongst the students and all the Mongolian occupants of the ger starting wispering furtively about the surprise number of students (“Eleven? I thought there were only supposed to be ten??!”).  I had on a scarf, which I used to (I thought surreptitiously, but I now know bogglingly obviously) to cover my piercings.  My family’s gesture for me three years ago was forming their thumb and pointer finger in the sign of a ring and placing it on their lip (I had a fairly big lip ring then), and I thought my piercings were a dead give-away.  So, I sat in the corner with a scarf covering half my face…

Bold (current): My home-stay dad from five years ago. He didn't have a motorbike back then, much less electricity and television, but now greatly enjoys hearding on motorbike.

And my former homestay dad walked in – a wrestler, big guy with his two front teeth missing and a tiny goatee – who sat down next to me, not recognizing, and lit up a cigarette.  Amused, I decided I would just go to their ger and shock them all at once, but my plan was thwarted when my former homestay mother arrived.  Even though I covered half my face, I walked out with the students to get a quick horseback riding tip lesson, at first not realizing that she had been secretively eyeing me and asking everyone who I was.  She waddled after the group of students and from a distance starred at me with a quisical, mustering look…

So, I cracked and ran over to her and their faces light up with recognition and shock and laughter at my badly obvious attempts at covering my face.  (Apparently, she spent the next three weeks telling this story to every visitor to the ger, animatedly imitating my covering attempts).  She then took me by the hand and started leading me to the horses to take me ‘home’ (“well now I have my daughter back, we can go”), but my insistance that they had a ‘new’ student and couldn’t take me home, stopped her.  Instead, I spent the next few weeks riding/walking/motorcycling between the family I was staying with and my former homestay family, learning songs with them (since I could barely speak any Mongolian five years ago, we communicated and bonded through singing) and now being able to communicate ideas about my life and theirs.

It is incredible to now be able to talk to the nomadic families that took me in five years ago and I

Reunited

decided to utilize the opportunity by doing a little beauty survey.  So, while in Hovsgol the last few weeks, I horse-back rode and repeatedly drove the several kilometers between various families, explained my research to the nomads in the area and ended up collecting 20 surveys from them (20 doesn’t sound like much, but the population density of this place is very low) regarding beauty ideals.  Amongst the questions were, of course, what does it mean to be a beautiful woman, but also if this was different than a ‘sexy’ woman, which ellicited a lot of really funny comments from older nomads (“wait.. you mean a sexy woman is not someone who just wants to have sex? aren’t we all sexy?”).  I am not finished evaluating them yet (it is really hard for me to read cursive Mongolian), but cursory looks already reveal what I already knew to be true: that beauty amongst Mongolian nomads is very functional and internal based.  Comments on “what does it mean to be a beautiful woman” included the classic answers, hard-working, well-behaved, well-versed in tradition, commonsensical, good-mother, but also others like “a woman who drinks milk,” “not a miss (beauty pageant) contestant,” and “a humble looking woman.” External physical qualities are almost never mentioned.

So, I guess I can now be sure that the nomadic conception of beauty varys little amongst nomads on complete different sides of the country (since I have now been in the Gobi, in horse-country and in the Siberian extremes), but more so amongst city and countryside.  But I guess I knew that already.

Modernity vs. Nomadicism?

Ulaan Uul is the most isolated place I have ever been – with it taking over 30 hours in an industrial-style Soviet bus over terrain with no roads- to get there.  The Darkhan Valley is relatively protected from the currents of change in the rest of the country, but even the Darkhan are on the cusp of modernity.  Five years ago, my home-stay family and about half of the other families in the valley did not have either electricity or TV, and only a few had motorbikes.  Everything was still done by candle and fire-light, people generally went to sleep and woke up with the sun, and entertainment consisted of card games and singing.  I once asked my home-stay dad if he knew where America was (and Germany for that matter) and still remember very clearly the shrug of his shoulders as an answer.  Why is it important for a nomad in a remote valley to be concerned with America anyway?  I found this super refreshing.

The powers of marketing: Even nomads now drink Pepsi and Cola and discuss which is better.

Now, five years later, all the nomads in the valley have cell phones, TV and electricity.  Television commercials make nomads wonder what these new wonder products are (coca-cola? oriflame beauty products? pepsi?) and they go into town to try them out.  Global warming makes people have to move, because the grasses are getting shorter, and families complain to me about the changing health and increased drunkeness of the nomads since the advent of free-market capitalism.  Entertainment often consists of TV (especially among younger families).  And in the last two years, SIT could not go to this valley, because the discovery of gold in an area 60 km away caused the valley to be overrun with ninja miners who arrived, incured debt for the equipment to search for gold, found some gold, drove up the prices in the area and ruined the nature, and then peaced out as quickly as they came.

What you see in this area is kinda the same old story seen amongst all sorts of indigenous groups the world over once they started adapting to Western capitalism and ‘modernity.’  Rises in modern diseases (cancer, hypertension, high blood-pressure), changes to nature dependent on market forces (mining), break-down of old bonding activities replaced by TV, increased consuption of refined sugars (thank you coca-cola and refined flour) and alcohol abuse.  And with focus on my research, I see these changes reflected in the changes of beauty ideals amongst Mongolians – a gradual but definite spectrum from large, healthy, motherly ideals to skinny, fast, ‘sexy’ ideals the closer you get to the city and sedentary life.

It has kinda left me questioning at the moment if teaching people about Western nutrition (which I had planned to do by creating a health booklet for women before leaving Mongolia) is really the best idea.  The West doesn’t know everything either.

And in case you were wondering, my nomad dad still doesn’t know where America is.

Culture shock

Driving back to UB: Only way we got home was by picking up other busses that got stuck in the snow, helping them, and then forming a chain of busses that helped each other when one got stuck.

Well, now I am back in the city and physically and mentally exhausted.  I separated from SIT a week ago, when they continued to the local lake with their students, and I was left getting back from Ulaan Uul on my own.  And since we live in Mongolia, snow had already fallen between Hovsgol and UB, but, also since we live in Mongolia, that didn’t phase people and drivers decided they wanted to drive through it anyway.  What ensued was a 40 hour Soviet bus ride over Mongolian terrain, mountains, and through cliff-passes in a bus designed for 12 people where we had stuck 17 and which got stuck in the snow at night for 10 hours and had to wait until the snow thawed a bit to keep moving.  Furthermore, we had to get out several times and trudge through the snow pulling on a rope attached to the back of the bus as it went down slopes to make sure it didn’t skid-out and fall off the cliff.  Luckily, we were also in a Soviet bus, because the larger busses has also decided to go, which definitely got stuck and spent over 25 hours stuck in the snow out of any cell-phone range.  These are the vageries of traveling (and doing anything for that matter) in this country.

The constant unpredictability of life here, coupled with language difficulties (my Mongolian is

No, I can't be vegan in the countryside; but there is something to be said (and to be tasted) about drinking the milk you just milked yourself. Totally different way to relate to animals and food.

advanced, but not fluent – so I get confused a lot), extreme cultural differences (which I encountered a lot of while doing my survey with the nomads), and radical changes of dietary routine (I was vegan for five years, went to the countryside for 3 months and lived with 8 different carniverous families, came back to the city and was vegan again, and went back to the country where I drank the yak’s milk I had just milked myself every morning and ate freshly slaughtered marmot), and hygienic circumstance (nomads don’t use soap for washing most things, the word for privacy doesn’t even exist in the Mongolian language, and I have not showered for several weeks repeatedly in the last months) have taken a huge toll on my body.  I have actually never been so repeatedly physically uncomfortable in my life.

I kinda feel like I am physically and mentally tettering between Western ideals and Mongolian nomadic culture and I don’t know which one is right anymore.

My mongolian teacher told me my home-work this weekend was to rest cause I looked so exhausted… oh je.  At least my life in this country is ridiculous.

I hope the lengthiness of this entry has made up some for the silence… I have also drafted another entry about the beauty image workshop Young Women for Change and I held a few weeks ago, which I will post very soon (I promise!)

As previously mentioned, I also spent the last few weeks learning songs from my former nomadic family.  In vein with my research, my former home-stay sister taught me this song about a beautiful woman called монгол бүсгүйн үзэсгэлэн (Mongolian female beauty).  Below is an mp3 with my home-stay sister singing the song, including my (as of now hastily done – I will correct it soon) translation and the cyrillic lyrics, if you are interested.

Харзны ус шиг мэлтэлзсэн     Emotionally contained like the water in an ice hole
Намуун зөөлөн аашаараа     With calm soft temperament
Хараацайн жигvvр шиг тахиралсан     Curved like the wing of a swallow
Нарийн сайхан хөмсгөөрөө     With thin beautiful eyebrows

дахилт (Refrain):

Миний хайрыг татах     Pulls my love
Учиртай төрөө юү     Like the reason you were born
Монгол бүсгуйн үзэсгэлэн     Mongolian female beauty
Улам ч хөөрхөн болгоо юу     Forever becoming prettier

Гурваар дарсан гэзгийг чинь     Your three modest braids
Элбэн таалахад ханамгvй     When caressed calms
Гуалиг тєрсєн биеийг чинь     Your natural graceful body
Налан суухад уйдамгvй     lovely to sit next to

УЙлэнд урнаа илчилсэн     Good at needle-work
Сvмбэн цагаан хуруугаараа     With rod-like, white fingers
Vрийн бvvвэй аялсан     A mothering lullaby is sung
Сvvн цайлган сэтгэлээрээ     With a heart kind like milk