Whirlwind Tour of Ulaanbaatar!

My second day in Mongolia, I woke up early with Enkhule so he could get to work and take me in to downtown UB.  A Mongolian monk in the USA had introduced me to another Mongolian monk in UB who had once studied in Seattle. Altankhuu, managing monk at Dashchoilin Monastery in UB was once a head monk at Yonghe Gong Tibetan Buddhist temple (the ‘Lama Temple’) in Beijing and had studied in Amdo at Tashikhyil monastery.  Altankhuu, despite never having met me, instantly offered to show me around Ulaanbaatar and help me learn Mongolian. 

Altan picked me up at Enkhule’s work place and drove me to Dashchoilin monastery.  Dashchoilin was once a massive monastery at the center of a massive complex of religious buildings forming the center of UB. Virtually all were destroyed under the Soviet influence and communist years, but Dashchoilin has revived.  The architecture was beautiful and unusual.  All of the buildings were modeled to look like Gers, including the smokehole at the roof. 

A stylized smoke hole in the ceiling of the shrine room

Central shrine in Dashchoilin Monastery.
The giant bead in front of the Buddha is part of the world's largest Buddhist Rosary.

One of the ger-shaped temples at Dashchoilin

Honor guard bringing in the 9 white horsehair banners of Chinghis Khaan

 At Dashchoilin, Altan introduced me to some monks and guests from Inner Mongolia.  As a result, I was speaking Chinese to some people, Tibetan to others, and English to others still!  We met the abbot of Dashchoilin, who fortunately spoke Tibetan and then all piled into cars to Sukhbaatar square, at the center of UB. Unbeknownst to me, today would be the day of the first ever public presidential innauguration!  At the government palace on the south side of the square, the enourmous statue of Chinghis Khaan was framed by the giant, lapis blue outline of a Ger.  The steps had been converted into a massive stage and about a quarter of the square had been roped off, with seats available to ticket holders only. 

The abbot, as a special guest, was quickly ushed to a seat on the steps, and Altan, the inner mongolians and I waited in the crowd.  It turned out to be our lucky day, and all of us ended up with inauguration tickets in hand and got excellent seats for the festivities.  I, in a pair of jeans and flowered blouse felt terribly underdressed compared to the Mongolians who were decked out in their best.  No one told me that I would be attending a presidential inauguration!

The inauguration ceremony itself was set to begin at the hour of the horse (which, I'm not sure exactly, but is either 11 AM or noon depending on who I asked.)  Before that, famous singers performed on stage.  Then came the honor guard with the 9 white flags of Chinghis Khaan, without which the ceremony could not go forward.

As someone who can't speak Mongolian, I didn't understand much of the ceremony itself, but it was amazing to take part!

When the ceremony ended, we piled back into cars and went to visit the Bogd Khan palace museum. The Bogd Khan was the Buddhist Lama King of Mongolia, and the palace museum is a collection of art and artifacts housed in the small, surviving portion of his former palace.  Unfortunately, the price for photo rights was too steep. 

The art was stunning, showcasing different styles of Buddhist art. Although it was all mongolian, some was more influenced by Indian, others by Chinese, others by Tibetan, others purely Mongolian.  The 1920s palace was filled with the Bogd Khan and queen's personal effects.  Like any royal family, they were surrounded by opulence, which at time went truly overboard.  Specifically, a ger entirely covered in leopard skin.  Probably my favorite items in the 1920s palace were the toys that the young Bogd Khan had played with as a child: a doll sized ger, a children's toy boat with moving parts, a child sized throne.  For me, it's always fascinating to imagine what people were like as children and seeing these amazing Mongolian children's toys gave me a chance to wonder what games the Bogd Khan played as a child, the wealthiest and most respected child in the entire country.

I was surprised, at the gate of the Bogd Khan Palace to see the Tibetan word ཤེས་རབ་ (Sherab, wisdom) incorrectly spelled as ཤིས་རབ་ (shirab.)  I pointed this out to Altankhuu who went on to ask someone.  We both were surprised as Tibetan was a major religious language of Mongolia, and several great works of Buddhist literature were written in Tibetan language by Mongolians. Surely, someone would have known the right spelling!  The answer was fascinating: according to a scholar with whom Altankhu spoke, the spelling mistake was demanded by the Qing emperor who controlled Mongolia at the time.  He had demanded that the word wisdom be spelled incorrectly so that Mongolians would not seem well educated as compared to the Qing empire.

From there we went to the Choijin Lama museum. The Choijin Lama was the second Lama after the Bogd Khan, and also a medium of the state oracle.  This museum was amazing.  It was not set up like a museum at all, rather a series of temples with captions.  I cannot even begin to describe it adequately. One temple was made to look like the stylized inside of a meditation cave, with sea green and blue stalactites coming down from the ceiling and framing statues of famous meditators!  At this temple too, the Qing emperors had made demands that certain religious figures be painted who would otherwise not fit into the pantheon represented. Again, this was to signify the strong connection of China to Buddhism, and therefore China's superiority over Mongolia. (Did I mention that Mongolia really doesn't like China?)

At this point, my friend Ganbaa called me and invited me to meet.  Altankhuu dropped me off at Sukhbaatar square where we saw hundreds and hundreds of stunningly dressed Mongolian dancers!  Ganbaa asked what was going on and we found out that we had just missed by minutes a group of 5000 dancers performing a Mongolian folk dance and qualifying for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Ahh well. Can't do everything!  Ganbaa and I sat down in a restaurant, my first time to relax that day. I pulled out a notebook and he helped teach me basic Mongolian verb conjugation and a few basic sentences.  Not long after, Enkhule got off of work and joined us.

We headed up to a big hill, just outside of the city, with a large communist monument on top.  As we started hiking up this hill, I saw a Kazakh man with a golden eagle.  Now, I was damned if I was going to turn down an opportunity to hold a golden eagle!

Yes. it was totally awesome.  

We made our way up the hill, and it turns out it is a popular hang out spot for young people. In the center was a torch-like pit, presumably there had once been a fire there. 

The monument was covered in socialist art.  One that especially caught my eye was Mongolians in traditional dress offering blue khadag to soviet soldiers.  It's kind of strange to see what parts of the soviet period remnants Mongolia has chosen to keep and what parts they hate.  Mongolia seems to have a real love/hate relationship with Russia.

Finally, we drove down the hill to an opposite monument. This one, built not long after the collapse of communism, is an enormous Buddha statue.

At this point, I was exhausted.  Enkhule and I said goodbye to Ganbaa and caught dinner then headed back to the ger district for home.