| We left Beijing using China Air and arrived in Mongolia to discover
that our predictions about Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia's capital city, were
wrong. For one thing, the city is more European than Asian. In our ignorance
we expected Ulaan Baatar to be a tent city of nomads. In fact it is full
of apartment buildings and European cafes. There aren't any "garage-storefronts"
that travelers commonly see in under- developed countries. There is no
smog or smell of burning garbage. This doesn't mean Ulaan Baatar is a
blazing example of modernism, but it isn't an Asian backwater. It's closer
to being a Russian backwater. Russian lettering is used everwhere, a legacy
from the days when the USSR controlled Mongolia from the 1920's up to
1991. Since 1991 and the Soviet Union's collapse, Mongolia has truly been
an independent country. We hear that in the future the Russian Cyrillic
lettering will be replaced with the traditional Mongolian lettering, which
is written vertically and looks like Arabic script. Today's schoolchildren
learn the Mongolian writing method and Russian language itself is no longer
compulsory. Such situations produce real "Generation Gaps" -
imagine not knowing how to write the same way as your children. Ulaan
Baatar has a ubiquitous bar scene. A bar sits on every block; enter one,
order a beer, and watch people dance. Occasionally a stripper will also
dance - it seems every bar has a resident stripper or two. |
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| (Above) Some last images of China: We looked out of our bus window and
saw this baby sitting precariously atop a heavily loaded bicycle cart.
The baby's mother nonchalantly biked through the town while the baby-on-board
peered around from its swaying vantage point. (Below) An irrestible marketing
tactic - who could resist buying fruit from this little kid? |
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| (Below) The oldest Buddhist temple in Ulaan Baatar. The communists destroyed
all other temples during their 'war on religion' as they tried to consolidate
their power in the 30's. The communists viewed Mongolian lamas, the local
religious leaders, as threats to their all-encompassing influence. They
executed approximately 30,000 lamas during the Great Purges. Ironically,
the Chinese had supported these lamas years before as a way to control
the barbaric Mongolian nomads - the anti-violent tenets of Buddhism did
more to subdue the Mongolian hordes than any swords ever did. |
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| (Below) It's easy to find a game of snooker or billiards on the streets
of Ulaan Baatar, literally. It seems many Mongolians have traded in their
stirrups and bows for pool cues. |
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