first words

my  first  mongolian words ….written according to how i hear them….

 " baerla"   - thank you

"sen ben nu"   or "sen nu"  - first one to greet those who are more senior than you, either in rank or in age;  second one is more casual.

"benno"  - hello, as in hello telephone

" baeshte "    -  goodbye

" ich dilgur "  -  state department store

"tsim"  - yes.  spoken with an aspirated "t"  and a silent "m" 

i start survival level language lessons on monday, june 30th, with a latina. 

correction

i stand corrected. mongolia DID go through the feudal stage. for many many centuries in fact.  it missed out the capitalist stage though, having become a satellite of the russian federation in the 1920s. today mongolia is a country in transition.  it joined the free market system and the " democratic" world in the early 1990s.  

genghis khan, aka temujin,  unified the nomadic tribes and created a single feudal state in early 13th century.  kublai khan, one of temujin’s grandsons, also unified china and founded the yuan dynasty in the late 1200s. the dynasty lasted for almost a century, during which period china flourished.  at its mightiest, the mongolian empire extended from vietnam to hungary and from siberia to persia. 

the buddhist lamas and warring princes dominated mongolia for 300 years following the rule of the khans. the manchus that took over for the next 300 years were toppled by homegrown hero sukhbatar, who brought the country within the socialist orbit.  

does having gone through the feudal stage and skipping capitalism make any difference in servitude and the lack of customer care then?.  i dont know.  seven decades of socialism did make its mark. 

surely too, given their harsh natural environment and warring culture, the mongolian feudal lords and subjects did not have it easy as ours did, as in for instance, coax ing the land to give out its bounties.  minions devoted their time to producing food and defending and/or conquering new territories. no space to be languid, no space to produce dainty lacy fineries (which wont do in the cold anyway), not much space to crack watermelon seeds for the ladies in the lords’ tents. 

correction. again.  mongolia did not totally miss out on capitalism. it just did not go through the usual order. capitalism came in its highly sophisticated state, wherein conquering territories are done no more with horses nor galleon ships but with new animal breeds such as the world trade organization (WTO), george bush and amazingly advanced technology. 

how will doth fare mongolia? better service, that at least i hope, with the new mongolian lords’ realization that happily satisfied customers bring in the profits and the moolah - the end all and be all of capitalism.  

customer care and being waited on

bought a room heater yesterday. yes, pokwang, in summertime mongolia! central heating has been turned off. although temperature averaged +20, in some days it dropped to +10, even lower. definitely its still a bit chilly for my sun-sea-and-sand-conditioned bones. positioned the heater in the bathroom to stop the after-shower-bath shivering-quivering.

anyways ….. the appliances section of the state department store is at the third floor, where i bought the heater plus plus.  most purchases from here are retrieved at the first floor.  while waiting for mine, i observed two ladies first struggling to return to the box (after examining that it was in good order), the 29-inch t.v. that they have bought, and later lugging it out through the door.  none of the store attendants helped. 

mine came after more than 20 minutes of waiting, which was actually more than an hour after i have made my payment, having meandered through the linens section.  struggled a bit i did too with the heater, which i piled in a cart with the groceries. luckily the cart was big enough.  

in grocery stores, you also bag your purchases yourself. nannies, chauffers and househelps were never heard of until recently.  some modern families with means do hire househelps and nannies, but even these are not on the same degree as ours. my mongolian boss, whose father in his time was the second most powerful person in the land, has a day helper who comes twice or three times a week.  this seems to be the norm, unlike us who have live-in maids on call 24 hours a day and sometimes one nanny for each child. 

this lack of customer care befuddles me.  or am i just too steeped with the hacienda mentality, being used as we are to being attended to, hand and foot.  the hacienda mentality of the filipinos is certainly not confined to the well-to-do.  paulo freire avered that there is a landlord in a peasant’s heart that should be watched out for . he meant the tendency to oppress and exploit, but i’m sure it extends to the penchant for being served. 

mongolia on the other hand did not go the way engels described in the origins of the family and  the evolution of society.  from pastoral-nomadic, it by-passed the feudal and semi-feudal stage, leapt on to the socialist system wherein servitude is nowhere placed except with the nation, with the state.  

short liners

i feel like i do belong. mongolian women are mabilbil. but they dont care. 

the air is so dry here. dries up your throat, dries up your nose lining so much so that at the end of the day you get a good harvest of boogers. hahaha!! 

mongolian for " yes "  is "tsim"  or something like that but sounds like  " tse"  to me, in my bisaya ears –  soooo maldita.
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mongolian landscape

Someone asked if the Mongolian landscape is anything like Batanes or Ifugao perhaps.  Far from it. 

Mongolia has a vast pastureland – a wide expanse of flat land, bald slopes and rolling plateaus where grass grow thinly  – where herds of sheep, goat and cows happily graze.  Some slopes are dotted by clumps of pine trees. 

These I have seen so far, in a day-excursion last Friday to an aimag (province) near UB where, aside from visiting the  One Stop Shop project of SDC/HSPSC,  Mr. E hosted lunch at a monastery ruins that is now a campsite.

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day one of 365 in UB

this is it. finally here. for the next 12 months at least.  midnight arrival as before, this time tho to a warmer temperature.  today was a pleasant 17oC. the sun was actually out in the afternoon.  a mongolian colleague remarked that i brought the rains with me.  mongolia is very dry and the noontime drizzle was appreciated by many. considered a blessing in fact.

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