The Mongol Way

I’ve been living and working in Eastern Mongolia for almost two years now. I still come home almost every day amazed at the differences between myself and the Mongolians around me. It’s fascinating and, I’ll have to admit, sometimes terrifying for me to watch my students become exposed to the outside world and realize the differences themselves. Yesterday I was teaching my 11th grade class when one of my students raised her hand and asked why Americans call their national hero, “Genghis Khan” when the correct way of pronouncing it is “Chinggis Khan.” I told her that sometimes people who write history are wrong. Sometimes even the most learned scholars don’t understand everything. I also said that I would try to do what I can to correct the wrong, to tell all those that I can about life here, and to communicate that even though I’m often completely baffled by the ways of the people around me, I’ve really learned from the differences.

One fellow foreigner, who doesn’t really spend that much time with Mongols, was ranting and raving to me the other day that the Mongols don’t care about each other. She said that all they really care about is their own welfare and that they can walk past the women living in the hole everyday and not think a thing about it. To some degree that is true, but Mongols are well studied in taking care of their own families, something that we in America are not always so good at. I lived with a Mongol family for three months and they slaved away in their garden for the entire spring, summer, and fall. And for what? To provide enough vegetables for their entire extended family. With the little monthly income they had, this family bought a load of bricks to build a small store for the wife ‘s sister and her husband who are both unemployed. It is rare to see this kind of generosity among many of our own families.

Another friend of mine, who does nothing but work everyday, said that he works like he does in order to set up a place of employment for his brothers. “I’ll be ok if my brothers are ok,” was his comment on the subject. His goal through his work is to take care of the people in his family who can’t find a job. Still further, the only older people who live in nursing homes are those who, unfortunately, have no family of their own. There are so many things that the assisted-living loving American society can learn from this. We see our families as separate from us. They live their lives, and we live ours. Not so in Mongolia. Life is lived together. Children take care of parents, sisters take care of sisters, there is no question about this, it’s just done. To the foreigner who swings through, takes a glance, doesn’t attempt to learn the nearly impossible Mongolian language and develops no real relationships with Mongolians, it looks like Mongolians don’t care. It looks like they are just out for themselves. But they do care about others. You must look deeper. It’s usually that way, isn’t it?

Traveling in Mongolia is something that can bring tears to your eyes and not because of the beautiful scenery but because of the pain, both emotional and physical. There are really only two main highways in the country and everything else is just steppe or mountains. Most people take private cars or Russian 15 passenger vans between towns. To travel the 600 kilometers between the place where I live and the capital, we travel by 15-passenger van. Starting out in the morning around eight, you can look forward to a 12 to 24 hour drive on a dirt road that’s as stomach churning as any rollercoaster (don’t worry if you get sick, the Mongols do too). But before that, you will experience The Wait. The Wait is hours long on a good day. That’s when you sit there in the 15 passenger van with 20 other people waiting for the guy to get a candy bar for his kid or the driver to go to his house in order to pick up his wife (which makes 21 passengers, if you are counting). In one instance we waited for three hours to get everyone together, get gas, go pick up somebody’s new T.V., and then stop to talk to the guy on the side of the road who then gave us his child to deliver to someone in the capitol. Finally we are on our way only to stop an hour later to meet someone else on the side of the road who gives us an American Visa application to deliver to someone.

After all of this, I look at my American friend sitting next to me. She is red, really red and her head looks like it’s about to explode. As if the 12 to 24 hour drive on dirt roads isn’t enough, before we even start we’ve spent 4 hours in the packed van running people’s errands. My friend, baffled, turns to me and says, “Why doesn’t someone complain? We’ve given the driver money and he should just peddle-to-the-metal it all the way.” Well, that’s not how they do it in Mongolia. Why? Because it’s a country of favors. This is how things run. You help me and I’ll help you. None of this everyone-out-for-himself business. So you can look at what I’ve just described and see the most annoying, unintelligent situation you could imagine yourself in, or you could think, I can learn something from the Mongolian willingness to help each other, even if it is inconvenient. Yes, their system doesn’t always make logical sense, but the principle behind the system is admirable. The principle is simple: I’m not the only person on this planet. It’s not all about me. Other people have issues too and I can consider others concerns before my own.

When I look back over the two years that I’ve spent on the Mongol steppe, I’ll be reminded that we have to look deeper at ourselves, those we love, those we don’t understand, and the way this world works. As many wise people have said, things are not as they seem. We must look at things differently from what we were taught. Through opening my eyes to something different I’ve seen that the Mongol way is not inferior, just different, and different is good.