We had Kim's students' photography exhibit last weekend.  The three weeks leading up to it were hectic for Kim; full of selecting the photos, mounting the 254 photos, getting her students to name them, and writing a presentation she was to give at the cultural center an hour before the exhibit.  Our apartment became a FEMA zone cluttered with cutting boards, foam board scraps, and boxes and bags of photos.

The end result was amazing though.

But, of course, it didn't go as smoothly as planned - nothing here does.  It seems any time there is a big event we're doing or are apart of here, the cultural weirdness gets heightened and bad things happen.  It's not Murphy's Law, it's M*ngolian Law.

For example, the night before the exhibit we went to the cultural center with a bunch of the students and a couple friends to hang the photos on the walls.  As we're walking through the busy front doors a man decides to *punch the bag of photos* and then yell at us for being foreigners because "he is a M*ngolian".  Thankfully, none of the photos of his country were damaged.

Then, as we were rehanging some of the photos the next day, Kim left her presentation speech out on a table in clear plastic folder.  At some point in the preparation she went to practice her speech only to find someone had stolen the plastic sleeve it was in.  Thankfully, they left the speech.

Then, after spending hours writing said presentation, the time came for her to give it.  In the midst of all of the craziness of setting up her own exhibit she was going to do a favor for the man who runs the center by speaking to a class of his students.  Turns out he completely forgot that he had asked her to do that and asked her not to speak to the class.  Why?  Because he had been drinking when he originally asked her and didn't remember.  Thankfully that left her with more time to set up.

So yeah, those kind of things happen occasionally out here but they tend to happen in bulk around special events.

The exhibit itself was wonderful though.  The students' parents came and got to see their work and tell us how proud of their children they were.  The students got to share their work and talent with friends and strangers.   Our good M*ngolian friend said that he cried as he looked at the pictures because he was so moved.  A lot of M*ngolians got to see an art form and perspective they don't usually get to see.  

I hadn't noticed it until we had all of the photos laid out in our apartment but what the students had done, however unconsciously, was capture and told a really unique story.  All good art tells a story.  A good song, a good book, a good painting; they tell stories.  What the students had done with what Kim had taught them was tell their stories - the story of what it looks like to grow up at such a turbulent time in an emerging country, where there is a distinct tension between tradition and modern influence.  So, there were pictures of gers and high rises; herders and business men; elderly M*ngolians in traditional dress and teens that look like they're off the streets of New York.  It's a perspective special to this place, this time, and these kids.

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Kim and I have been working on a short TV series for the largest cable news station in M*ngolia, Eagle TV - think of it like the Fox News of M*ngolia.  The show will be similar to a TV news magazine like Dateline/48 Hours and we will be telling stories that are, truly, foreign to us from America and the West.  We will tell the stories of a Christian minority. 

It would be hard for me to imagine if I hadn’t been living here for the past year, but in M*ngolia less than 2% of the population are Christians and those who do become Christians regularly face oppression or persecution from the Buddhist and atheist majority - both remnants of occupations by their Russian and Chinese neighbors.  Christianity is seen as a “foreign” religion and so the hostility comes more from a nationalistic place than anything. 

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You go through phases as you live abroad.  When you first get there, all you can see are the differences.  First it's just the obvious differences of language, lifestyles, and quality of life.  Then it's the differences in cultures and customs, and slowly that starts to reveal thought processes and worldviews; the deeper stuff that underlies all of those bigger differences.  Around that time I think you begin to see the similarities between your home culture and new culture as well.  The differences aren't so imposing and the similarities make it all welcoming.

One way you notice differences and similarities is by looking at how people do their jobs.  Every culture has teachers, politicians, policemen, grocery store clerks, doctors and so on.  Observing those shared professions help give you insight into the larger culture as well.

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I think we sang songs like this together for about an hour. The tradition is that when the bowl of airag (fermented horse milk) is passed to you that you pick the song and everyone sings together. The bowl goes around the circle three times. :)  Kim and I ended up singing shakey duets of four songs: two hymns, The Cure's "Just Like Heaven", and John Lennon's "Stand By Me".

I tried not to be too invasive with the camera but as I pan around you can see how the elder hosts at the house sit on one end of the room (right side of the camera); the tower of bread, dried horse milk, and candy (the height is determined by the age of the host); the buuz (goat meat dumplings, on the table); and the traditional backside of the goat.

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The past couple days have been the Mongolian national holiday of Tsagaan Sar (white month).  The closest American equivalent might be Thanksgiving, but Tsagaan Sar emphasizes honoring elders - the children do all of the serving - and visiting family and friends.  Instead of the holiday being for one day or night, it's over multiple days and people spend the first two visiting family and then the next two visiting friends.  There are a lot of customs that I'll try to cover in a future post but for now, here's a picture of one of the gatherings we went to today with our friends' Seke & Eggie's family.

The big blue bowl in the foreground is the airag (fermented horse milk) and just beyond it is the whole backside of a sheep that you carve pieces off with the Crocodile Dundee-esque knife.

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My beautiful wife has done a series of videos on some of her M*ngolian students so that we could, in some small way, share their lives with you.  I would like to do the same with some of the foreign missionaries here.

This video is about Magda Verboom.  She is the first, and funniest, Dutch person we have ever known.  She has lived here for 11 years - keep in mind they only paved the road to our city 5 years ago and were using telegraphs up until just after she got here.

Every time we wear these at least one person whispers, “Ninjas”, as they pass us.  The storm trooper/swat team look actually does help ward off drunk men and big dogs.  Anyway, this is what we wear to go out at night…even on date night.  Good-lookin’ couple, eh? (That’s from our Canadian exposure)

We took this video during a mild, -30 degree blizzard the other night.  Come back here in 6 months (coincidentally right when we're leaving) and the same exact shot will be vibrant, green, and 90 degrees outside.  That's M*ngolia!

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