Mongolia Day 6: People and culture in UB

​Today we had to leave the lovely Terelj National Park for more exploring of people and culture back in the capital.

We started our day with a visit to MagicLand, a NGO-run supplemental school program in a poorer neighborhood on the edge of the city.  We spent an hour helping the kids practice their English.  We talked about colors, read books and played Hangman. All kids learn English at school, but some were a lot better than others, and some were very shy. MG said for some it was the first time they had been close to a western person. The experience was interesting and fun.

After lunch in a shiny new ramen restaurant, we went to a traditional musical instrument workshop.  We got to see craftsmen making each piece of the famous horse-head fiddle, talked to them about their work and enjoyed a short performance.  The showroom had an amazing array of different local instruments, including some that were 300 years old.  There was a lot of creativity and artistry in some of the instruments

After checking into the hotel back in Ulaanbataar we set off on our own to explore a nearby temple museum that had a collection of the traditional Tsam masks.  The Tsam dancing is a ritual performed by senior monks, so the masks and other regalia are generally closely protected. The Choijin Temple museum was a beautiful temple right in the middle of the city.  It was a series of 4 different buildings containing amazing artwork (no photographs).  The main temple had the Tsam masks, as well as a collection of very lovely and sacred gold and bronze buddhas created by the brother of the 8th Bogd who practices a tantric combination of Buddhism and shamanism from the 18th century.  We bought a book at the gift shop (pictures of masks below are from the internet).

This temple was meant to represent all the sufferings in hell.  Inside were plaster casts and shocking renderings of people in painful positions.  There were a few paintings outside on the roof to give a flavor of what’s to come.

Above - two mask photos and a model temple from the internet

Later, Bayasgalan, our home host mom picked us up at the hotel and took us to her apartment. Her son,  Erkhembileg, whose English was fluent, met us at the curb and served as our translator throughout the evening. We met Tsogtbayar, her husband, and two lovely daughters, Gegeelen and Enkhriilen.  We talked for a while and had a snack. Then we learned how to make dumplings, and then ate delicious salads and dumplings for dinner. During dinner we had a lot of conversation, both about their lives and customs ,and ours as well. It was a great interactive way to learn more about each other's way of life. Later, the dad, who was a kindergarten music teacher, told us all about the objects in the family Buddhist shrine, we played knuckle bones and got our fortune told, and we played the antique horsehead fiddle.  Finally he brought out an electronic keyboard and sang some traditional songs for us. The daughter Geerele had written each of our names in Mongolian script as an elegant souvenir of the evening.  It was all delightful!

Then we said goodbye and went home to bed!