Naadam!

Today we went to Naadam [like the Mongolian Olympics + 4th of July: it's the celebration of the 805th anniversary of Chinggis Kahn's establishment of the Great Mongol Empire], where the three manly sports are contested: horse racing, archery, and wrestling. We had to get tickets from a scalper [an adventure in itself], and crammed ourselves into our "seats" - luckily for us, we weren't standing at the rails or in the aisles, where people kept toppling over and pushing and shoving. 

The opening ceremony featured a parade of traditional costumes, many dancing little girls in flowing capes and costumes, mounted Mongols in traditional garb, a 400-strong horse head fiddle orchestra [amazing!!] and the highlight: a veritable horde of Mongol warriors [hundreds and hundreds!] who performed maneuvers, ran, marched, and in a pinch, shrugged their shoulders to techno beats. At one point, they all got down on one knee as the women in traditional garb [carrying buckets - of airag?] danced through their ranks.

As the last warrior cleared the arena, the wrestlers came out: distinguishable by their hexagonal hats, upturned knee-high boots, frontless, cropped, sleeved coats, and speedos, they ranged in size from small and scrappy to absolutely gigantic. I think some of them must have been pushing 7'. Mongolian wrestling has no weight classes: it's just a series of one-on-one matches until eventually, there's an ultimate champion. There are no rounds in each match - one guy loses when he touches the ground with any part of his body other than his feet. The most curious part: each wrestler has his own "encourager," who holds his hat while he wrestles, and presumably, helps referee the match. Lasting hours sometimes, the ones we saw were quick - a minute or two - as in these early rounds, it's the giants paired up with the little guys. 

Next, we checked out the archery. We could get very, very close - as in a matter of feet - from the archers. We watched several rounds, of men, and of women too. They were pretty badass. The bows are made from layers of wood, bone, horn, etc, and are kept untensioned between rounds. Downrange, the judges reset the targets [black and red blocks] and sing out the results back to the scorekeeper. Everyone is such a good shot that the judges chat and don't even watch out for the slew of arrows that are continuously zinging only feet from them. 

We finished off the day with mutton-filled pancakes of fried dough, and now, finally, a much-needed Chinggis draft.

Outside the national Naadam stadium: the Mongol hordes arrive!

The Mongols on maneuvers.

So many Mongols!

Wrestlers wait to take on their opponents.

Female archer.

Female archer, just releasing a shot.

Female archers.

Down range, where the judges rely on the archers' excellent aim to prevent their getting shot...notice the targets at their feet: the black blocks.

Male archers.

Wrestling matches: wrestlers are in speedos, encouragers are in robes. There seemed to be dozens of matches going on at once, each one commencing with a sort of dance and a slapping of the thighs. I know it's hard to tell here, but I say again: these guys are huge.

Scenes from the Trans Mongolian.

 

Our coach for the 30 hour trip to Ulaanbaatar!

Our dinner: instant noodles, rolls, cookies, juice, ergotou [Chinese liquor].

Chinese insta-city: this one is responsible for 40% of the world's sock production [seriously].

Chinese power plant, and accompanying smog: this was an oft-repeated scene in the Chinese countryside.

Sunset near the Mongolian border.

The coal-fired boiler that provided us with hot water to make tea and noodles.

Changing the trucks out from Chinese gauge to Russian [Mongolian] gauge. Between this switch and the Chinese and Mongolian border guards, our border crossing took about 6 hours [until 2:30 am!]

They had the switch-out down to a science...

The Great Wall.

Jonathan and Guang Li, Beijing.

At Chateau Lafitte East, outside Beijing.

My ride: a Chinese version of a 1938 BMW.

On our way to the Great Wall.

Jonathan and Andrei [our guide] at the Great Wall, aka the Top of the World.

The Great Wall.

The Great Wall.

I know this blog has probably been chronologically challenging to follow, but I'm going back in time again: to last week, when we visited the Great Wall. I had a recommendation to get there via motorcycle sidecar [thanks Andrew!] so we set up a trip with Beijing Sideways. I knew I was in for a great day when the two drivers showed up to pick us up: two Chinese guys, one of whom seemed to be a PLA vet [People's Liberation Army] wearing surplus, and both of whom proved to be experts at running red lights, nipping around pedestrians, and occasionally playing chicken with trucks down narrow alleys. And that was before we even got to the highway. Yes, I was riding in a Chinese knockoff of a 1938 BMW motorcycle sidecar down a 6 lane highway. Woohoo! 

We met up with the other two members of our group at a full scale replica of Chateau Lafitte. It was completely bizarre. Apparently, a ridiculously wealthy businessman visited France, loved this particular chateau, and built one for himself. The only major difference: instead of acres of gardens, a golf course. Oh, and the fact that it's a working hotel and conference center. 

After a two hour ride, we arrived at the base of the wall near some traditional Chinese houses. I got to see a kang [bed with a fire underneath, more on this later...], and then we started hiking up to the wall. Getting to the wall didn't take that long, but hiking on top of the wall? I needed to go on all fours at least once, it was so steep. The stair risers were different heights [supposedly to make it harder for invaders to run along it], and there were portions of ramped wall that were so steep I slipped and slid my way up and down them. The best part - not a single soul besides our group of five. After getting to the top, we had a picnic lunch, and I did some sketches. As far as the eye could see, the wall snaked along the ridges. It was bigger, more beautiful, and more surreal than I had imagined. 

Of course, in addition to its size and placement in the landscape, I was delighted by the details - the indentation of the pin-hinged doors [long gone], the raised thresholds in the guard towers, the drainage system and scuppers throwing water away from the masonry wall, the inward-leaning lines, the framed views through watch-windows.  

All too soon, we clambered back down, had a beer, and set off some fireworks [happy 4th of July!] before hopping back into our sidecars for the two hour journey back to Beijing. On the way back, as the curtain of pollution dropped over our heads, I found the sidecar of a 1938 Chinese motorcycle at 60 mph to be a perfect place for meditation on an unforgettable day.

Sain bainuu!

Yesterday we went to the Naran Tuul [black market] here in Ulaanbaatar. Being warned by everyone [including people on the street] to not bring anything we didn't want pick-pocketed, I didn't bring my camera. And, of course, immediately regretted it. The colors and textures, not to mention scenes unfolding before my eyes and piles of goods for sale, were amazing. The black market is a legal market [despite its name], and you have to pay 50 togrog to get in [about 4 cents]. There was, beyond a doubt, anything you could ever need. All the modern conveniences [stoves, iPhones, stereos, DVD players] and all the fixins for making your own ger and outfitting your horse. There were yak hair ropes, leather bridles, ornate saddles, iron stirrups, huge bolts of 1" thick felt [ger insulation!], traditional furniture, clothing, wrestler's boots, herdsman's boots, kid's boots lined with fur, whole wolf pelts, Soviet era pins and decks of cards, and of course, food: huge sacks of spices and rice, a whole row of butchers working on sheep, cows, pigs - with piles of discarded bones in great big boxes, almost as tall as I was. There were veggies, potatoes, pickled carrots, mare's milk [airag], noodles, stands selling buuz and kebabs. It was a completely sensual experience, and was topped off by crates of kittens at the exit. 

The only possible thing to do after such sensory overload was to get a beer [with our awesome new friends, Chelsea and Dave, who we met on the Trans Mongolian] and eat dumplings and french fries. I might go back, armed with my camera - or I might not - sometimes it's better to let things be memories.

Chinese food.

Delicious food [make your own bacon!], Beijing.

More delicious food [frog, fish, lamb, peanuts], Beijing.

Is, in a word, delicious! While in Beijing, I managed to sample many different things: lime-spiced beef, noodles cooked in giant leaves, snails, many kinds of fish, Mongolian hotpots, dumplings [pork! chicken! egg!], frogs, Korean BBQ, kimchi rice, Beijing roast duck, Hakka style duck, bitter gourds, sword beans, several varieties of noodles, mystery meat[s] on stick[s], lamb, chicken, and homemade rosemary sweet bread on top of the Great Wall. And of course, beer - everyone drinks a lot of beer [Tsingdao, Yanjing] and I did try the local liquor, baiju, aka paint thinner.

I'm gingerly entering the world of Mongolian cuisine - mostly meat and dairy, lots of dairy [curds, yogurt, fried curds, fermented milk...]. Today we saw people cooking meat on sticks over mini wood fires on carts in the street. Stay tuned for a full report.

Out to dinner in Beijing!

Me and some of my students, Dongcheng district, Beijing.

Three of my students from Northeastern met me in Beijing, and took me out for dinner. They are from China, and home for the summer. We had a great time, and it was fun to [for once] not order off a menu blindly. My favorite thing? It was a tie between the perch and the Beijing roast duck, which was delicious. We then walked around one of the hutong, which was filled with shops and people out strolling.

Thanks for a fun night, Benjamin, Xiao, and Yun!

Data collection.

I’ve started wearing a pedometer to track every step I take on this trip…so far: 70 miles of walking since arriving in Asia 10 days ago. [I'm thinking of doubling the miles hiked on the Great Wall, to account for the verticality, and doubling the 3 miles we walked with our packs from the Ulaanbaatar train station to downtown in the rain.] 

I’ve been thinking about the graphics I want to make that illustrate the data collecting I’m doing [temperatures, distances, bearings, etc], and it’s been on my mind especially since the VAF conference. Perhaps it’s because I’m an architect by training, but when I went to talks with the words “mapping” or “visualizing” or “modeling” or even “comparing,” “understanding,” or “analyzing,” I expected to see graphics. Building a map, or distilling and combining non-visual data into graphics, is in itself an analytical process, as well as illustrative. I wonder what historians’ research would be like if they teamed up with information designers? It might be like one of my favorite websites ever, www.historyshots.com, or it might be more interactive, like www.visualthesaurus.com. In any case, I think it’s fruitful to attempt both: clear, argument-building prose, and dense, coherent, analytical graphics.