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The Last Naadam

Upon arriving in Ulaanbaatar, we immediately set plans in motion to head south for the Gobi. The last regional Naadam festival was being held in Mandalgovi, and we didn’t want to miss it.

With the help of Corey, a kickass Peace Corp member we befriended via Couchsurfing, we arranged for a ride from the Black Market. Fourteen adults, two children, and a week’s worth of inventory for the local supermarket bounced south along cross-country tracks, crammed into a ghetto Russian van. Corey later informed me that we had been lucky--there were no goats.

Mandalgovi (Мандалговь) is the capital of Dundgovi (Дундговь) aimag (province) and is located on the northern border of the Gobi Desert, approximately 300 km south of Ulaanbaatar. With a population of roughly 10,000, it is considered a large city, ranking within in the top 30 most populated cities in the country.

Here, the last of Mongolia’s regional Naadam festivals was to be held. Naadam (Наадам), literally “games”, is the country’s main holiday--three days of celebration and festivitiesheld in summer that highlight the Three Manly Games of Naadam: long-distance horse racing, archery, and wrestling. Vaguely reminiscent of the Tibetan horse festival we attended in Tagong, Naadam is a bigger affair--attracting people from all over the aimag--and felt more like a state fair, with commercial food stands and game booths.

As you’ve probably already figured out, Naadam is a male-dominated event. Women are allowed to participate in archery only. Occasionally, young girls are chosen as jockeys for horse racing.

Wrestling is the pinnacle event and also Mongolia’s most popular sport. There are no weight categories, and bouts are untimed, ending only when one wrestler touches the ground with any part of his body excluding his hands or feet, thus losing. Tournaments are single elimination, lasting nine or ten rounds spread out over the three days, and pairs are determined by wrestlers with the best records and/or greatest fame choosing their opponents. All this seemed to lay the foundation for a skewed system favoring the biggest, fattest man standing, but I was assured that technique was essential, and that smaller wrestlers had indeed become champions.

The traditional wrestling outfit consists of embroidered…er…shorts (shuudag) and a tight, open-front shrug (zodog), which came into use (as legend would have it) after a champion wrestler was discovered to be a woman. *GASP*

Each wrestler performs a ceremonial dance before his next bout, announcing his entrance and honoring the spectators, judges, and games. Mimicking a bird in flight, I dubbed it the “eagle dance”--a surprisingly delicate and graceful note amidst an otherwise brutish grunt fest.

As bout after bout, round after round of winners and losers were determined, the roar of the crowd only increased in strength, and I found myself cheering louder, too. 

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Did I like Mongolia? Hmmmm. Did I like Mongolia…

For me, there is no straight answer to the question. A month in Mongolia was a veritable roller coaster of high highs and low lows with virtually nothing in between.

Food is completely bereft and unpalatable.

Transportation consists of jolting across dirt tracks.

Weather is more unpredictable than my moods on a bad day.

Time comprises of  “baijee, baijee!” (“wait, wait”) and “margaash, margaash!” (tomorrow, tomorrow).

And yet…

The landscape of this territory is so breathtaking.

The barrenness of this country, so haunting.

The resilience of its people, so admirable.

The preservation of their traditions, so inspiring.

The love of music and dance, so beautiful.

Fucking Mongolia! It’s the durian of Asia: wholly unpredictable and wholly indescribable. Every time I was sure that I had finally had it, that I was going to shoulder my backpack and grab the next bus/train/plane combo home, a stranger would stroll by singing an impassioned folk song--wild and free as the land itself--and the skies would give way to a double rainbow.

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What else did I do in Singapore besides gorge on durian, sample local fare, and concoct seemingly incongruous desserts? Actually…that was the bulk of it. After all, the national pastime is eating.

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Who will claim the final hada?

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Day 1 of the horse festival in Tagong was by far the most exciting and the most attended.

A  7-kilometer horse race to the stupa kicked off the day, the riders whooping and hollering down the main stretch. Anyone who owned a horse--be it an old nag or a young stud--participated in the spirit of collective celebration, but in all reality, roughly 80% of the riders dropped out of the race by the 2nd kilometer, turning their rides around and heading back to the festival grounds to wait for the more serious competitors to duke it out.

The real highlight of the day, however, was the event that followed.

As people found their seats along the sidelines of the "arena", festival organizers began randomly scattering hadas (Buddhist scarves) on the ground. When the ground was sufficiently littered, riders lined up at one end of the arena and, one by one, raced down toward the opposite end, swooping down close to the ground in an attempt to pick up as many hadas as possible whilst remaining on their galloping horse.

My cumbersome description of the proceedings is a poor representative of what was an incredible spectacle to behold. To see these men hanging off their horses with their heads inches from the pounding hooves as carelessly as though they were pouring afternoon tea was simply thrilling. The crowd whistled and hooted their encouragement, roaring with glee when a hada was retrieved and groaning in commiseration when one was barely missed.

Some of the more skilled riders performed tricks, throwing themselves backwards and upside down or hanging on with what seemed like just their toes. For two hours this game continued until the last hada was claimed, and for two hours I hooted and hollered with the crowd, newly awed with each pass.

A few riders did fall off their horses--one even landed with his horse on top of him--but none seemed the worse for wear. "No one has ever been injured in the games," Jya Drolma (my host mother) assured me. "We have been doing this since we were kids," shrugged her son who had arrived home from Chengdu just in time to jump on a horse and throw himself down the hada-ed stretch with the rest of his friends. His laugh was confident and easy as he whipped out his new iPhone to upload his action photos.

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A three-hour drive west from Kangding curves through the rolling hills--green with summer rains and riddled with yak herds and herder tents--ascending 1,200 meters to the small town of Tagong (also known as Lhagang).

The views will take your breath away (as will the 3,800-meter altitude): grasslands that roll on forever into the craggy snow-topped peaks; skies so blue there are no adjectives; air so clear you can see beyond the horizon and so crisp you could get high just by inhaling deeply. Here and there, bursts of color and flutters of movement dot this vastness--the golden rooftops of the monastery glinting in the sun; a herd of horses grazing; a herder picking her way through the hills calling for her yaks.

There is no mistake that you are on the Tibetan Plateau. This is China's wild wild west.

Main Street looks lifted straight out of Buffalo Bill with men decked out in full cowboy gear riding in and out on their cantering mounts. I invariably expected a shootout to erupt at any moment. People are reserved and wary until introductions are made after which they gab gregariously and laugh loudly, creasing their wind-burnt cheeks.

In this tiny town, everyone knows everyone else, and most people are related either by blood or marriage. As Serendipity would have it, we arrived the day before the annual horse festival--a Tibetan tradition held regionally in which Khampa nomads and herders return home for a three-day celebration with horse races, games, feasting, and family. Those three days were full of such exuberance of the kind that has been conspicuously absent in the rest of the country.

Here life is harsh and barren. Food is scarce, weather is unforgiving, options are few. Yet here have I encountered the happiest and most content people thus far in our travels through China. Wandering the hills and looking down upon the festival grounds, it was easy to see why.

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Up a gravel footpath on the outskirts of Kangding (康定) sits Nanwusi, our first monastery visit on the Tibetan Plateau.

I confess that generally I'm not one for temples. Without a personal background in religion of any kind, my experiences with holy sites have always teetered precariously on the fence dividing inquisitiveness from voyeurism. Also, a few months in China have further sullied the already tenuous relationship with an epidemic of cookie cutter commoditization--temple after temple twisted into ugly things devoid of any spirituality, toting nothing but cheap religious souvenirs.

But we were now on the Tibetan Plateau...besides, there was little else to do in town.*

One glance through the gold-foiled iron gates and it became immediately obvious that this was truly, finally, a place of study and spirit. A lone lama squinted sternly at a Tibetan journal, wholly ignoring our intrusion. I had become so used to stomping disgustedly through commercial monasteries that the real deal left me somewhat scared to advance.

The beauty of Nanwusi quickly dispelled my bashfulness: the brilliant red and gold buildings nestled into the lush, wisp-topped mountains; the gardens obviously nurtured with care; the delicate brushstrokes of the painter restoring the rooftop trim to even more glittering shades of gold; the stunning Buddhist artwork and idols; the fresh mountain air tinged with incense; the soothing hum of constant prayer. It was the most peaceful place I think I have ever been, and for an hour, we wandered the empty grounds in awe and appreciation.

A gong chimed, and monks and lamas flooded into the square, clutching their textbooks. They were happy to see us and eager to converse. (Of course, only 'Hallo!' was uttered in English.)

"Hallo! How are you?"

"Where do you come from? I am from _______ province. I came to Nanwusi when I was a boy because I wanted to study. My parents miss me, but they are very proud of me."

"In America, are there many Buddhists? I wish I could go to America and see for myself."

"Oh yes, I like my life here. Sometimes it is a little confined, and I wish I could see more of the world, but I am lucky to be learning so much."

"Do you like my shoes?!"

Turning to Meir, a veteran lama said, "It is a great pity that I do not know more English. I should have liked to converse more with you."

Such friendly, honest, innocent inquisitiveness I had yet to experience in China, and as we headed back down the mountain to colorless Kangding, I smiled in anticipation of traveling further onto the plateau.

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*Kangding (康定), also known in Tibetan as Dartsedo (དར་རྩེ་མདོ།), is located in a valley of the Tibetan Plateau and is not much more than a transport hub between Chengdu and western Sichuan. It is dirty and inhospitable and only a necessary stop due to transportation layover and the need for altitude acclimation.

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Beijing Myth

In a minivan from Chengdu to Kangding, Sichuan province, China

Fellow passenger: Hallo!

wxg: Hello!

Fellow passenger: What does 'hallo' mean?

wxg: You said it to me; don't you know?

Fellow passenger: I only repeat the words I have heard, but I don't know their meaning. (He giggles.) You are not from here. Are you a tourist? What province are you from?

wxg: I am from Beijing. Have you been there?

Fellow passenger: No never. I have heard of such a place, though...

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A novel is the life of the people ... similar to our daily life but more profund, more significant, and more beautiful. I am absolutely against the schools of fiction that write away from life.

-Alaa Al Aswany

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For the love of opera, I’m apt to choose Don Giovanni over Lil Wayne, depending on the circumstances. So of course I could not pass through Sichuan without attending a performance of Sichuanese opera (chuan ju 川劇 ).

Waiting for the show to begin, we cracked roasted peanuts and sipped tea poured from ewers high above our heads, occasionally peeking behind the dressing room screens to ogle performers applying their intricate and colorful makeup.

“Would you mind if I took a photo?” I asked in my most ingratiating tone.

“Be quick about it, I have to be on stage soon,” was the disarmingly brusque response. Diva much? Yup, I was definitely at the opera.

The lights dimmed, and the beautiful hostess sashayed into the spotlight, greeting us in her most ingratiating tone, gargling her English as if it were Listerine.

Curtain.

What followed was 30 minutes of cacophony that traversed my senses from left ear to right, bouncing around in my head like a game of racquetball. But this I had expected.

I am not actually a fan of traditional Chinese opera and am of the opinion that it thoroughly fails a (if not the) fundamental requirement of any art: beauty. The music is far too shrill and the theatrics far too dramatic without any of the ravishing arias and aesthetic charm or grandeur of Western operas for redemption. Nevertheless, this art form is of my heritage and of music—two essentials of my life—and as such, I have always felt an obligation to keep an open mind, hoping that understanding it intellectually could lead to appreciating it aesthetically. (I admit there has been little progress to date, but I can be very persistent.)

So. I was totally prepared for the music to torture my aesthetic sensibilities. What I was not prepared for, however, was for the performers to insult my sensibilities as a fellow performer and a fellow Chinese.

The singing was intolerably sloppy: rarely in tune, consistently off kilter with the musicians, annoyingly imprecise. The performance was equally as careless. While I readily admit my ignorance of the significance of the acting in Chinese opera, I know that the acting is significant, comprised of precise, meaningful gestures that were obviously absent even to my uneducated eyes. To round out this lackluster trifecta, the performers could not have seemed less enthusiastic to be on stage.

How could artists not take pride in their performance? How could they not take pride in being cultural ambassadors of an ancient heritage? My eyes spanned the crowd of tourists, equal parts Chinese and foreign, and I wanted to get up and apologize profusely for this mediocre performance in my most ingratiating tone.

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Everyone oohs and aahs over the big black and whites (including yours truly), but I'm really a sucker for the little reds.

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I spy.

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Brother from another mother.

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THE PANDAS PHOTOS (+ captions) ARE HERE!! You can't resist them; don't even try.

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It seems like every Buddha statue in Asia claims to be the tallest Buddha in the world according to a matrix of select factors (e.g., So-and-so Buddha is the tallest Buddha in the world, but only if we're considering outdoor Buddhas...who are in a sitting position...who are only made of bronze...and are located on an island).

But the Leshan Giant Buddha (Leshan Dafuo 乐山大佛) is, I believe, officially the tallest Buddha in the world. Regardless, it is simply spectacular.

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If you're looking to take a relaxing, scenic river ride and knock out a novel or two, a Yangtze River cruise is for you. But since the completion of the Three Gorges Dam and the subsequent raising of the water level, the views aren't what they once were, and there's no way to escape the tour groups, so manage your expectations.

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The Savage Plantation vs. the Brave New World in Rural China

We were swooning over the Miao village of Dehang (德夯) after just one idyllic afternoon/evening. The Miao (苗人) people, a Chinese ethnic minority group, were so friendly and humble, the food was drop dead d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s., the setting was lush and beautiful. We drifted off to sleep simmering in our new-found love for this sleepy little village.

The next morning, we were abruptly rattled out of our slumbers by a cacophony outside the window. Our bleary confusion turned to fretful annoyance turned to repulsed disdain as we witnessed busload upon busload of organized groups of Chinese tourists being herded through the town like flocks of sheep, each led by a megaphone-touting tour guide reciting the designated “historically accurate” and “ethnically sensitive” script. There were so many tours they were literally overlapping each other so that within the span of a 15-meter bridge, one group would be at the eastern end, one at the western end, and one straddling the middle. If that weren’t absurd enough, each guide would continue squawking via megaphone, together composing a discordant, indistinguishable round of monologues that grew ever louder as each voice clamored to rise above the rest.

Thus it continued for the rest of the day: every 30 minutes, the startling blasts of the megaphones would shatter the peace over this mountain oasis until 5 p.m. when the last buses turned towards their next victim.

Over the next two days, the tourists never stopped coming, and my desire for them to shut up or leave Dehang the hell alone and quit mucking up my tranquility quickly turned into complete befuddlement as to why they bothered coming at all. We already had some experience with annoying and cackling tour groups at Huashan, but the tour groups at Dehang weren’t simply numerous and loud (as if that weren’t bad enough): they were incredibly rude and condescending to boot.

As a whole, the Chinese tourists didn’t talk to the local Miao; in fact, they didn’t even seem to acknowledge them, and when they did, it was only to complete a transaction for services rendered. Meals were brusquely demanded, money was dismissively tossed, civility was wholly absent. They were like a hoard of locusts sweeping through, snapping some photos, eating some meals, buying some souvenirs, moving on. Their voyeurism was so unsympathetic, mechanical, and detached that it was unclear whether most of them even enjoyed being there at all. It all reeked of Aldous Huxley’s Savage Plantation, and I was awash in sadness and horror at the stench that did not seem to dissipate.

Let me be perfectly clear that we, too, had specifically traveled to Dehang partly to see the scenery and partly to meet the Miao. I wanted to experience their food, their culture, their way of life. In this way, we were guilty of the same voyeuristic trespass. Maybe I’m splitting hairs in the name of self-justification, but still I’d like to think that our “please’s” and “thank you’s” and general air of respect and deference along with a genuine desire to engage in conversation made all the difference.

Preserving traditional ethnic ways of life in the face of exploding economic progress and urbanization will inevitably entail glass enclosures through which the outside peers in—sustained performance and conscious observation. Certainly, it is a sensitive seesaw at the whim of numerous loaded, complex factors. But if this Brave New World deems such preservation important, then it has an obligation to negotiate a more humane and empathetic exchange.

Our last morning, as we lingered over breakfast, I asked the owner of our guesthouse what he thought about the tourism boom in Dehang that has become the village’s sole lifeline. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, flicked the ash and watched it flutter slowly to the ground, and sighed with an effort that shook his entire body. “I was born here, and I have lived my entire life here…and we are better off…when the winter comes, it will be peaceful again.”