In the Footsteps of the Khans

The spring in China is definitely in need of as many holidays as we get in the fall semester. Luckily, this past weekend was the May Holiday (basically our Labor Day). Two years ago, The Big Four journeyed to ZhangJiaJie (Avatar Mountains). 

This year, we wanted to explore a bit more of the Mongolian culture that is on the fringe of life here in Bayan Nur so we decided to head east to the capital of the Inner Mongolian autonomous region (and the namesake of a pretty delicious restaurant), Hohhot.

Hohhot (ᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ in Mongolian and 呼和浩特 in Chinese) is the capital of Inner Mongolia and just two cities next door from Bayan Nur. The name of the city actually means "Blue City" and by exploring Inner Mongolia for just a day, you can easily see the significance of the color in Mongolian culture. Blue represents the sky (in China, the color of the sky is referred to as "Inner Mongolia Blue") but it also represents eternity and purity.

By Chinese standards, the history of Hohhot is not very long. Established in 1557 by Altan Khan (descendant of the famed Kublai Khan), Hohhot was initially a small town that sprang up around the still standing Da Zhao Temple 大召寺. At the time, the town was known as "Blue Town" (similar to it's nickname today, "Blue City"). Altan Khan used the temple and the small town to try and convince the Ming Dynasty of his right to rule the Western and Southern Mongol tribes at the time. Over the next 200 years, the Mongols and Han Chinese teetered back and forth between peace and war until the beginning of the 18th Century, when the Qing Dynasty Emperor, Kangxi, sent in troops into the region, keeping Mongol attacks at bay.

Altan Khan, founder of Da Zhao Temple and Hohhot

Perhaps it's the fact that we've been in China for so long, but both Adam and I agree that the Mongolian culture is far more exotic than the Chinese culture we've grown so accustomed to. Because of that, we didn't really have a deep desire to explore yet another large, industrial, Chinese capital city. The allure of the Mongols was too strong for us, so joining a tour with a local guesthouse (Anda Guesthouse if anyone is ever in the city--the BEST hostel I've stayed at in China), we left the city of Hohhot in the dust and journeyed three hours northwest to the rolling grasslands of Inner Mongolia.

Now as you're driving through the grasslands of China, you do tend to notice that almost every aspect of any culture in China has somehow become a tourist attraction--temples, shrines, mountains, and in the case of the Mongolian culture, even yurts. There are dozens and dozens of yurt resorts dotting the grasslands. As we continued to drive, I was beginning to get a bit nervous seeing the hoards of concrete yurts everywhere.

Resort yurts made of concrete, not animal skins

First mentioned by Herodotus over 3,000 years ago, a yurt, or sometimes also known as a ger (гэр), is a round structure meant to be moved from place to place. It has been used by nomadic people all throughout Central Asia for centuries. Using wood or bamboo, they weave the wood together in a sort of latticework all throughout the perimeter of the structure and then cover the frame with wool. Today, tarps add a second layer of protection, especially against the wind.

Adam, Kevin, Alyssa, Kristen, and Andy

When we arrived at our final destination, we were greeted by a Mongolian family at their personal farm. Cows, sheep, dogs, and chickens roam freely, and nothing but the green grasslands surround you for as far as you can see. There were four "small" yurts that could hold up to eight people in one as well as a larger yurt that was to be the main dining area. Scattered through the small camp were Tibetan prayer flags flapping in the wind, a fire pit, and poop. Lots and lots of poop.

After a delicious homemade lunch of mutton stew with potatoes and carrots, we pulled on our traditional Mongolian boots (I'm pretty sure I had two left shoes on) to go horseback riding through the great plains of the grasslands.

It is said that "A Mongol without his horse is like a bird without wings." Horses are a key part of the Mongolian culture and have been since the 13th Century when the Mongols began conquering most of Asia and even parts of Europe under the rule of Genghis Khan.

Horses have also made their way into spiritualism and mythology of Mongolia--a blue ribbon tied around a horse's neck shows that it is the sacred horse of the herd; when a warrior died, his horse would be killed and buried with him to help him in the afterlife; mare's milk is used for rituals and blessings; if a horse was happy in life, his spirit will help the herd after him flourish; and even a person's very soul is called a "wind horse" and it can be seen on the Mongolian coat of arms.

Today, horses are used for races, herding, milk and meat products, as well as tourism. Many of the resorts along the grasslands also offer horseback riding excursions and even though we claim to be adventurers and not tourists, sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and ride a horse through the Mongolian grasslands.

The Mongolian horses we rode were a lot shorter than the horses we're used to seeing in America. My favorite part was the fact that they still had their winter coats so they were all fluffy too.

Edgar and Tango

It was amazing riding on the back of a horse quite possibly descended from so many of the horses that ran through the grasslands alongside the warriors and khans through the centuries. They confidently carry you along the grasses going back and forth between a nice slow amble and a trot (my horse, Edgar, actually busted out into a gallop which was the most terrifying five seconds of my life). You just scan the horizon--your eyes drinking in the sea of green--and wonder what history you are walking through in this place (and I also felt like a Dothraki warrior... or better yet... a Khaleesi!).

One of the aspects of Mongol culture that goes hand in hand with the horses is the art and warfare of archery. Now I don't mean to boast, but I was halfway decent at archery in high school but I willingly acknowledge that I would be dead in an instant if I faced a Mongol on horseback with his bow.

Archery has always been an integral part of Mongol culture. According to legend, it is said that, Erekhe Mergen, a great Mongolian archer, saved the Mongolian people from a drought by shooting down six suns with his arrows. 

History speaks of the Mongol's bows and arrows just as much as legend. In the 17th Century the Manchu people invaded and conquered Mongolia and ruled from 1644-1911 and at this time outlawed archery. The banning of archery almost destroyed the traditional art of bow making in Mongolia which has now been preserved since Mongolia's independence in 1921. Today, the famous Naadam Festival (Наадам in Mongolian, Naɣadum in classical Mongolian) helps to preserve the ancient games of Mongolian wrestling, horseback riding, and archery. Similar to the Olympics, it is held in the summer, usually in July. 

Mongol archers were also known for their deadly skill with the bow and arrow while riding on horseback. The world was conquered by Genghis Khan sitting on the back of a horse and archery had a hand in that. While riding full speed on the back of a horse, Mongol warriors were able to shoot off as many as six arrows in less than a minute. That, along with impeccable aim helped conquer a large part of the world. The Mongolians would draw their bows back with their thumb (the strongest digit), not their pointer and middle fingers. Using the Mongolian draw instead of the European draw, this allowed them to hold up to three arrows with their other fingers, helping to quickly shoot multiple arrows. 

Well, we were in the grasslands and our butts were sore from riding our horses... the only thing left to do was shoot some arrows while the grassland winds tried to knock us off our feet. Our newly made friend, Andy from Scotland, was a veritable Robin Hood hitting the target over and over again. While Adam and I didn't embarrass ourselves too much, Genghis Khan would still probably be disappointed in us. 

After a quick hike through the grasslands, a dinner of noodles, tofu, and some questionable meatballs, and a bottle of wine shared with the members of the cool kids yurt, it was time for our crappy fire. 

You think wood burns nicely? That's cute. No, here out on the grasslands, we like to burn poop. Not cow poop--that burns too quickly. We like goat and sheep poop. It burns for a long time and makes a mighty nice fire. And surprisingly... it doesn't smell at all. 

The weary travelers from the four yurts all came together in the cold night, sitting around a poop fire, listening to Janice Joplin and Simon and Garfunkel, drinking Snow beer, and laughing at the adventure that life is. 

Until, Next Time,
Amanda

Greetings from the Grassland!

I feel like I should apologize for my lack of posts over the last year... In the last 15 months, I've only posted twice... TWICE!! Of course, I was working hard on my other blog: An Accord of Dreamers which unfortunately has also come to a halt in the hubbub of life.

So Russia did not work out. At. All. Pretty early on, we realized that it just wasn't going to be a right fit for us. It was particularly difficult for me to be so far away from home so close to Jed's passing (I struggled almost every day) and the work load was more than double what we were used to as foreign teachers. It was hard enough being emotionally exhausted each day much less physically tired from working so much. So we decided to do what was right for us and headed back home for Thanksgiving in Minnesota with the Limperts and Christmas in Disney World with the WooGulls.

 

 

Since Russia had been so difficult to try and assimilate into, we decided to return to a place we already knew and loved--China. And many of you asked me if I was going to start this blog back up again once I was back out into the world. And so, without further ado...

 

Hello! Сайн уу! 你好! Greetings from Inner Mongolia!

 

Now when we told people we were  our way to Inner Mongolia, their eyes grew wide as they heard the name Mongolia. Unfortunately, we are not in the country of Mongolia (but it's one of my goals while we're here! I can't be this close and NOT get there!). We are in one of the five autonomous regions in China--Tibet, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Guangxi, and Inner Mongolia.

 

 

 

We are currently living in the city of Bayannur (in Mongolian it looks like: ᠪᠠᠶᠠᠨᠨᠠᠭᠤᠷ ᠬᠣᠲᠠHow cool is that?!?) which is about a four hour train ride away from the region's capitol of Hohhot. Compared to Hangzhou which had a population of 9 million, Bayannur is a very small city with just above 1 million people. Of course, by our standards, that's still huge! Think about it: Buffalo has just over 250,000 people. Because of Bayannur's smaller size, pollution is nowhere near as bad as it would be in Hangzhou some days, and certainly nowhere near as bad as Beijing. We don't have to worry about pollution... but here in Bayannur sand storms are our big problem. The city is nestled in the middle of the Gobi Desert with the grasslands of the Mongolian Steppe surrounding the desert. And of course, it wouldn't be China without on of it's two famous rivers. Here in Bayannur, we have the Yellow River.

 

Bayannur is very different from Hangzhou in more ways than one. For one, Hangzhou is a coastal city so the climate is very hot and very humid. Bayannur is in the middle of the desert so it is much dryer here (my hair does not appreciate that!); it is pretty warm when the sun is out but the temperature drops at night, sometimes to below freezing. Also, the number of foreigners and Western restaurants is vastly different. In Hangzhou there was a nice community of expats and tons of bars, cafés, and restaurants you could visit if you were ever missing America (one time I even saw a Sabres game at one of my favorite restaurants, Vineyard!). Here in Bayannur, Adam and I are literally half of the foreigner population in the city--there is one other teacher from Georgia at our college named John, and a young man from South Africa named David who teaches at a high school on the other side of the city. And since there are hardly any foreigners in the city, clearly there's no need for any western bars or restaurants. There is only one KFC in the entire city--in Hangzhou, there was one on every street corner!

 

This is just how far we are from Hangzhou... if you're curious, it'll take over 400 hours to walk there.

So how did we manage to find our way to a small city in the middle of the Gobi Desert, 1250 miles away from a city we knew and loved? Two full days of travel, of course!

 

We left from Toronto on Tuesday, February 23 (that's right! We've been gone for over a month now... Do you miss us yet?). If anyone is ever looking to fly to Asia--and particularly China--always check flights leaving from Toronto... usually they're much cheaper and you can sometimes get a direct flight! Of course, for us, there was no such thing as a direct flight to Bayannur. We hopped on our plane (after realizing we had arrived five hours too early... oops!) for out 15 hour flight.

 

There's no way around it--flying to China is pretty torturous. If you fly on a Chinese airline, seats are narrower and leg room is even less (and I bet you didn't think that was possible!). There is still no sense of personal space and for some reason, it's always the person behind you that is constantly hocking up loogies and the person in front of you who reclines their seat back all the way the minute you take off. It's about the longest you can fly around the world before you start making your way back home again. But, this was my 7th US-China flight so I guess I could be considered an expert at surviving.

 

We arrived in Shanghai at 7pm the next day... Seriously, flying to and from China is the closest thing we can get to time travel! This part of the trip was particularly painful for us because if we were moving back to Hangzhou, this would be the end of our journey--all we would need to do was hop on a bus for three hours. But sadly, we still had another day to go before we could say we were home. After a two hour layover, we arrived in Beijing (the fact that we couldn't find a direct flight to Beijing--the CAPITOL of the country--still boggles my mind) for our overnight stay. We found some comfy chairs at a Starbucks and settled in for the night.

 

There's Fernando--my travel companion and comfy savior!!

 

Now Bayannur is one of those elusive cities that if you want to fly to it, you have to be at the right place, at the right time, on the right day. There is only one flight that leaves from the Beijing Airport at 7:30 in the morning and they don't fly out every day... so booking these flights was frustrating!! But as we pulled away from the gate and began to fly over the mountains to the north of the city, everything appeared as if it was falling perfectly into place.

 

::Cue ominous music::

 

As we continued to fly, it appeared as if we were leaving civilization behind us. Watching the mountains pass by slowly was relaxing in the beginning, until we started to make our descent into the airport and we still could not see any sign of life except for the few farms dotted among the desert.

 

Behold! The Gobi Desert!

I had been so excited to be in a part of China that I've never seen before... but that excitement slowly began to turn into apprehension as we landed at the airport (with a grand total of two gates) and there was absolutely NOTHING around us. No people. No houses. No city. No campus. There was nothing for as far as the eye could see.

Immediately, Adam and I started to panic. We had felt isolated in Novosibirsk but at least there, we saw signs of life! "What have I done?" Adam muttered to himself, burying his face in his hands, laughing nervously.

Turns out, like most cities, the airport is about a half hour away from the downtown area... But usually there are towns and suburbs and houses surrounding airports to reassure you that you haven't landed in the middle of nowhere. But not in Bayannur!

Despite the long journey and the less than thrilling first impressions, it turns out that we adore the little city of Bayannur. The people are extremely friendly--they don't see too many foreigners in their lives so when we walk by they shout "Hello!" and whisper 老外 (laowai=foreigner). The city is so small--even though we live on the outskirts at the college, we can walk twenty minutes down the road and stand in the downtown area filled with malls, restaurants, and movie theaters. And the Foreign Language Department is so welcoming. In Hangzhou, there was a definite divide between the Chinese English teachers and the foreign English teachers. Here, we work together in classes, we're invited to their homes for dinner, and on my birthday, our boss, Carol, declared that we would all go out to one of the nicest places in town for a birthday dinner.

Tiger Lily, Carol, Dora, Finn, Barbara
Me, Adam, John

And the people living in the town aren't the only ones who are surprised when a foreigner walks by! Our students are just as surprised and awestruck when they see us walking by or standing at the computer in their classrooms. They mutter your name over and over again and shout, "I love you!" as they walk by (I may or may not have taught them that).

At first, it takes you by surprise--what's so special about me? But then you stop and think that you could be the very first non-Chinese person these kids have ever seen and suddenly you're not just a teacher but an ambassador as well! You blow their minds when they learn you do not own a gun, you are not rich, you have never met Taylor Swift, and everyone in America is not completely obsessed with basketball (but you don't dare tell them that you've never even watched a game).

My particular favorite barrier I enjoy breaking down is the stereotype of people with tattoos. In China (and other parts of the world as well), people with tattoos are seen as bad people--gang members, criminals, drug users, etc. As I stand in front of my classes with my tattoos out in the open, the students are seeing that someone like me--goofy, wild, and always smiling--has tattoos and yet, I'm not all that bad! It's fun blowing their minds sometimes.

One of my favorite things to do after my classes is to go to WeChat (China's instant messenger) and see what creeper photos they take of me while I'm trying to teach. Usually they're extremely unflattering photos with a caption like, "The legendary female foreign teacher."

This college is the very definition of why so many young people in America have decided to pack up their lives and move to a foreign country to teach English. We aren't doing it because we love English (on the contrary... if anything I've come to hate it even more than ever before!!), we're doing it because that is the way we can supply our adventure. Instead of working 9-5 for five days a week, I'm currently teaching two Public Speaking classes--one on Tuesday and one on Friday--each for an hour and a half as well as five 45 minute random classes throughout the month. With that I'm making enough to live very comfortably in China as well as save money for when I visit America in the summer (I'm actually making more than I was in Hangzhou) and we have tons of free time to explore the city and surrounding areas, try local food, and get to know the people (This was one of the problems with Russia--we worked so much we never had days off together and we never had time to experience the Russian culture). Top that off with four holidays this semester and the highly prized Spring Festival in the winter and you have possibly one of the nicest countries to live and teach in when you're young, trying to save money, and have an inkling to see the world.

***********

 

It's nice to be back in a culture that we know and understand. But it's even nicer that we're in a place that is so different from what we already know. New adventures are on the horizon. I'm sensing a pilgrimage to Genghis Khan's mausoleum, a horseback ride through the grasslands, and maybe even a camel trip through the Gobi Desert.

 

I'm touched that so many of you asked if this blog would make a revival in this new adventure. I never know if anyone actually reads it... but I'm humbled to find that, in fact, you do and that you enjoy reading about my shenanigans! I hope it finds you well and lights that spark in your chest for a bit of adventure.

 

Until Next Time,

Amanda

 

96 days until chicken wings, BBQs, good beer, peanut butter, and cheese!!!!!