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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 cafĂ© 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,...

A thought

So it's the eve of the eve of Tsagaan Sar. Tomorrow's "Bituun", which could be translated to mean the act of closing.

An American friend remarked that the closest holiday they have to Bituun and Tsagaan Sar is Thanksgiving. I guess it's the emphasis on family and food.

On Bituun, or the eve of Tsagaan Sar, families stay at home and have the Bituun dinner or the last dinner of the passing year, which isn't all that different from what they will eat during most of Tsagaan Sar at every house they visit: buuz and meat.

That aside, the original purpose of my post, was to relay the message that our population has reached 2.7 million as of January 2009 (Source: Mongolia Web). 40% of the population now live in UB, of whom 65% are under the age of 35. Only 6% of our entire population are over 60. Poor healthcare system, harsh climate and widespread alcoholism are all contributing factors to this unfortunate statistic.

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