When National Pride Becomes Subtly Undermined by Behaviors of Common People

From those who may not know, the author is actually ethnic Mongol on his mother's side.  But as ethnic Mongols from the Chinese Northeast, his mother's family has very little connection to the Mongolian nation and culture.  They have not spoken the Mongolian language for a couple of generations and do not even know their proper Mongol names.  It is better get in touch with that little understood Mongolian heritage that the author decided to show up to Ulaanbaatar and meet with "real" Mongols who can at least superficially tell him what is it like to be really Mongol.

The fact that the author inadvertently showed up on the first day of the Lunar New Year's holidays was either a misfortune or a true blessing.  Misfortune because the whole town seems deserted, with all shops and restaurants closed until quite a few days later.  The author was utterly unprepared to deal with the inconveniences of traveling under such extraordinary circumstances, embrassingly enough, having no prior knowledge that Mongols actually celebrate the Lunar New Year.

But it was also a blessing for the ability to really experience how Mongols celebrate the important holiday.  The boss of the guesthouse he is staying in has so kindly brought him to the house of relatives, where tons of traditional foods are piled up awaiting the visits of extended family members.  Sampling the food, observing how family members greet each other, and just being part of the whole celebration are perhaps the best way to get a good idea of how Mongol culture work beyond a few colorful traditional costumes.

Yet, even that blessing is a misfortune in disguise.  Had the author not showed up in the Lunar New Year period, it would have been next to impossible to find himself so close to how the culture really works.  In any other time of the year, he would have been much more likely to find himself on some sort of "cultural tour" in which traditional culture is staged by semi-professional actors with a knack of understanding what kind of exotic things foreigners want to see.  Even if genuine, such tours would be highly biased.

And outside deliberate staging of cultural activities, traces of Mongolian culture is just so hard to find.  The streets of Ulaanbaatar are lined not with Mongolian eateries but pizzerias, burger joints, and "Asian" restaurants serving up Mongol versions of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese foods.  The architecture is mostly of modern skyscrapers and Russian inspired residences.  Only a few Mongol palatial architecture remain as tourist spots, while nomadic yurts are confined to impoverished "ger districts" of the outskirts.

It is as if the Mongols are too busy becoming like others.  Decades of being ruled as a Soviet satellite state has introduced perhaps irreversible changes to the Mongol culture.  Indeed, people have European salads with spoons and forks even during "traditional" Lunar New Year celebrations.  And recent efforts to find a non-Chinese, non-Russian "Third Neighbor" has made the country all too quick to accept the foods, products, and looks of Koreans, Japanese, and Americans without hesitation of any sort.

Underlying that rush to diverge from Mongol traditions might be the country's increasing marginalization in the contemporary world.  The economy hinges upon mining, for which profitability depends on economic conditions of major purchasers like China.  As a small state of some 3 million people, it has little presence in the international arena aside from UN peacekeeping missions.  That reality may be pushing Mongolians to become more like others to be more noticed.

Yet, the answer is not in non-Mongols but more likely in the Mongol past.  The country's continued reverence of Genghis Khan says much about its desire to become, once again, a central player globally.  Mongolians fondly remember the Great Khan not as a massacring pillager that others remember him by, but as a pioneer of global trade and integration, a harbinger of East-West connections that underpins global trade today.  In the Mongol memory, the empire of the Great Khan was benevolent, a marker of globalization.

The geographical advantage that led to the creation of the world's largest ever political entity is certainly still there.  Mongolia lies in the Eurasian heartland where any overland trade across the vast continent must pass through.  While the oceans have become front and center in the modern global economy today, the shift toward land is once again happening.  The strategic importance, and the urgent need to take advantage of consumers, of Central Asia and inland Middle East means that the seas will no longer be completely dominant.

There lies the Mongolian chance for revival.  Its days as a center of trade might come again.  But for the country to be ready to take advantage of it, it must first be proud of who they are, as Mongols, not something else.  If the people are too busy becoming not Mongol in culture and beyond, even if the country does participate in the overland global trade of the future, it will participate not as an independent sovereign player, but as a proxy and satellite of major regional economies.  That is something Genghis Khan would be loathed to see.