Two Measures of Modern Mongolia

Nowhere Was Never Closer

In many ways, a city is as modern as what you can buy in it. Ulaanbaatar’s streets are dusty and its sidewalks are uneven, but you can find a floor of designer perfume vendors at The State Department Store, the city’s most famous mall.

Mongolia borders no oceans, but a country isn’t really landlocked when a sea of Chinese food, DVDs and Houston Rockets t-shirts sits to the south. Cars with California license plates regularly make their way to Mongolia via China, shipped three-at-a-time in crates, then run by rail to Ulaanbaatar.

What Mongolia does not get through China comes from Russia, which provided virtually all Mongolia’s imports before the USSR’s collapse (those Socialist days are long-gone; citizens tore down UB’s Stalin statue and sold it to a bar). Today, Russia’s two most relevant contributions seem to be petrol and vodka, not necessarily in that order. In terms of recipient appreciation, there’s a clear favorite. Everyone complains about Russian fuel prices; few protest vodka imports.

“It’s the one good thing they gave us,” UB Post editor Sumiya said during my first week in Ulaanbaatar.

Printer Malfunction

Now, of course, Mongolia makes its own vodka. The most popular brand, like many things here, is named Chinggis. I got my first taste at an office party on a Wednesday, printing day. Sumiya had returned from the countryside, but he still had two weeks of vacation left, so Togoo, a veteran from our parent company’s daily, joined our staff to make four. If he, Kirril (Australian reporter), Bulgamaa (Mongolian reporter) and I worked non-stop, we’d get the paper in just after the 6 pm deadline.

That was good news. We sent the paper to press closer to midnight than 6 the last two weeks and now the printers hated us. At 10 pm the week before, at least one guy got fed up.

“He went crazy,” Bulgamaa told me. I thought of some spectacled guy throwing type everywhere. Well, we’d make this week different.

Our staff clicked along until afternoon when a woman entered the office. After saying hello, I recognized her as Sumiya’s mother. She too had returned from the countryside bringing provisions for the office. That meant there was a party upstairs. Bulgamaa told me to bring a cup.

A Shot of Modernity, Tradition

All four of us joined the cast of photographers and sports writers in an advertising office. Sumiya’s mother handed Kirril and I bowls of clear liquid: horse vodka. It’s watery and less alcoholic than vodka, and comes out of a horse.

Drinking in Mongolia is tricky because finishing too fast prompts someone to immediately refill your container—drink too slowly and someone yells at you to chug.

“I’m going to be sick,” Kirril said, “You have to drink this.”

He had a bad experience visiting countryside gers, drinking three shots at every residence like a well-mannered guest. He’s never recovered, but I couldn’t help him. We looked around without lifting our containers until Khastagara—the second coolest person who comes into our office—spotted us. “Faster, faster,” he said.

Hahaha, we laughed, and pretended to drink faster. Sumiya’s mother filled the cups we still held in our free hands with airag: fermented mare’s milk. Earlier, a Mongolian told me not to drink it if I’d had surgery. It’s the sourest thing I’ve put in my mouth on purpose.

“Drink, Drink,” said Khastagar. His name means hawk, and he wears a bright red helmet while riding his moped around. He’s a great photographer. He’s also a jerk.

The coolest guy who comes into the office is Gray Wolf. Nobody knows what he does or where he comes from, but he’s sinewy, ambiguously ethnic, and has a long ponytail. Every other week he storms into the office demanding to see the editor. Sumiya is never there when he stops by.

I finished my horse vodka too quickly and Sumiya’s mother refilled my bowl with regular Chinggis vodka. I had to leave. Stuffing some cake into my mouth, I grabbed Kirril and we headed downstairs, apologizing that we had a lot of newspaper to finish. I felt light headed, but back at my desk, everything seemed more manageable, except the airag—that went down the sink.

This episode proved easy enough. I figured I could handle some drinking on the job. I soon learned it’s during vacation when drinking becomes mandatory and serious and much more difficult.

Make Mine a Dribble

A week after Sumiya returned to work, the Mongol News Group held its two-day staff retreat. Each year, the company charters twin city buses and lugs its employees to a company in Terelj national park, several kilometers east of Ulaanbaatar. Everyone goes: the administrative staff, the doormen and women, the printers, the advertisers and all the various papers’ journalists.

I sat in the back of a bus next to Sumiya, four other adults and two dead sheep the company bought for lunch the following day. We left around 10:30 in the morning. At 11:00 we opened a second bottle of vodka.

“I never drink before noon,” I told Sumiya, but that wasn’t an option. I wanted to join the fun and Sumiya was persistent. I also wanted vodka to stop spilling on my pants from the sippy cup he had me hold while he poured—Mongolia’s roads are not well suited for pouring or drinking and driving.

Intermittently I packed rolls into my mouth, and felt only slightly nauseous by the time we reached Terelj. I had to learn from mistakes made by the last English Editor to go on this trip; Sumiya said he found him passed out behind a ger covered in stomach acid. At the hotel, we sat down as a company for lunch, rested for an hour, then headed to a nearby field for an office Olympiad: tug of war, sumo wrestling, soccer, and a relay.

The Team that Thinks Together Drinks Together

We divided ourselves into three teams. The UB Post joined Five Rings, the sports paper with which we share an office. Onoodor, the large daily and administrative/other personnel formed the second and third teams respectively.

“Who are those huge guys?” I asked Sumiya.

“I think those are the printers,” he said.

Oh. Printing is not an academic profession here, and those four giants formed the administrative team’s core. Any notion that teamwork is more important than strength in tug of war is not true. They killed us. I didn’t know fingers could hurt so much. Sumo wrestling ended badly too, but the white collar journalists got revenge during the beautiful game and a crazily complex relay. It was fun, but people took this stuff seriously; there were cash prizes for the winners. Our team made $10 per person and the administrators earned the same (hapless Onoodor won nothing).

Afterwards, it was time to drink in earnest, so the UB Post staff sat with the sports guys and women and passed around cups of vodka. Unlike parties in the US where people get their own drinks and gather in small groups, everyone sits in a circle drinking from communal cups in Mongolia. The cup stops when there is no more vodka. We had a lot of vodka.

So What’s Old?

One Mongolian guidebook said that the introduction of beer decreased drunkenness in Mongolia because the human stomach can only hold so much liquid and beer has so much less alcohol than hard liquor. Everyone here seemed to drink superhuman quantities and hold it together. Then there was dinner. Then there was a disco.

We spent the night in a ger outside the hotel, and the next morning Sumiya and I got up and went to find some horses. He had said something about drunken yak riding earlier, but today I was willing to settle for less. We climbed a ridge and looked down on a horse herd, some vehicles, and power-lines running toward a ger encampment in the next valley.

It was getting late so we headed back to the busses and then to Ulaanbaatar. Sumiya said this is the best day of the year. It’s a lot of fun, but for relaxation, I prefer work in the city, where if you want alcohol, you usually have to go out and buy it.