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speak friend and enter
суббота, октября 16, 2004
Quite A Few Days...
These last few days have been fascinating- been all about downtown Ulaan Baatar, roaming through various shopping areas, more museums, universities, monasteries (or what's left of them, after communism), public parks, soviet monuments and rabid dogs. Roaming alone w my headphones is pretty neat- you get to pray, worship, chill all at the same time.
Nairamdal Park
Zaisan Memorial- soviet monument to soviet forces defending Mongolia from the Japanese in WWII
Soviet Realist Monument
honoring "comrade" Lenin; note interposing of mongolian and soviet motifs
detail of mosaic mural at Zaisan Memorial
Some important fella w bad hair day, Nairamdal Park
free ranging horse, Nairamdal Park
Zaisan Memorial in the sunset, as seen from Nairamdal Park
Also, did my bit'o prayerwalk around the five pressure areas- centers of government, education, spiritual activity, commerce and communication. The monasteries are weird and strangely educational, throwing up some questions no one can quite answer me: the lama monks here eat meat and hunt; the old mongolian king (technically a head-lama, early 1900s) loved stuffed animals (he had thousands of them from all over the world, including an elephant force-marched from the siberian border!), had a ger (traditional hut thingy) made from 150 snow leopard skins, had a wife but many mistresses and died of syphillis. Not too good for his karma, whatever that means. It prolly was a good idea the communists came and put a stop to the madness. But buddhism's experiencing quite a comeback, together with shamanism, which 350 years of buddhism and 90 years of communism failed to wipe off. People still walk clockwise around sacred objects here and there. There is truly a spiritual hunger beneath that veneer of commercialism and capitalism. The door is definitely flung wide open.
monastery of the choijin lama
inside the winter palace of the bogd-khan
Today, I went for a wedding- two campus crusade staff got married to each other! The last few days, the Mongolian Campus Crusade community was all abuzz! Pretty neat- a christian mongolian wedding! There's the first bit in the church- pretty normal churchy weddingy bits, plus some other eye-openers: there was even a ballet presentation. Simply amazing! (There's an enormous amount of russian heritage from the soviet era here... little kids still kena get selected to study art, ballet and music FULLTIME in specialized schools from age 5)!
wedding preparations the night before
galaa, busy with stuff
Best Man with the MC
end of the church wedding
traditional mongolian blessings from parents
Couple with crusaders
me and the happy couple, Boogii and Undraa
A few good men- music group students with Bataraa
Anyhoo, wedding service at church was followed thereafter by a lunch at one of UB's most prestigious restaurants! Lots of russian architecture, and lunch consisted of cold meat apetizers and other strongly russian influenced menu. Had Ox tongue, and also there were bits of unidentifible chunks in my salad, but definitely offal. Main course was more meats, and then there was the obligatory whole roasted sheep from the bridal table. Thankfully to balance off, there were lotsa fresh fruits and vege. During lunch, students and friends sang, danced, played music for the couple and guests. There was even a string quartet playing the 1st mvt from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik! All crusade students from the music conservatory. I was invited to play some stuff on the piano too- did a simple rendition of Be Thou My Vision (figured its pentatonic mode would agree well w the older folk), and then some other vineyard stuff. Lunch was MC-ed by this local TV celebrity- he's a christian, and everyone loves his wisecracks, which of course, I did not understand. Lunch ended with guests lining up to present gifts (including a full sized carpet, a moriin huur, even an oven!) to the couple, with some of them presenting lengthy speeches, traditional blessings and on several occasion, a Maagtaal (a traditional praise-song) and an Urtyn-Duu (mongolian long-song), apparently praising/blessing the couple with goodwill. Yup. That's a christian mongolian wedding!
pretty cool wedding lunch reception!
item from music group student
my contributions for the reception!
string quartet- music group students
another song item
presentation of wedding gifts
rendition of traditional wedding/blessing song
Been fun. Looking forward to the next week- attending a local worship fest/concert, meeting w campus ministry students from various campuses for a time of extended worship and prayer, making my way up to Irkutsk, immersing in a new culture and weather (BRRR!!!!)... Excited!
I hope my camera memory cards hold out! hahaa... Rightie ho, until then, Bayarlaa for reading! Boxhn Tanii Eveeg!
These last few days have been fascinating- been all about downtown Ulaan Baatar, roaming through various shopping areas, more museums, universities, monasteries (or what's left of them, after communism), public parks, soviet monuments and rabid dogs. Roaming alone w my headphones is pretty neat- you get to pray, worship, chill all at the same time.
Nairamdal Park
Zaisan Memorial- soviet monument to soviet forces defending Mongolia from the Japanese in WWII
Soviet Realist Monument
honoring "comrade" Lenin; note interposing of mongolian and soviet motifs
detail of mosaic mural at Zaisan Memorial
Some important fella w bad hair day, Nairamdal Park
free ranging horse, Nairamdal Park
Zaisan Memorial in the sunset, as seen from Nairamdal Park
Also, did my bit'o prayerwalk around the five pressure areas- centers of government, education, spiritual activity, commerce and communication. The monasteries are weird and strangely educational, throwing up some questions no one can quite answer me: the lama monks here eat meat and hunt; the old mongolian king (technically a head-lama, early 1900s) loved stuffed animals (he had thousands of them from all over the world, including an elephant force-marched from the siberian border!), had a ger (traditional hut thingy) made from 150 snow leopard skins, had a wife but many mistresses and died of syphillis. Not too good for his karma, whatever that means. It prolly was a good idea the communists came and put a stop to the madness. But buddhism's experiencing quite a comeback, together with shamanism, which 350 years of buddhism and 90 years of communism failed to wipe off. People still walk clockwise around sacred objects here and there. There is truly a spiritual hunger beneath that veneer of commercialism and capitalism. The door is definitely flung wide open.
monastery of the choijin lama
inside the winter palace of the bogd-khan
Today, I went for a wedding- two campus crusade staff got married to each other! The last few days, the Mongolian Campus Crusade community was all abuzz! Pretty neat- a christian mongolian wedding! There's the first bit in the church- pretty normal churchy weddingy bits, plus some other eye-openers: there was even a ballet presentation. Simply amazing! (There's an enormous amount of russian heritage from the soviet era here... little kids still kena get selected to study art, ballet and music FULLTIME in specialized schools from age 5)!
wedding preparations the night before
galaa, busy with stuff
Best Man with the MC
end of the church wedding
traditional mongolian blessings from parents
Couple with crusaders
me and the happy couple, Boogii and Undraa
A few good men- music group students with Bataraa
Anyhoo, wedding service at church was followed thereafter by a lunch at one of UB's most prestigious restaurants! Lots of russian architecture, and lunch consisted of cold meat apetizers and other strongly russian influenced menu. Had Ox tongue, and also there were bits of unidentifible chunks in my salad, but definitely offal. Main course was more meats, and then there was the obligatory whole roasted sheep from the bridal table. Thankfully to balance off, there were lotsa fresh fruits and vege. During lunch, students and friends sang, danced, played music for the couple and guests. There was even a string quartet playing the 1st mvt from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik! All crusade students from the music conservatory. I was invited to play some stuff on the piano too- did a simple rendition of Be Thou My Vision (figured its pentatonic mode would agree well w the older folk), and then some other vineyard stuff. Lunch was MC-ed by this local TV celebrity- he's a christian, and everyone loves his wisecracks, which of course, I did not understand. Lunch ended with guests lining up to present gifts (including a full sized carpet, a moriin huur, even an oven!) to the couple, with some of them presenting lengthy speeches, traditional blessings and on several occasion, a Maagtaal (a traditional praise-song) and an Urtyn-Duu (mongolian long-song), apparently praising/blessing the couple with goodwill. Yup. That's a christian mongolian wedding!
pretty cool wedding lunch reception!
item from music group student
my contributions for the reception!
string quartet- music group students
another song item
presentation of wedding gifts
rendition of traditional wedding/blessing song
Been fun. Looking forward to the next week- attending a local worship fest/concert, meeting w campus ministry students from various campuses for a time of extended worship and prayer, making my way up to Irkutsk, immersing in a new culture and weather (BRRR!!!!)... Excited!
I hope my camera memory cards hold out! hahaa... Rightie ho, until then, Bayarlaa for reading! Boxhn Tanii Eveeg!
