Hi All! I promised that I would do an informational blog all about Mongolia for G.W.Carver Elementary School in Salem, VA, my nephew Nick's school. They are having a multicultural day on June 9. I got input from my students and had some assistance from my counterpart, Ariunaa. Check it out here: http://exploremongolia.blogspot.com/
This is a project related to the Peace Corps' third goal--to teach Americans about the people and culture in the country where we serve. There is special emphasis on the third goal this year in the Peace Corps' 50th year of existence. It's also the 20th anniversary of Peace Corps Mongolia. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tsagaan Sar
Hi all! I apologize again for the long time between posts. Today, I want to tell you about Tsagaan Sar, which is a holiday that celebrates the lunar new year. Tsagaan Sar means White Month or White Moon. The date changes every year because it depends on the lunar calendar but it's usually some time at the end of January or early February. This year Tsagaan Sar was Feb. 3-6. This is one killer holiday. It's a lot of work, a lot of eating, a lot of singing, a lot of drinking. I don't think we have any holiday like it. It would be like if we had 4 or 5 days in a row of Thanksgiving.
Mongolian families start getting ready for the holiday weeks in advance. Everyone visits the homes of family and friends, wearing traditional Mongolian clothes. And every time you visit a home, you have to eat a full meal, basically, and drink at least 3 shots of vodka. It's bad luck if you don't take 3 shots of vodka, so I was told. The preparation for the holiday is the work part. The main food that's served is buuz which are steamed meat dumplings, and the meat is usually mutton but sometimes it's beef. Families make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of buuz in preparation for Tsagaan Sar. They make them ahead of time, freeze them, and every time someone visits your home, a fresh batch of buuz are steamed for the newcomers. There's also a potato salad, white salad, that has lots of mayo and hiam (not ham, hiam, pronounced like "hyam"--it's kind of like really fatty salami) and pickles. Then there are plates of pickles and hiam. At one home, I had a geddes (which is stomach or intestines) salad. That was definitely not my favorite. There's a lot of candy too. Every home has a tower of hard bread, called hafsa, that is topped with aruu, which is dried sour milk curds, and then basically a pile of lard at the top. No one eats the hafsa until after Tsagaan Sar, and by then it's so hard the only way to eat it is to soak it in your milk tea or tea. The size of the tower depends on how long the parents in the home have been married, and there can only be an odd number of layers. So young couples may have a 3-layer tower, but an old couple could have a 7-layer tower. Every home also has a slab of sheep lower back/butt or a cow chest, that has been boiled and is left out ceremoniously next to the tower of bread. The head of the home will cut pieces off the meat and hand it around. It's not bad if you don't get a whole bunch of fat. My Mongolian friends know I don't like the fat so they would give me just meat or meat with a little bit of fat. Mongolians, however, love the fat and will eat a big ol' piece. In addition to vodka, there's milk tea (suutai tsai) to drink, and usually juice. It's quite a spread, really.
Also, every guest who comes to your home gets a gift or gifts. The gifts are cell phone unit gift cards, shampoo, soap, leather key ring holder with Chinggis Khan printed on it (I got 2 of those!), and things like that. I'm still using up my store of Tsagaan Sar shampoo and soap. Additionally, you're supposed to thoroughly clean your home and buy something new for the home. And you buy or make new dels, the Mongolian traditional clothes. That's to start the new year fresh. As you can see, this holiday can be very expensive.
So, Tsagaan Sar eve (the night before the first official day of Tsagaan Sar) is for immediate family and close friends. You eat and drink all the same stuff, but it's more low key and no presents are given. I spent Tsagaan Sar eve with my counterparts Ariunaa and Chuluuntsegtseg at Chuluuntsetseg's home. It was nice. Chuluuntsetseg lives with her husband, daughter, and father-in-law, so it was all of them and then me and Ariunaa and her son. Ariunaa did not celebrate Tsagaan Sar in her home this year because her husband passed away last August, so I guess it's like she's in mourning and doesn't celebrate in her home.
[Diversion--I'm sitting in my kitchen writing this and I have a partial view of a construction site that has a wood fence all around it. Mongolian men pee outside and in public as a matter of course. I think this wood fence around the construction site which is in my "backyard" is the most popular outdoor toilet. I frequently see men pee not 50 feet from my window. I just saw one, which is what prompted me to write this. Lovely.]
The first day of Tsagaan Sar is for family. Young family members go visit old family members and honor them with a greeting and usually a gift of money (maybe 500-5,000 Tugriks, about $.40 to $4). The greeting is called Zolgokh. In the greeting, the younger person comes to the older person who is sitting and puts out both their arms, palms up and the older person puts their arms out, palms down on top of the younger person. Sometimes one or both people have a khadag in their hands. A khadag is a long brightly colored scarf that is part of many rituals. In the picture of me with the divine tree, those are khadag all over the tree. Then with the younger person supporting the older person's arms, the younger person leans forward and they put cheek to cheek like you're going to kiss them, but instead you sniff them on both sides of the face. And you say, "Amar sain uu?" which means "do you rest well?"
Since the first day is for family, I went with several of my fellow PCVs to an orphanage. That was fun. The kids were excited to have us there and the couple who runs the orphanage are very friendly and kind.
On the second day of Tsagaan Sar, I went with my counterpart Ariunaa, her 2 sons, my sitemate Geoff, and Yeong Ji, a Korean volunteer at my school, to the countryside to visit some of Ariunaa's family. Ariunaa was anxious that I see Tsagaan Sar in the countryside. It was really fun. The family was honored to have us foreigners there. Mongolians are crazy about singing, and frequently burst into song at gatherings. Usually, the vodka bowl goes around and the person who gets it has to give a toast and sing a song. Geoff knows Mongolian really well, so he was able to dazzle the Mongolians with a Mongolian song. I sang an English song. At the orphanage, I sang "Amazing Grace" with another visiting PCV, Marisa. Geoff and I sang "Ripple" (by the Grateful Dead) at another home. After eating one full meal in the countryside and receiving gifts, we went to my other counterpart, Chuluuntsetseg's home, had another meal, drank more vodka, sang more songs, received gifts and then went to the home of Tserenchimeg, the training manager at my school and one of my English students. We had yet another full meal, more vodka, more songs, and more gifts. Three homes was my limit that day. Some PCVs go to like 10 homes in a day. I don't know how that's humanly possible!
On the third day of Tsagaan Sar, my school had its celebration. That morning, the teachers all met in our large conference room. We had the tower and the sheep butt and vodka. And everyone went around and gave the greeting, then we ate some meat and drank some vodka (at 10 o'clock in the morning!). After the school event, I went to the home of another one of my counterpart's, Batsaya. And then I went with her to her brother's home. And then later that afternoon, I went to the home of a student from the local teacher's college who I've been mentoring. Her name is Ganaa. And that was enough for that day!
On the fourth day, I only went to one home, thank goodness. I went to my school's deputy director's home, Oyunkhand. I went with Ariunaa and the 2 Korean volunteers from my school, Yeong Ji and Sook Bin. That was a very pleasant morning. No vodka but we had some wine. And that ended my Tsagaan Sar. Whew! It was a lot of fun but exhausting.
I asked my teachers, and they always end up eating leftover buuz and hafsa for weeks after Tsagaan Sar.
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| This is Ariunaa's son and Chuluuntsetseg's daughter on Tsagaan Sar Eve. |
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| Tsagaan Sar Eve at Chuluuntsetseg's. That's Chuluuntsetseg to the right of me. |
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| Tsagaan Sar in the countryside--From left, Ariunaa's sons, Geoff, Ariunaa's husband's mother's sister, me, Ariunaa's husband's mother's brother-in-law, Yeong Ji. We're in a ger. You can see the hafsa tower and sheep butt. |
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| This is the other side of the ger. That's the door in the back and the stove in the middle. |
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| Tsagaan Sar at my school. This is a good picture of the hafsa tower and the sheep butt (not to be confused with my butt which is in the right corner! ;)). In the background you can see the greeting, zolgokh, being given. |
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| At my school--some of the male teachers in their dels giving the greeting, zolgokh. |
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| The man in the center is my school's director. He's about to give the greeting to the woman seated in the chair. She's older than him, so she sits and he greets her. He has a khadag in his hands. |
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| This is me, Yeong Ji and Geoff with Ariunaa's relatives outside the ger in the countryside. This was February so it was quite cold, especially with the wind whipping across the steppe. |
Mongolian families start getting ready for the holiday weeks in advance. Everyone visits the homes of family and friends, wearing traditional Mongolian clothes. And every time you visit a home, you have to eat a full meal, basically, and drink at least 3 shots of vodka. It's bad luck if you don't take 3 shots of vodka, so I was told. The preparation for the holiday is the work part. The main food that's served is buuz which are steamed meat dumplings, and the meat is usually mutton but sometimes it's beef. Families make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of buuz in preparation for Tsagaan Sar. They make them ahead of time, freeze them, and every time someone visits your home, a fresh batch of buuz are steamed for the newcomers. There's also a potato salad, white salad, that has lots of mayo and hiam (not ham, hiam, pronounced like "hyam"--it's kind of like really fatty salami) and pickles. Then there are plates of pickles and hiam. At one home, I had a geddes (which is stomach or intestines) salad. That was definitely not my favorite. There's a lot of candy too. Every home has a tower of hard bread, called hafsa, that is topped with aruu, which is dried sour milk curds, and then basically a pile of lard at the top. No one eats the hafsa until after Tsagaan Sar, and by then it's so hard the only way to eat it is to soak it in your milk tea or tea. The size of the tower depends on how long the parents in the home have been married, and there can only be an odd number of layers. So young couples may have a 3-layer tower, but an old couple could have a 7-layer tower. Every home also has a slab of sheep lower back/butt or a cow chest, that has been boiled and is left out ceremoniously next to the tower of bread. The head of the home will cut pieces off the meat and hand it around. It's not bad if you don't get a whole bunch of fat. My Mongolian friends know I don't like the fat so they would give me just meat or meat with a little bit of fat. Mongolians, however, love the fat and will eat a big ol' piece. In addition to vodka, there's milk tea (suutai tsai) to drink, and usually juice. It's quite a spread, really.
Also, every guest who comes to your home gets a gift or gifts. The gifts are cell phone unit gift cards, shampoo, soap, leather key ring holder with Chinggis Khan printed on it (I got 2 of those!), and things like that. I'm still using up my store of Tsagaan Sar shampoo and soap. Additionally, you're supposed to thoroughly clean your home and buy something new for the home. And you buy or make new dels, the Mongolian traditional clothes. That's to start the new year fresh. As you can see, this holiday can be very expensive.
So, Tsagaan Sar eve (the night before the first official day of Tsagaan Sar) is for immediate family and close friends. You eat and drink all the same stuff, but it's more low key and no presents are given. I spent Tsagaan Sar eve with my counterparts Ariunaa and Chuluuntsegtseg at Chuluuntsetseg's home. It was nice. Chuluuntsetseg lives with her husband, daughter, and father-in-law, so it was all of them and then me and Ariunaa and her son. Ariunaa did not celebrate Tsagaan Sar in her home this year because her husband passed away last August, so I guess it's like she's in mourning and doesn't celebrate in her home.
[Diversion--I'm sitting in my kitchen writing this and I have a partial view of a construction site that has a wood fence all around it. Mongolian men pee outside and in public as a matter of course. I think this wood fence around the construction site which is in my "backyard" is the most popular outdoor toilet. I frequently see men pee not 50 feet from my window. I just saw one, which is what prompted me to write this. Lovely.]
The first day of Tsagaan Sar is for family. Young family members go visit old family members and honor them with a greeting and usually a gift of money (maybe 500-5,000 Tugriks, about $.40 to $4). The greeting is called Zolgokh. In the greeting, the younger person comes to the older person who is sitting and puts out both their arms, palms up and the older person puts their arms out, palms down on top of the younger person. Sometimes one or both people have a khadag in their hands. A khadag is a long brightly colored scarf that is part of many rituals. In the picture of me with the divine tree, those are khadag all over the tree. Then with the younger person supporting the older person's arms, the younger person leans forward and they put cheek to cheek like you're going to kiss them, but instead you sniff them on both sides of the face. And you say, "Amar sain uu?" which means "do you rest well?"
Since the first day is for family, I went with several of my fellow PCVs to an orphanage. That was fun. The kids were excited to have us there and the couple who runs the orphanage are very friendly and kind.
On the second day of Tsagaan Sar, I went with my counterpart Ariunaa, her 2 sons, my sitemate Geoff, and Yeong Ji, a Korean volunteer at my school, to the countryside to visit some of Ariunaa's family. Ariunaa was anxious that I see Tsagaan Sar in the countryside. It was really fun. The family was honored to have us foreigners there. Mongolians are crazy about singing, and frequently burst into song at gatherings. Usually, the vodka bowl goes around and the person who gets it has to give a toast and sing a song. Geoff knows Mongolian really well, so he was able to dazzle the Mongolians with a Mongolian song. I sang an English song. At the orphanage, I sang "Amazing Grace" with another visiting PCV, Marisa. Geoff and I sang "Ripple" (by the Grateful Dead) at another home. After eating one full meal in the countryside and receiving gifts, we went to my other counterpart, Chuluuntsetseg's home, had another meal, drank more vodka, sang more songs, received gifts and then went to the home of Tserenchimeg, the training manager at my school and one of my English students. We had yet another full meal, more vodka, more songs, and more gifts. Three homes was my limit that day. Some PCVs go to like 10 homes in a day. I don't know how that's humanly possible!
On the third day of Tsagaan Sar, my school had its celebration. That morning, the teachers all met in our large conference room. We had the tower and the sheep butt and vodka. And everyone went around and gave the greeting, then we ate some meat and drank some vodka (at 10 o'clock in the morning!). After the school event, I went to the home of another one of my counterpart's, Batsaya. And then I went with her to her brother's home. And then later that afternoon, I went to the home of a student from the local teacher's college who I've been mentoring. Her name is Ganaa. And that was enough for that day!
On the fourth day, I only went to one home, thank goodness. I went to my school's deputy director's home, Oyunkhand. I went with Ariunaa and the 2 Korean volunteers from my school, Yeong Ji and Sook Bin. That was a very pleasant morning. No vodka but we had some wine. And that ended my Tsagaan Sar. Whew! It was a lot of fun but exhausting.
I asked my teachers, and they always end up eating leftover buuz and hafsa for weeks after Tsagaan Sar.
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