Sain
baina uu?
I am from Mongolia, a country of a little
more than 3 million people. Since I came to Japan
I asked friends and people I came across what they know or think of Mongolia. Many say they don’t have any information or opinion except for the fact that there are successful sumo wrestlers from Mongolia or people live in a small movable housing. So we thought it is interesting to tell you a little more about Mongolia from insider’s point of view.
I asked friends and people I came across what they know or think of Mongolia. Many say they don’t have any information or opinion except for the fact that there are successful sumo wrestlers from Mongolia or people live in a small movable housing. So we thought it is interesting to tell you a little more about Mongolia from insider’s point of view.
As most people around the world know we
have been traditionally living as nomads. Many think that we still live the
exact same way today. It is partly true. Roughly, thirty percent of the population
is still nomads. But at the turn of 20th century, settled and later
urban life started taking shape and has been growing since. With sizable population
living nomadic life, some more even combining both keeps Mongolia embracing
interesting culture of nomadism, urbanization and modernization. This synergy
is not only limited to where people live, it extends to our art, music and
sports. For example, along with traditional music with morinkhuur, urtiin duu and
khuumii we enjoy all genres of music
that are popular all around the world. We have a history of more than half a
century of classical music and dance, too. Culture and the way of life are shaped
by many factors from nomadic tradition, shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism to
Former Soviet influence and western popular culture and education. So you will
see mix of many interesting elements in Mongolian contemporary culture.
I
hope our monthly blogposts will familiarize you with at least some of the
interesting topics about Mongolia with less biased view. In our future posts, I would like to write on specific topics like
music, youths, fashion, food, nomadic life, history, literature, sports and
festivals etc. To
reach people with different levels of English I will write each of our post at
different English levels and let you know the level by tagging.
Looking
forward to meeting you all with our next post!
Peace,
Meg
