Modern Mongolia

Summer is approaching and that means the Playtime Festival is approaching for us Mongolians 🎵 In this episode we dive into the concept and vision of the Playtime festival with the Artistic Director Batgerel. Our guest shared insights, changes, updates, and artist lineup of the 2024 edition. Lots of news, new artists, and exciting program awaits. The main headliners will be Deafheaven, Idiotape, Teenage Fanclub, A Sound, Night Train, and Ineemseglel.

In this episode, Zach (@ausalien) shares his volunteering journey in Mongolia, working with Caritas Czech Republic Mongolia on sustainability projects in Ulaanbaatar and rural areas. We delve into sustainability challenges, composting, and recycling practices. Additionally, explore his unique insights into taking street photography and the process of developing films at home in Mongolia.

FYI: Always bring your toilet paper with you.

In this episode, I've talked about three ...isms in Mongolia that you can spot in daily life. These are Ageism, Nepotism, and Materialism. Getting real about Mongolia.

Note to the change of episode format: Yes, I've decided to remove the music session due to a highly possible copyright allegation even though I consider it to be fair use. But, don't worry, at the end of the year, there will be a whole episode only about Mongolian music and artists.

Thank you for tuning in!

Mongolia is a free, equal country when it comes to gender concerns. I feel like I have all the opportunities as a Mongolian woman, but there are complexities in the difference of women's experiences in urban and rural life. In addition, Namka and Tugsuu contributed to this episode, sharing their thoughts on being women in Mongolia.

As I mentioned before in another episode, the government announced that the next 3 years are the years to visit Mongolia and there are a lot of promotions going online. I see many articles about why you should visit Mongolia and a bunch of aerial footage of the landscape and so on. But here, on this podcast, I only talk about the candid reality of Mongolia. For this episode, I’m diving into the perks of living in Mongolia. I covered 6 things that I myself and expats find as perks of living in this country. There is a bonus point at the end and it's such an unexpected thing you'd think you'll like in Mongolia.

Peace!

How do you imagine Mongolian life? Let's see if your imagined Mongolia is different in real life. 

Do you know any stereotype about Mongolians? Let's see if they're real or no. 

Contemporary Mongolian herder families living in a ger (yurt) in the countryside,  herding animals for living look like this: They have a satellite tv, cellphone, at least 1 motorcycle and a mini truck, solar panel and some have a freezer. This is normal standard these days.

For the Mongolian music time, I introduced legend of legends, singer Norovbanzad and her long song "The sun over placid the placid world". 

Please leave a review on the podcast, that will help me to understand how I can improve the podcast for better. 

Happy Spring everyone! Did you know that in Mongolia we count winter days with 9 of 9 day cycles and we consider that spring starts after the end of 9th 9 day cycle. We just celebrated Lunar New Year aka Tsagaan sar. Lunar New Year is one of the biggest holiday in Mongolia and serves as a big part of Mongolian cultural identity. There's a lot to uncover about symbolic meanings related to the celebration. However, on this episode I shared about practical reality of celebrating Lunar New Year. Also, I covered about must know and interesting rituals we perform as a tradition. 

2023-2025 announced to be "Years to visit Mongolia" and 34 new countries are temporarily exempt from visa up to 30 days. Here you can get the list of countries. https://montsame.mn/en/read/310896

With music break I introduced legendary folk singer G. Tumendemberel and her most famous song "Usnii Tungalag Tamiriin Gol". Hope you'll find it enchanting as I do. 

Happy New Year! 

Modern Mongolia is back in 2023. The podcast is restructured with shorter format and will be publishing biweekly. With the new format, there's fun facts, must knows about Mongolia and musical exposure of Mongolian artists, which I'm very excited about. On this episode we covered New Years celebration related must knows. 

Sebastian has been teaching English in Mongolia for last three years. Besides Mongolia, he taught English in several Asian countries including Myanmar, which we discussed a bit about. Unlike the others, Sebastian has adapted to Mongolian weather much easily because he likes winter. Also I confessed about my procrastination of not uploading the episode on time in the beginning of the podcast. 

Reach out to Sebastian: sebastian.jefferies86@gmail.com

Reach out to the podcast: modernmongolians@gmail.com

Podcast host Dono, a cultural anthropologist shared her experience of re-entering Mongolia and having reverse culture shock.