After a lovely Christmas weekend in Erdenet with friends where we slept, ate, played games, watched movies, and gave gifts, the next holiday on the Mongolian list is Shin Jil (which is the traditional new years areound the world Dec. 31-Jan 1). Mongolians do not celebrate Christmas, but instead combine it with New Years. During the month of December all throughout the big cities (as well as my tiny soum) there were pictures of Santa Clause, Christmas trees, and tinsel everywhere. It made me feel at home.
Anway, the night of Dec. 30th was Orkhontuul's traditional dance party. In the gym of the school we had several guests singing songs and playing music to dance to. Mongolians almost always dance a waltz, which I can somewhat do now. Lovely singing voices the singers had. Also, some of the students and guests did some short skits of fairy tails. Little Red Riding Hood is kinda famous here. We also had a visit of Father Winter, the Mongolian equivolent to Santa Clause. He comes in with his animals (students in costumes) following him and gave gifts to the teachers and a few students. I got a bag of candy and juice.
Anyway, after some awkward waltzing steps with my Counterpart, all the teachers went upstairs for a fabulous meal of rice, meat, and a hell of a lot of fruit, including kiwi (I haven't seen kiwi anywhere in this country so I was quite excited). And of cource, you can't have a Mongolian holiday without drinking vodka, but stuck to the beer. It was a very long night of eating, drinking, singing, and being merry (and yes, I sang the one Mongolian song I know-Traveling Bird).
Teh next day, the last one of 2010, I spent cleaning my ger and resting. I ate some Mongolian salad with my Hashaa family and split a beer with the parents. After that I was invited to the school's social worker's house where we ate buuz (meat wraped in steamed dough), drank vino and beer, and watched some Mongolian Shin Jil programs. a lovely evening.
The next day was spent mostly with the Hashaa family. Their family members came over and we ate buuz, salad, cake, and I drank a bit of vodka to appease the Mongolian customs. The evening was spent mostl at one of my counterparts' apartment. Where I once again ate buuz, salad and cake. They also had some homemade juice which was really good. We also played hudzer (cards) and I attempted to have conversations in Mongolian with her family (my Mongolian comes and goes btw). Again, another pleasent evening.
And on the following day I just rested in my ger and went to my other Counterpart's home for a lunch of more buuz and broken conversations.
Overall, a great experience and am looking foreward for the next few holidays (Teacher's day and Tsagaan Sar).
Ah! So you do have a blog! (Why did I not know about this?). Anyway, I think it's a great idea and I'm always up for hearing more about your adventures in Mongolia.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you did a lot of eating and drinking over those past few days, but the food sounds delicious. I like that fairy tales are a big deal over there - could you tell me what ones are most popular or told there besides Red Riding Hood (which everyone seems to love, for some reason, haha).
So you're learning to waltz? I can't help but think that that's a little more fun than the dancing that goes on here (but then again, I'm a terrible dancer in all forms). Must be very exciting!
I'm looking forward to hearing about Teacher's Day! Please write more about your actual teaching - being a teacher is a little strange, isn't it? I'm in my second semester of teaching freshmen (seasoned freshman by now) and it's still hard to get used to. What's it like for you? :)