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The chaos theory of Mongolia

I returned to Mongolia 15 years ago after an absence of 13 years, save for the occasional 2-week leave from work, and that time I spent a semester and a half at a local university drinking endless cups of brown, watery 150 Tugrik instant MaCcoffee at the café strangely, or perhaps egotistically, named "In my memory", writing the first and so far the only book that got us into trouble with the local intelligence who apparently had little else to do than to pore through the ramblings of teenagers to catch the tell-tale signs of drug dealery. But I digress. When you visit a country for a short period, be it home or not, you hardly have time to immerse yourself in the spirit of the country and the city and feel the nitty gritty and dirty shiny of it all. So after 13 years, it took me a while to readjust and finally understand what the hometown of my childhood had become.  The most striking, ubiquitous, and inescapable feature was and still, unfortunately, is the traffic. In 2008,
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Tsagaan Sar (Hello Харшлалт Ox!)

So this is the first day of the year of the earth Ox, codename "Harshlalt" or in cyrillic Харшлалт, which sounds a bit like Harshil, meaning allergy or some kinda negative reaction. I'm sure it doesn't denote anything negative, but unfortunately nobody's bothering to find out exactly why the 2009 earth Ox year is codenamed, so to speak, Harshlalt. I did find one interview with a lama in which the only curious journalist in Mongolia asks the lama to explain what this name means. The lama's answer: it's an astrological jargon and does not have any negative connotations. Sort of like "you wouldn't understand, don't worry about it". Or more worryingly, for those inclined to take these wordplays seriously "you don't wanna know, trust me". I wanna know.

Nonsense aside, it's been a good start to the year of the Ox here in Mongolia. Lots of buuz-eating, distant-relative-greeting going on. What I look forward to during Tsagaan Sar, apart from meeting cousins and relatives I haven't seen in years, are the stories the old-timers tell, once they get going, of the fondly-remembered days. The stories are inspiring, interesting, funny and at times heart-breaking. And every Tsagaan Sar, I tell myself that I must write them down and compile them into a family book of misadventures.

And every Tsagaan Sar, after having awkwardly greeted a bunch of distant relatives with a hello-without-a-name, I remind myself to start working on a family tree. It's an ambitious task, one that is at the same time a little scary. From the conversations, I find myself worrying that I am related to half of UB and god-knows how many in the countryside. Imagination running wild. At the end of the day, tired, stuffed full of buuz and potato salad and strangely content with the day, I take some digestive enzymes and postpone the daunting task of figuring out who's-who till after Tsagaan Sar, by which time everyone will be back to their busy lives for another year. May the Ox be kind to you, whether he's allergic or not. See you in the year of the Tiger.
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