WHOA WHOA WHOA

October 22, 2015

So much to say (no, that has nothing to do with DMB, Katie), so little time. Or, no, wait. Lots of time.

It's been a sort of rough couple of weeks since I last wrote a real entry (I wrote a... another entry that is more like a journal entry, if anyone wants to read it). Not bad, really, just not smooth. At all. In any case, I'd like to begin with a quick thank you to a friend for reaching out to me, and with good advice. I don't want to name you by name because that'd be kind of like...singling you out, and no one likes that.

Least of all students, I've come to learn. Some of you saw my post on facebook about this, but it bears repeating: I was teaching a new class that had specifically requested my presence in their classroom this past Monday. We had a decent lesson; the students were a little bit timid, but that's mostly because they were trying to get used to my style, I think, which is very different from a typical Mongolian teacher. I was, admittedly, already in a sour sort of mood, having slept very poorly the night before. But when the end of the class rolled around, and my CP and I handed out a test to the students, it got worse. Two students turned in a blank sheet of paper with their names on it, and at least three of the six that I actually got to grade before class ended got lower than 50%. Discouraging, to say the least.

What with me being me, I allowed that to set the tone of the next two days. Things became bitterer in my mind, and I sort of phoned it in on Tuesday, to my shame, and ended up receding into my head that night and being all moody. Poor Emily. Wednesday started out pretty poorly, but thanks to the unending patience of my exquisite wife and the aforementioned good advice from a friend, it turned around before the evening.

Which is good, because we had a dinner with the American consulate that night. Surprisingly loose and good-natured, the two Americans and two Mongolians joined us at a nearby restaurant. For the occasion, the city had set up a bit of a cultural show, including two seriously talented singers (first female then male), two undoubtedly gifted dancers (same mix), and one virtuoso morin khuur player. The first singer was accompanied by the morin khuur player (a sort of cello-like instrument with two strings – here's a link of a dude playing the morin khuur while also throat singing, which is equally cool but did not happen during dinner), and sang an extremely evocative piece that ranged from shrill, almost shrieking highs (though not unpleasant) to sultry lows. I couldn't find an example of that, but her voice... I can think of two general parallels: the Pink Floyd song, "The Great Gig in the Sky" but more controlled, or the music from Gladiator with the undulating female vocalist. 

The dancers mimed (in rhythm) the kind of pastoral lifestyle that is rapidly being left behind in this country – lassoing a horse, shooting arrows, completing the necessary tasks for survival. All Mongolian dancing, I have learned, channels the rhythm of riding a horse at a gallop, a sort of quick but controlled back and forth that they tend to embody with their shoulders. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but one thing in particular caught my eye: the stage was very small, and as a result only one dancer could fit on it. (Don't picture a theatre stage, but rather something you might see at a wedding – a platform raised maybe an inch or two off of the ground and set apart solely for its own sake). The female was thus relegated to the regular floor, which was marble, and difficult to gain any traction on. She had to constantly readjust her foot as she attempted to sway in time with the music and keep her stance, which was low and bent at the knee. To her credit, though, she didn't slip once, and the performance was quite excellent.

I can't say much else about the morin khuur player except to emphasize his tremendous talent. In the video above, I suggest watching the placement of the player's fingers, and how they eke the different sounds out of an instrument that has no frets and two strings. [A quick note on the "kh" -- it's actually more of a "huuh" sound, like the H in the word "him", but with a sort of guttural accompaniment. In the Cyrillic alphabet, forced on the Mongolians by the occupying Soviets starting in about 1921, it's represented by an X. kkkhhhhuh.]

This whole experience was a welcome relief from a somewhat comically unfortunate week (actually almost two weeks back, now that I think of it). First, our electricity went off for about eight hours on Sunday. At first, Em and I figured it was just for maintenance, or something; it happens fairly often around here. My first hint that this was not something normal came when I went to turn on the water, which usually goes off at the same time, and noticed it was still on and still hot. My second hint to abnormality came in the evening, when I looked across the street and saw that the lights were on in the opposite apartment building, then walked outside and discovered that our apartment was among very few dark ones. About half an hour later, Em and I learned that one of our school's accountants had neglected to pay our electricity bill, and the company had, perhaps understandably, cut us off.

An unfortunate position to be in to be sure, but not terrible. Our gracious neighbor and fellow PCV Amy allowed us to come over to her apartment and make a simple meal of rice and beans, and by the time we got back to the apartment, Emily's CP who knows a guy who works in the power plant had managed to get our power turned back on. So, no harm no foul, really.
The next day, some electricians from my school came to fix some undeniably jankey wiring in our apartment, which was cool. Electricity was on and everything.

But – there's always a but – the next day at about 1130, the power went off again. This time, we immediately contacted the offending school and implored them to pay the bill. They did not do this, evidently, until about 130 the next day.

I don't want to dwell on this for too long because, again, it wasn't that bad, and Amy let us come to her place again for food. We had enchiladas, which was definitely an effective consolation. But that is not to say that we were not seriously annoyed. We actually had to shut off the heat (radiator) in the kitchen and open the window to make sure our food didn't spoil in the refrigerator (it's been in the 20-40 degrees Fahrenheit range for about two weeks now). I actually had a moment before we went to Amy's where I recognized the surreality of the situation, though: I was sitting in the hallway drinking cognac (because it's either cognac, vodka, or beer) in the hallway of a Soviet-style apartment in Mongolia with Emily -- to take the edge off -- while wearing a headlamp to see because our school's accountants had forgotten to pay our bill. How do you make that up? You don't. You just don't. 

In the end, I suppose there's no use crying over spilled milk. Evidently, the bill has been paid, and we have seen no problem since.


There's this whole story about meeting a French girl, a German dude, an Australian girl, and a New Zealand dude (how do you say that? New Zealander? Emily insists on saying “Kiwi” which I'm sure is somehow racist), not to mention our existing Korean girl friend and getting drunk with the lot of them in the German dude's apartment, but who wants to hear about that?


My music recommendation this week: Kendrick Lamar. Anything. If you haven't heard his music yet, shame on you. Start with “King Kunta” if you haven't heard any of his music. And I'd recommend this to anyone who is a fan of music in a general sense. It's somewhere between funk and hip hop and rap, music that only this man is making. 

Thanks for reading.