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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,...

Mongol Gers on the Lost TV series

So while I procrastinate on writing about Baabar's talk at Cafe Amsterdam and the upcoming presidential election in May, here's some interesting tidbit. The latest episode (Season 5, ep 12, "Dead is dead") in the popular ABC TV series "Lost" features housing structures that are identical to the Mongol ger, except perhaps somewhat modified to fit the tropical climate of the Island. It'd be interesting to know if they bought them from the region or had them made, and whether they just thought it'd be nice to have some Mongol gers or if it's supposed to mean something. Maybe it's supposed to represent the more environmentally-friendly world-view of the group referred to as the Others, as opposed to the Dharma initiative, with whom they are in conflict, who live in wooden houses with high-tech facilities. It probably doesn't make any bit of sense if you've never watched Lost. It hardly even makes sense for some who watch it regularly. But there you go: environmentally-friendly eco-housing structures known as gers.

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