Art Nomads: Zula Tuvshinbat

Alternate Title: This Exhibition Should Have Come With A Trigger Warning

Well, it had to happen eventually.  If this was my last year teaching - and it just might be - it makes sense that this is the year It would happen.   The thing that happens to every teacher, eventually, and you know as it unfolds exactly what it is:

The Worst Teaching Day of Your Career.*

For narrative purposes, it would be fun to say it started like any other, but to be completely honest, it did not.  I had decided it would be good for my Art III students, especially my AP students, if I took them out into the world to see some Real Art.  I took them to galleries in what my students informed me was UB's "Shibuya" - the intersection between the big library and KFC.  Only, silly me, after 9 years in Mongolia I had decided that it would be fine to take them to these exhibitions even though I hadn't previewed them because every other exhibition I'd seen in UB was tame.  I knew the third show, the one that involved tufting, had a little abstract nudity, because I'd seen an image from it on the gallery's website, but since one of my students had talked about focusing on the body in their work, I decided the risk outweighed the benefits.

I was wrong.  So very, very wrong.

We made it to the third gallery before it happened.  The first one we hit was pretty standard Mongolian subjects - horses, families, flowers - and style.  The second was landscapes and yaks.  A lot of yaks.  We had lunch at Fat Hen - the students' request, and always a tasty treat.  I was ready to head back to the school after briefly stopping into a new "contemporary" art gallery, Lkham.  Most of the artwork seemed okay at first glance.  Working with abstraction has that effect.  The technique - tufting - also helps...it's hard to feel threatened by a rug.  At least, until you realize that rug is a snake-penis growing out of a man's torso and about to strike a stylized vajayjay.

Well.  When we walked in, and I realized that some of the work was a bit more "confrontational" than I was expecting, I probably should have just called it a day.  But the thing about being an art teacher is that the human body is a pretty significant theme in art, and even more so contemporary art.  So I muttered that along with something to the extent of "don't like, don't look" and off we went. 

"2 CUTE 4 U," 2023

The art was beautiful, and really well crafted, and the kids seemed to enjoy seeing something different.  One of them brought up the Cesar A. Cruz quote often misattributed to Banksy: "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable," and how this exhibition really helped them to understand its meaning.  But another mentioned - somewhat jokingly - that this probably wasn't an exhibition to take students to if they identified as ace or were gender non-conforming, and suddenly I had visions of my students posting their photos to social media, angry parent calls, and myself packing up my apartment and heading home jobless 8 months sooner than expected.  Probably because I'd been keeping closer track of US news than was good for me, but still.

"Loyal as a Dog," 2023

So I spent the long bus ride in traffic back to the school sweating.  I informed my principal about it, and talked to the students - let them know that if they were uncomfortable with the art that that was part of the artist's intent, but that they could and should talk to their parents, asked them to be mindful of where they posted the pictures, and hoped for the best.  My principal reminded me that we were in Mongolia, not the US, and that our parents weren't overly concerned with these sorts of things, and my friends who saw the work when my students excitedly showed them photos consoled me that it really wasn't that bad.  Still, I'm glad that I'll be making art instead of teaching it for the foreseeable future.

*Fun fact: my siblings and I were responsible for several of these in our day, so I guess karma's a bitch.

Week Without Socks

Before I get this party started, I feel like I should begin with a few disclaimers.  For starters, this blog takes a generally overdramatic approach to humor.  And uses a LOT of cursing.  If you're here you probably already know that, but it bears repeating.  Secondly, I hate hospitals.  Like, medical stuff in general is just squicky.  If I could go the rest of my life without ever having to interact with a doctor again, that would suit me perfectly.  And finally, my doctors were excellent.  While parts of my experience weren't entirely to my liking, the two doctors I primarily interacted with (the gynecologist and the interventional radiologist) were fantastic and - possibly most importantly - very patient with my histrionics.  Which is why I have left out names...this post is more about experiencing a fairly major medical procedure as an expat (I know, I know...I don't really write about the expat stuff much these days, but this was a doozy of an experience, and I thought it was worth writing about).

The previous paragraph makes it sound like I don't go to the doctor much, and that's definitely not wrong.  I DO avoid doctors (they can't tell you you're dying if you don't go to them in the first place), but it's not like I've never been to one overseas.  Actually, I think I've actually seen a doctor in every country I've ever lived in, not only for the standard visa health check, but for some small ailment or other.  Foot pain.  Constipation.  Food poisoning.  Mostly the kinds of things that they give you a prescription for and send you on your way in 15 minutes.  This time, though, was different.

Content warning: Lady Parts.  Also, Gratuitous Use of Capital Letters, but back to the first warning: if you're squeamish about women's reproductive health, I'm not sure what you're doing here, (my target audience is made of sterner stuff), but this is probably the time to close the tab.

So.  Back up about 6 years.  The first time I remember anything weird was my fourth Junk-To-Punk fashion show.  That morning the school went down to the river en masse to pick up trash, and my period went batshit crazy.  According to my estimates, I should have been fine with the tampon I used before leaving the school, but when I took the fashion victims back to the school I had to make a quick stop in my apartment to change clothes, which irritiated the fuck out of me.  Over the course of the next year, "batshit crazy" became normal, but while that was irritating, I was in my late 30s, and every woman my age that I talked to reported similar issues, so I figured this was just getting old.  Along the way I learned the "lite/regular/super" system of tampons I'd been using since my 20s also had "Plus Ultra" and "Bloodbath" iterations...which was good to know because super was no longer enough.

(If you're regretting sticking around for this, sorry, but I did warn ya.  Women bleed.  Fuck off).

Well, among the women I discussed this with, one was the Evil One.  She is probably the best friend I will ever have in this life, and she loves me very much, enough to be straight with me even when I would very much prefer to just Not Go There.  And she said, "Yeah, you really need to go to a gynecologist and get that checked out."  I ignored this the first time she said it, but eventually, for something else entirely, I took her advice (it was two years later, okay, but I DID go in the end).  That is another story that I won't be sharing in this blog post, involving High Blood Pressure and an Awkwardly Answered Question...but for the purposes of this story, the doctor found myomas.  I had to Google to figure out what the fuck those were, but before I could get "non-cancerous growths" out of the internet, she was explaining that they would try to remove them surgically, but based on the size and number they would probably need to do a hysterectomy.

I've always found the fact that this procedure is called a hysterectomy a bit comical as well as insulting.  Like just because I have a uterus I'm a bit unhinged?  But when the doctor suggested that they would need to remove it, I did get kind of hysterical (and this is definitely one of the reasons for the aforementioned high blood pressure).  I maintained my composure pretty well until I got back to my apartment, and then I Lost It.  Ironically, when I first learned about body changes in 4th grade and discovered that I would be stuck bleeding from anatomy I was previously blissfully unaware of ON A MONTHLY BASIS FOR THE NEXT 40 YEARS OF MY LIFE?!?!? I would have done anything to get rid of it.  Which I guess means I've matured somewhat since then, because a hysterectomy has huge consequences, and without even being aware of all of them, I knew I wanted to avoid them.

I wasn't thinking clearly enough to ask Google about alternatives until after 1 AM that night.  Imagine my shock when I learned that there are LOTS of alternatives, none of which the doctor had mentioned.  I'm not blaming her, BTW...skipping over everything else to surgery seems par for the course with uterine fibroids.  I kind of figured that maybe they weren't really options here...Mongolia isn't exactly on the forefront of medical technology.  But you know who is?  Korea - and I had already booked a ticket to spend my fall break there.  So I did some research, found that Seoul St. Mary's has a whole Uterine Myoma team, and made an appointment to get a second opinion.

I prepared myself for this visit by doing the bloodwork my doctor prescribed, and the MRI that she suggested.  I had a small freak out because the MRI came on a CD, and who the hell uses CDs anymore?  And the day before I left, the radiologist here talked to me about the MRI, and said that if I decided I wanted to, that they could do a procedure called uterine fibroid embolization here.  This was actually the procedure that I felt the best about.  UFE is clever.  Rather than cutting you open (or, possibly more horrifying, going in through your vagina past the cervix to nip the little bastards), the interventional radiologist goes in with a teeny, tiny tube through puncturing your artery (either the one in your wrist or the one in your leg) and uses real time x-rays to find the blood supply for the myomas.  When he gets there, he blocks it by shooting nanoparticles into the artery, which eventually causes the growths to shrivel up and die.  It's about 90% effective in alleviating symptoms, which in my case means I hopefully won't experience shark week on a monthly basis anymore (there are worse symptoms, btw, like needing to pee all the time or getting constipated...comparatively, a little anemia doesn't seem that bad).  And apparently it was a procedure that they CAN do here, if he was recommending it.

Which was all well and good, but I had already pretty much decided that I'd hit Seoul up on my way back at Christmas, get my procedure, and spend a couple of weeks crashing on my friend Happy Tree's couch til I was safe to fly.  The only problem was, when I talked to the doctor in Korea, she said I could just wait and see.  My anemia "wasn't that bad," and if two excruciatingly bloody days out of the month were my only symptom, it was okay (she has obviously never had that symptom while teaching a class of teenagers for 85 minutes straight, fully knowing that her feminine hygeine was NOT going to make it to the end of the block).  Maybe I should have said, "That's reassuring, but I'd rather have UFE and get it over with...can you make that happen?" but I didn't.  I went and paid my consultation fee back at the international clinic and left to eat a burger.

I guess I could have tried to schedule it with a different hospital in Seoul, or elsewhere.  The US is kind of out due to financial reasons, though, and other than Korea, I wasn't sure there was anywhere I wanted to try and get it done.  Maybe Japan, but that seems like it would be expensive, too.  The idea of putting it off didn't really appeal to me, and I also thought there were probably going to be more hoops - initial consultations, more tests.  Under the circumstances, I decided that if I could get it done here, that would be best, or at least easiest.  Although I did have one small trepidation...I didn't want to be the first one done in Mongolia.  I didn't ask that question directly, but I asked our office manager if there was any way to find out if a doctor had done a certain procedure, and she said she'd talk to her mom.  Within 24 hours she knew his history, and while she wasn't sure that he'd done UFE, he had 14 years of experience and was well known for being a good doctor.  From the previous interaction I'd had with him, his English was good and he had a reassuring manner, so I decided to go for it.

Well.  It was not quite as simple as that.  I had to schedule an appointment again with the gynecologist for the pre-procedure consultation.  In addition to scheduling me and telling me I needed a bunch of tests (including Covid...goody), she informed me I would need to stay in the hospital the night before and the night after, which freaked me the fuck out.  There's the fact that no matter where you are in the world, hospital food is shit, and trust me, that was pretty high on my "FUCK NO" scale, but there were more rational reasons I wanted to avoid a hospital stay.  See, thanks to the previous high blood pressure, I was now the proud owner of a wrist monitor, and I knew for a fact that it wasn't just that the pandemic had Done Things to my health...my blood pressure was completely normal when I took it at home.  It was only while I was at the hospital that it shot up.  Having Everest-scale blood pressure for an extended period of time seemed like a really, Really Bad Idea.  I also didn't think that I would be able to sleep at the hospital, and I've been in my skin long enough to know that rest is probably the most vital component to maintaining my health.*  Followed by food, which brings me full circle.  In the end, I didn't have to stay in the hospital, but there was a long, circuitous route to get there, and they really only let me leave because I told them I was staying with Engrish, so there wouldn't be stairs and if there was any problem she could help me get back to the hospital.  I should buy her a really nice Christmas present...

This is turning into a really long post...you might want to go get a drink if you didn't have one when you started.  I swear I'm trying to avoid unnecessary exposition, but this really has been an ongoing saga over the last two and a half months of my life, occupying most of my mental space.  That said, we've gotten all the way to the procedure itself, so hang in there.

So I was scheduled for Tuesday, November 29.  This is probably not the best time for a teacher to take a week off (the typical recovery time til you're back to work), but the week the doctor originally suggested we already had two teachers out, and the following week was my period, and I couldn't think of anything worse than that, if it was even possible.  The 29th was really about as late as it could be and me still be cleared to fly home for Christmas (officially there are no restrictions, but everything I read recommended avoiding travel for two weeks).  I got my leave approved, made my lesson plans - boring writing assignments that my students should have been able to do without me, although I haven't worked up the courage to actually read any of them yet) - packed so much stuff in a bag that it probably looked like I was moving in for a week, most of which I didn't use afterwards, because I was too weak to look at my phone, let alone crochet my blanket (seriously.  The nurse had to get my phome off the floor multiple times while I was in "day care").  And then showed up to the hospital over an hour late on the day of the procedure, because the traffic was fucking ridiculous.  And that was because I walked the last block...if I'd stayed in the Enkhaa Express, I probably would have been over an hour and a half late.

All things considered, I was flustered from the get go, but my doctors agreed to consider sending me home that day, they found hospital clothes in my size, and tested me for contrast dye allergy (apparently it's a different dye than they use for the MRI).  Somehow I managed to not chicken out, and found myself lying on a zoomy motor bed thing, with screens positioned down by my legs and a little x-ray device overhead (overhips???).  They started the contrast dye, and gave me another IV for my NSAIDs - not sure which one they used, but I was feeling pretty detached by the time they all came in and started the procedure.  They had to use the artery in my groin, which I wasn't happy about, because it meant I had to lie down for at least two hours afterwards...according to what I read online.  In actuality, it was 5 hours before they agreed to let me stand up.  You may be wondering what that means for going to the bathroom, as was I.  Initially they didn't put a catheter in my bladder, for which I was profoundly grateful...

Okay, you may be wondering about this hyperactive hospital phobia (nosocomephobia, if you like to know these things).  Please remember that all of this was 100% new to me.  In addition to the fact that I don't even like going to hospitals to visit, I've never actually been to one for myself.  The only time I've been under anaesthesia was when I got my wisdom teeth taken out.  My primary mode of dealing with illness is "ignore it and hope it goes away" and this has served me pretty damn well, even if I do say so myself.  So yes, having someone stick a pee-pipe in me was a major point of anxiety for me.  Until the procedure was over and the pain was kicking in, and I just KNEW that part of the reason it felt so bad was that I probably needed to pee.  When I told the nurses and they said I would need a catheter, I requested that a female nurse assist me with it, but otherwise bowed fairly gracefully to the indignity.  Maybe I covered my face while they were up in my bizness, but Baby Chicken Wing was telling the truth when she reassured me it wasn't that big a deal, even if I had to experience it for myself to believe her.  I honestly hardly felt it.

The procedure ended up taking 3 hours.  Everything I'd read online said it was usually over after an hour, so I guess I'm special.  The doctor explained afterwards that my uterine artery was longer than they were expecting, and it took them some time to locate the correct access point to block the blood flow.  Which, I mean, it takes as long as it takes, but by probably halfway through I was no longer in a state of dreamy detachedness brought on by a combination of sleep deprivation and pain meds.  I was pretty much fully lucid after an hour and a half.  I told them so, but I wasn't really experiencing any pain, so it wasn't really an issue - until it was.  Probably about the last half hour or so I could begin to feel the cramping that I'd read about, and I told the doctors that, but I still had to wait for the anaesthesiologist to come before they gave me anything.  And while she was administering the fentanyl, she remarked on my low pulse, seeming to think I had an irregular heartbeat and that I should come back to see the cardiologist.  To which I wanted to reply, "FUCK YOU."  Like, let me get through the current health issue before you conjure up a new one.

Which brings me to the vindicating portion of this post: IT REALLY MIGHT GO AWAY.

Because my previous approach is not entirely off-base - I'm not being completely frivolous.  Turns out iron deficiency triggers a bunch of related shit.  Everyone thinks if you're anemic, you're just tired all the time.  Which I am, but let's write that one off to being a teacher, because that is definitely a truey.  On the other hand, at some point in the last two and a half months I have googled everything I've experienced over the last 5 years that made me go, "Hmm, that's weird...guess this is what getting old is all about." All those things can be triggered by anemia.  Slower metabolism, lowered immune response, allergies, and yes, even arrhythmia can all be effected by the fact that your blood is too weak to carry around all the oxygen it needs.  Sure, it might not be fixed just by getting my iron up, but I'll still take a hard pass at immediately freaking out and going back this week to see a cardiologist...once the Red Sea ebbs and I've been taking these stupid iron tabs a bit longer, then I'll go in and see if it's still an issue.  

I'm not going to lie - waiting to leave the hospital was a nightmare.  Maybe this was my fault for insisting that I wanted to be an outpatient, but I didn't have my own recovery room.  As they wheeled me past the door I saw a sign that said "Day Care" (haha, so many jokes to make), and noticed there were two Mongolian men in the room.  I asked about the curtain and they pulled it, but it didn't go all the way around the bed, so I still had one old guy on an IV for something within view.  They gave me my phone, my tablet, my plushie, and a call button, and then they left.  Which, I guess I wanted to be left alone, but I also wanted to be comfortable, and that was Not Happening.  For example, I had to ask for pain meds three times before they finally gave me an IV of something (and I still have no idea what it was).  By the third time I asked I was on the brink of tears.  They also only gave me 9 tablets of ibuprofen to go home with.  From everything I've read, it sounds like UFE patients typically get a narcotic painkiller which they can take up to twice a day, as well as a prescription strength OTC painkiller and a stool softener.  Maybe something for nausea.  I didn't want to go home with a whole pharmacy, but if my pain had been worse, this could have been problematic.  

And - oof - the pain was bad enough!  I feel like The Literature kind of glosses over this one.  I mean, doctors tend to do that, tell you you'll feel some pressure or a little pinch when they mean it's going to hurt like fucking hell.  And I'm not even that sensitive to pain!  However, the websites I read gave the symptoms of embolization syndrome (crampy pain, flu-like symptoms including fever and chills, and nausea), without giving the degree.  For example, "crampy pain" should be interpreted as, "IMAGINE THE WORST CRAMPS YOU HAVE FUCKING HAD IN YOUR LIFE, EVER, AND THEN MULTIPLY THEM BY 10."**  Also, when it comes to nausea, someone should mention that you probably won't have had anything but small sips of water since midnight the previous night.  You're still going to throw up, but nothing's going to come out but bile (at least, not the first three times; the fourth time I had gotten to casa de Engrish, and she had bananas, so it was banana puke the fourth time, for a fun new twist).

Well.  Nothing lasts forever, and eventually they released me to go to Engrish's place.  I mean, first I had to pay my bill, and that was mendokusai, because the hospital doesn't do direct billing with our insurance company.  I only owed a little less than $2,000,*** and I had plenty of money in my accounts to pay for it.  However, there's a little problem with Mongolian banks...they don't like you to spend more than 3,000,000 tugrugs in one go at the same place.  So the cashier tried to put 6.5 million tugrug on my Mongolian bankcard, and my card said, "Nope!"  So I had them run 3, successfully, and then they tried to do another 3.  And of course that didn't work.  Well, fortunately the day before I'd dropped the last $700 of my fall bonuses into my US dollar account, so I had them put 2.5 mil on that card, but that left me with one million left to pay.  I was able to pay the rest of it by using my mobile app and just skipping the card entirely, but I feel like this is a flaw in Mongolia's banking system.  If you are paying a hospital and you have enough money in the account, the charge should just fucking go through.

So that was it.  This is Day 6.  I finally started to get some rest on Day 2 (back in my own bed cuddled up with my dakimakura).  Gradually regained my appetite by Day 3.  Stopped freaking out about constipation on Day 4.  I've left the apartment today and the previous 2, and feel like I'll be okay at work tomorrow (it's the day I only teach 2 classes anyways).  I'm not totally Over It yet, but I'm getting there.  The first 24 hours or so, I questioned if I'd made the right choice, but compared to the recovery time for myomectomy or hysterectomy, this has been a cakewalk.  All the same, I'd still rather go the rest of my life without visiting a hospital again.  Hopefully this will make it more likely.

*Fact: I never used to take OTC meds because I believed my immune system was Tough Enough.  Then I took a Nyquil once when I couldn't sleep from coughing, and after a full 8 hours of sleeping like a baby I woke feeling fresh as a daisy, and decided that being Tough Enough was bullshit - quick recovery was MUCH better.

**This is somewhat subjective...my cramps have never been that bad.  On the other hand, I feel like I only made it to an 8 on the pain scale at the worst I felt. 

***Fun fact: According to the internet, you're looking at about $10,000 for the same thing in the States.

Other People's Cooking

Well, my penultimate semester of grad school has (at long fucking last) come to a close.  At some point while I was trying to keep my head above water I realized WHY I haven't updated my blog in so many moons...because writing "for fun" seemed particularly oxymoronic, given how much writing I was doing for classes.  Since I have four whole weeks of nothing stretching in front of me, I thought this might be an opportune time to do something about that.  And maybe to clean my apartment.

Maybe.

So one fact you will have missed out on since I haven't been writing is that Mongolia had a locally transmitted Covid outbreak.  We went into lockdown on Thursday, November 12, and it only ended last Monday, December 14.  This sucked for SO many reasons I can't even go into them all right now, but the one that may have hit me the hardest was the fact that I had to cook for myself.  Every meal.  For an entire month.  Engrish and I debated at length where we were going first when the lockdown ended, and not ONE of the contenders was covered in one of my old grub club posts.  And that made me realize that we have been to a lot of restaurants this year that I've never told you about, giving rise to this post.

See, after Blondie set sail for her next port of call we needed something to fill the hole she'd left in our lives, and it turns out food was exactly the thing for it.  There is an ongoing debate in the expat community here about which restaurant has the best burger.  Around the beginning of June I saw Better Burger listed as one of the possibilities.  The day we went, we were actually trying to go to a different restaurant, but since it hadn't yet opened, we gave Better Burger a try.  They had quite a small menu, which matched their very small restaurant, but it was hellagood.  I went for the Mac & Cheese burger, with jalapenos on top because jalapenos make EVERYTHING better, and it was filling and at a great price.  We ordered extra fries but didn't need them, we were so stuffed by the time we finished.

What we were TRYING to make it to that day was the new Dak Galbi Cheese Bar just south of the Peace Bridge.  Dalkgalbi is by far the best Korean food of all time, and I may have squealed like a child at Christmas when I flashed past it in a cab the first time.  It took us a few more weeks to make it there, partly because they were still in the process of opening, partly because Engrish was always off in the countryside during the summer.  Well, this one's a little different than how restaurants in Korea usually do it - they melt the cheese at the beginning (and give you a shit ton of it).  But aside from that it's the real deal.  When I go home afterwards, my tummy is happy and my clothes smell like memories of all my chingus, just like they should.

A few weeks after that we went to Torres, a place on the curve of Baga Toiruu near Namaste.  We decided we'd do a little gallery hopping and then try a new place, but when she came with her Mongolian kid in tow, I was afraid that it might be a problem.  I mean, I was happy that I finally got to meet the munchkin I'd been hearing about for as long as I'd known her, but hesitant to take him to a Spanish and Mexican restaurant.  Well, I shouldn't have worried - they had pasghetti on the menu as well - but since I rarely have anklebiters given into my sole custody, I hadn't really thought much about it.  Torres was another place we heard about through the expat pipeline on Facebook, and it did not disappoint.  Although at first glance, the dishes don't seem super authentic - that's an order of enchiladas you're looking at right there - the flavor was great and the portions were a pretty good size.

I haven't been out for sushi nearly as often this year - the last two times I went to Miko they didn't have any cucumbers for their rolls, which left them feeling kind of empty.  We'd heard promising things about Stockholm Sushi, though, in spite of the somewhat off-putting name, so another day we went and tried it.  There's a problem with this restaurant, though, and that problem is that it's in the middle of a cluster of OTHER good restaurants, which is probably why we'd never been there before...any time we were planning to have dinner in the area we'd already decided to have dinner at Millie's, Silk Road, or Ali Baba.  However, we finally gave it a try and it proved to be pretty tasty.  Full disclaimer: in spite of living in Japan for two years I'm not much of a sushi connoiseur.  Don't get me wrong - I love sushi, and I can taste the difference between fresh sushi and...well, not.  It's just that I'm not a snob about it.  I thought Stockholm's was pretty tasty, but a true sushi lover might despair of it, so take my opinion for whatever it's worth.

Ramen, on the other hand, I can speak about with a little more authority.  Trying to enjoy the ramen at Oishii after all the ramen I ate in the two years I was gone was a trial. For example, there was this place in Yokohama, a trek up and back down a big hill from the old school, that had the thickest, tastiest chashu pork that just fell apart in your mouth, stacked high with beansprouts and swimming with garlic.  The broth was thick and tasty and the noodles were just right.  Takesan Miso Ramen IS EVEN BETTER.  According to Engrish, it's a chain from Japan (Nagano, apparently), and it shows.  The restaurant feels Japanese, from the noren hanging over the door to the greetings of "Irasshaimase!"  And this turned out to be the first restaurant we made it to when lockdown lifted.  I mean, pretty much nothing beats hot ramen during cold weather.  And...well, I'd been cooking Korean and Mexican in my apartment, whereas I don't cook soup.  Pretty much ever.

That said, if we were sure La Rosa had been open, we might have gone there instead.  A UB mainstay, named one of the top 10 restaurants by...actually, I don't know who, Engrish told me about the list...anyways, Rosewood recently opened a permanent restaurant serving Mexican and Spanish-inspired cuisine.  From the time we learned about it we eagerly looked forward to their opening, and finally in October it happened.  We were like kids in a candy shop - we were determined to try everything.  Not that first week, of course, nor have we yet managed it on any of our subsequent Saturday night visits (partially because when I figure out what I like I have a tendency to keep ordering it, but I've tried not to give up entirely JUST yet)...at any rate, we've been gradually working our way through the menu.  Luckily most of the dishes are serves tapas-style, and relatively small, so we're getting there.  Slowly, but surely.

There have been a couple of other restaurants, but between the dalkgalbi, ramen, and Rosa we've found our new favorites.  We're still waiting to hear that La Rosa and the dalkgalbi have reopened, but...well, to be honest, I've kind of gotten used to cooking for myself.  My refrigerator makes it seem like an actual adult lives in my apartment.  Engrish and I may have eaten out three times since lockdown ended, but I think more than anything we just need to see IRL people, to talk to each other without having screens in between us.  I mean, if she said La Rosa was reopening tomorrow and asked if I wanted to meet for dinner, I'd still do it in a heartbeat.  Just not because I HAVE to.

Animal Crossing

If ever there was a summer to stay in Mongolia, this would be it.  It was mild even by our standards, with lots of cloudy, breezy days hit with heavy showers right around 1 in the afternoon.  The national Naadam was held outside of the city, so locals were pretty scarce, making traffic a dream.  And without foreigners visiting, there also weren't any tourists.

That was great as far as Ulaanbaatar city life, but I felt sorry for the people who depend on the tourism industry for their living.  Souvenir shops, ger camps, tour guides and drivers are all having a lean year.  Fortunately, there was one place I never did check off my Mongolian bucket list in my previous life - Omnogov - so once I finished my latest course I decided to do my part for the economy and went on an adventure.

The Jojo and Enkhaa Express have been taking tours to the South Gobi the last few years, so they were my first choice for tour companies.  They very fortuitously had just returned from a nine-day bike trek around Arkhangai a few days before I was hoping to go.  Believe it or not, this was my first trip into the countryside since coming back a year ago.  Thanks to the mining industry the roads were pretty great all the way to Dalanzadgad, and it was relaxing watching the landscape subtly shift as the kilometers ticked by.

Back to the lack of tourists - although it made life hard for the economy, those of us who did go traveling this summer got a bonus out of the deal.  See, while the places we went in South Gobi aren't exactly close to civilization, they ARE on the well-beaten tourist trail (read: you'll spend a lot of time on washboard roads).  This means that while they should be remote enough to see some interesting wildlife, the parade of Russian vans has a tendency to scare off the animals.

Somebody forgot her good lens....apologies.  Look closely, I promise you'll see the gazelle.

Not so this year!  As we rumbled our way to the big dunes at Khongoryn Els we spotted three black-tailed gazelle - a mother and twin fawns.  Enkhaa stopped for me to shoot them - WITH MY CAMERA, GEESH, what exactly do you think my last name is??? - telling us how luck we were to see twins.  Even before we could pick up speed we saw a few more making their way through the grass.

The landscape constantly changed that day - we went fairly quickly from the dunes to grasslands, where we were greeted by white-tailed gazelle.  They got a little ways from us and then decided they weren't scared of no tourists, standing there flipping their tails at us.  Grasslands changed to hills striped with outcroppings of rocks, which from there built into craggy cliffs.  As the road wound through them, Engrish spotted an ibex at the top of one of the formations, which Enkhaa and I just barely glimpsed before it scampered away.

The khulan are the ones in the front, not to be mistaken for horses.

It was about that time when Engrish asked Enkhaa if he thought we'd see any khulan, a Mongolian species of wild ass (and yes, I had to say "ass" there.  It's never "donkey" in this context.  If you knew my friend named Khulan you'd also want to associate the word with what it means at every possible opportunity).  He told her we wouldn't, that they live in more remote areas.  But almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth we turned a corner and startled three of them into a gallop.

My favorite animals, though, are not really rare here - last year I even saw one on the sidewalk outside our elementary school, although they are an endangered species.  Yolyn Am was our stopping point on the first day, and it is the world's center of cuteness.  This time the first squee was mine, but it zipped into a burrow before Engrish could confirm its existence.  As we continued to hike down the gorge there were little medium-pitched squeaks, and although we hadn't spotted another yet, I deduced they were chattering as they observed us to judge if we were friendlies.  Finally, the pikas revealed themselves and we were swarmed with cuteness.

Pika are small rodents most closely related to rabbits, although I'll forgive you if you think mice are nearer cousins, since the first time I saw one that was precisely my thought.  They don't have tails and they're much bigger than mice, though, and once you see their little noses twitch, or watch them nibble on the foliage the family resemblance is clear.  They even dash more like a rabbit.  And if you were wondering, yes, they are, in fact, the inspiration for Pikachu.  

The Water's Fine

So let me hit you with an Absolute Truth: I am lazy as fuck.  Returning to Mongolia was a strategic move that I needed to make in order to have both the time and money to finish grad school...but it came with the added benefit of enabling my laziness.  I live at school.  I can afford to take taxis again.  I can order in food again, because I can afford both to eat out and to order delivery.  When the weather was still what counts as "nice" here, I made at least a token attempt to fight my laziness, but those days are gone, along with any sort of sensation in my thighs if I walk outside more than 5 minutes.

That said, I'm self-aware enough that I know these are not sustainable life choices.  Coming home from school each day to order Songo and watch anime in the dark for several hours...

...speaking of which, yeah, instead of my usual photography you're getting (mostly) anime swimming gifs today instead.  You're welcome...

...before falling asleep way too early is pretty much guaranteed to wreck both my body and my mind.  So as my November payday crept closer, I resolved that I would join a nearby health club that had a pool.  The pool is important because we're coming up on the 10 year anniversary of my feet being shit, and even though I spend less time on them on any given day here than I did at any point in Japan, they can still be a bitch.

via GIPHY

Back to being lazy as fuck, one of the ways in which Mongolia beats Japan most days is that things are relatively simple.  For example, rather than a long winded bureaucratical nightmare if you need a phone in Mongolia, you just drop in on Mobicom with your passport and you can walk away with a SIM card.  However, I knew from previous experience that joining a gym - or at least, one with a pool - involved a doctor's clearance...less for my own sake than for the fact that I might bring something communicable into the water.  However, this damn doctor's clearance was what kept me from joining a pool in the five years I was here before, because it required a pap smear, and on general principle I refused to do it.  Since you can't get an STD from a swimming pool, I failed to see how the state of my vagina was any of their business. 

Well, I still object, but since I haven't had a proper checkup since I lived in Shanghai I wrote it off as killing two birds with one stone, and went and got it done.  And then waited around for two weeks for payday so that I could afford the membership fee.  And then promptly got sick, so it was almost three weeks before I finally got into the pool.  I’ve never really thought of swimming as hard work, so it said a lot to me that in my first lap I could already tell that my muscles, such as they are, were getting beat up.  I kind of thought I was going to be swimming for like an hour every day, but after that first excruciating lap, I knew I’d struggle to finish 30 minutes.  The upshot to this is that I slept like the dead those first two nights.

via GIPHY

There are other challenges beyond the shape I’m in (ie, round).  A big one is the fact that I live by Songo delivery, and I often skip lunch.  It was tough waiting til I got home to eat, and involved a balancing act of ordering in advance and hoping that the driver shows up when they’re supposed to.  If they get there too early, I’m not home yet.  If they arrive late, I’m so hungry that I actually want to bite the driver, I’m that angry as well as that hungry.  I've been better about cooking since winter break, though, especially since the quarantine...which is a topic for another blog.  A logistical nightmare of a different stripe is getting home with wet hair.  Before I started actually going this was my biggest fear; that on the 5 minute walk home my hair would freeze and break off (I may need to get it cut, but not like that!).  This has been a ridiculously warm winter, so I've gotten away with just bundling it up, which is good because I didn't particularly want to torture my hair with a blow dryer, only to turn around and shower as soon as I get home.

via GIPHY

However, after my first night swimming I had to upgrade my biggest fear.  About halfway through my swim two middle school boys got in.  They were speaking English, and though I was trying to pretend they didn’t exist, I made eye contact long enough that I’m pretty sure I recognized one of them as an eighth grader from my school.  I was kind of prepared for the fact that I’d run into students there at some point, but when I got out of the pool fifteen minutes later I realized someone had left the doors of the women’s locker room open.  I obviously closed them, but I’ve been terrified ever since that some dumbass will leave them open when I’m changing.  I don’t know who would be more traumatized, but considering how awkward it was when a female former student came in while I was getting dressed, I’m going to say everyone.

via GIPHY

So my (more or less) nightly swim's not perfect.  But the water is warm and with my earplugs in I can't hear the shrieks of the little monsters whose parents send them there without any supervision.  As I glide through the water, I do feel a little more peaceful, like my worries are floating away in my wake.  Walking back to the apartment, the moon greets me in a light, night sky, limning the hills in white and transporting me to a different place.  And I have to admit that this has at least been one new experience for me in Mongolia.

Art Nomad: S. Shurentsetseg and G. Gerelkhuu

It's been three weeks since I got back from Japan.  I mentioned last time that I made at least a passing attempt at resisting its pull, and it's possible that I should have tried harder, shouldn't have given in.  It's not that I didn't enjoy every second; in fact, it's exactly that.  Going back showed me what I was missing, and it's been a hard adjustment going back into the daily grind.  After all, back in August I was overwhelmed with the homecoming vibe, but now we're over it. 

And that's leaving aside the fact that I had just gotten used to saying Mongolian things, and now I'm stuck on "sumimasen" again.  Had gotten used to putting toilet paper in the bin and now I keep forgetting and flushing it.  I'd kind of accepted Mongolia's lawless laissez-faire and now I want people to follow the damn rules.  I never had Mongolian Days when I lived here before, but then, China was my last watermark.  After a refresher course in Japanese etiquette, my temper is short, and I don't really like acting like a pain-in-the-ass foreigner.  That said, I'm sure I'll get over it, if I give myself time.

Mongol Queens series, by S. Shurentsetseg

The art I'm writing about today has actually been off the walls for a long, long time; I just couldn't get around to finishing this post.  The day I went I was trying to make it to Naran Tuul to find some supplies before going to Blondie's for dinner, and my brain wasn't as into art analysis as it probably should have been when I made my first stop, at Altan Khaan gallery.  Their current show was S. Shurentsetseg's "In Search of Origin," a body of work focusing on the female perspective on Mongolian cultural and social life.  Like a lot of Mongolian artists Shuren uses the image of Mongolian women in traditional clothing and hairstyles, but rather than the icy perfection that you often see portrayed her figures seem to have more going on beneath the surface.  Troubled expressions mar their faces, inviting the viewer to contemplate the causes of their discontent.  As I stared at her "Mongol Queens" series, the gallery owner came over and suggested to me that these women may have been queens, but it was not entirely by choice, and often involved leaving behind their own families and cultures.

Mother and Daughter, by S. Shurentsetseg

Her compositions are, by and large, relatively simple; the figures are positioned in the middle of the canvas against a simple or abstract background.  Shuren's color palette brings a certain amount of life to these figures, but also helps to set the tone of each piece.  Some are much more somber, while others have an undeniable warmth.

Daughter-in-Law Coming From Afar, by S. Shurentsetseg

What struck me more than anything else about her paintings was her use of pattern.  Lines freely twine over clothing and background, helping to establish a sense of visual cohesiveness regardless of Shuren's color scheme or use of space.  This also reinforces the "Mongolian-ness" of the women, referencing the patterns often found on the silk used for deel (the Mongolian national dress).  Overall I think she made a good start of subverting the idealized female in Mongolian art, and I'd be interested to see the direction Shuren goes in from here.

Eternal Tale III (left) and I (right), G. Gerelkhuu

That said, "In Search of the Origin" isn't the art I've been hoping to find since that trip back in March, 2018, but it was just down the street.  The 976 Gallery was my second stop, where the current exhibition was "The Demon's Egg," by G. Gerelkhuu.  THIS was exactly what I'd been looking for in Mongolian art ever since beginning my master's with that painting course.  Here was mixed media, pattern, life, motion, cultural references that are both accessible and yet, somehow not overplayed.  At first glance, they appear to be monumental abstractions.  Each piece is several feet long, stretching up toward the ceiling.  As you look closer, you realize that these are not abstract pieces, not canvases, but rather works on paper, using collage, printmaking, and other processes to recreate chaotic scenes of Mongolia.

Eternal Tale I, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

These reminded me, to a great extent, of the Mongol zurag paintings of Naadam and other daily scenes, but there was a sense of historic importance given to these pieces.  Hordes of mounted warriors in traditional armor swarm across the paper, attacking everything from faceless foes to colossal dragons, gunmen to monks.  In some cases the cavalry swirls their way through the composition, but more often it's absolute chaos, a battle royale between anyone unwise enough to stand against the Mongols.

Over There, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

Gerelkhuu's work feels almost monochromatic in nature, so that when he uses more color it really draws in your eye.  But possibly what I loved most about these works is the way he uses printmaking to create repetition.  Although I'm a long way from my bachelor's degree, back then the media I loved most was printmaking - intaglio, woodcut, anything really.  While I haven't done as much of it personally since then, that passion haunts me, and my biggest teaching regret is that somehow I've never managed to pass it on to any of my students - the way each printing matrix holds infinite possibilities, and can make as many pieces as you want.  Gerelkhuu's art struck a chord in me, made me feel challenged to try it myself, see if I can develop an image I can work into my studies of Japanese art and experiment with making something that would fill the height of a wall.   It hasn't happened yet, because, you know, grad school.  Taking two courses is even harder than I thought it would be, especially when they both involve a lot of reading, but I've only got about a month yet, so I suppose I'll manage somehow.  Most likely with a lot of coke.

Tsam Folks Say...

So if you ever tell me you've been thinking, "Maybe it's time to get a master's degree," I - as a caring and concerned friend - may recommend you ask yourself a few more questions before proceeding.  This week the question is, "Did you ever get over procrastinating?"  When you've put off your assignment til the night before, and you get a headache, will you be able to push through the pain and do the work anyway?  If not, are you tech savvy enough to deal with the inevitable issues that come up when you woke up at 5:30 to finish before school on a half-asleep brain?  Because that is where I was this morning.  I still managed to get 100% from a professor that I've heard is tough but excellent, but I just take that as proof that God really does watch out for fools and children.

This week you're getting a break from the art posts courtesy of Engrish.  Although she was quick to explain that she and Blondie hadn't been to many cultural events while I was gone (because there really hadn't been any), she was even quicker to deliver one.  Danshig Naadam is the religious flavor of Mongolia's manly sports festival, first celebrated in 1639 to commemorate my old buddy Zanabazar's elevation to the Peerage (or something like that...his title was Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu rather than Sir Zanabazar, but you get the gist, right?)*  This year the timing was pushed back to the beginning of September, which is good, because when I took Evil's niece in 2015 it was in August and too hot to really enjoy.

The reason why I was REALLY looking forward to it is the fact that after five previous years in Mongolia I was still trying to see Tsam dancing.  Okay, so to be fair, I'd seen it before, not only at Tumen Ekh but at an event the owner of my school invited me to attend at the National Museum of Modern Art, but...well, you know me.  If seeing something is good, seeing it in its original context is even better.  And the previous time I went to Danshig Naadam, we somehow missed the Tsam dance.

See, Tsam wasn't intended to be entertaining.  It's not some crazy booty-shaking in fancy dress just for funsies...not that there's anything wrong with that.  I personally enjoyed the hell out of exactly that during my years in Korea.  But Tsam has spiritual significance, as was pretty apparent from my first look inside the Naadam stadium on Sunday.  Across the field I could see an enormous applique thangka - a Buddhist devotional image - hung from the roof of the stadium and facing the field.  According to its very short Wikipedia entry Tsam can be seen not only as religious instruction but also a form of meditation.  Which makes sense, because the music is not exactly the rockin'-est beatz.  Tsam dance moves to the sounds of cymbals and conch horns, the latter of which have a tendency to drone a little, and while it's not the kind of sound that will drift you off to Dreamland, there is something hypnotic about it.

On the other hand, it carries very well over a distance, and as Engrish and I left for the stadium from our rendezvous at the nearby shopping center, we were reassured that we were in the right place, and hurried on our way over.

I might have been a bit concerned we were missing the action, but the dance was in progress as I went in to claim some seats for us.  Engrish joined me a few minutes later after waiting to hear from Blondie, so she got to see a little before the masked dancer left the field.  I wondered if that was it, but before long, another dancer came out and performed, and eventually Blondie joined us and got to see it all for herself.  It's possible that she may even have been a little grateful that she didn't see the entire dance, because...well.  I'm just going to come out and say it: the dance is a little repetitive.  Maybe the conch horns sound a little like butt-trumpeting.  If it's enough for you to see just a glimpse of the dance, Tumen Ekh's daily performances are a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that.

But on the other hand...even though the seats in the stadium can't be considered comfortable by ANY stretch of the imagination, and the full dance seemed to stretch on a little, I didn't for a second wish I had missed the chance to experience it.

I was sitting in the shade on a cool, Sunday morning, with two of my favorite peeps, feasting on a culture I'd been largely cut off from the last two years.  I was finally experiencing something I'd hoped to see for most of the years I lived in Mongolia.  Sadly my dumb ass left the apartment without my Big Gun - I actually realized as I was walking out to get in the taxi, but I was worried about being late and also, I was lazy, so I didn't go back for it - so my photos were shot with my iPad.  Sorry for that.  Luckily after the dancing wound down the dancers came over to the altar set up in front of the thangka, so I got some decent shots anyways.

And THEN they handed out candy, and it was like a feeding frenzy.  If you've never been to Mongolia, you have to understand that Mongolians love candy.  It's not even that good chocolatey shit like we Americans hand out every Halloween...no these are just the hard candies like everyone's grandmother except mine keeps in a glass dish in their house.  I didn't join in the battle royale, but one of the grandpas kindly shared with Engrish.  It was sweet.  The gesture, that is, not the candy...we were ready for some real food by this point, and maybe our Western culture has some deeply ingrained beliefs about accepting candy from strangers.

*Liberties taken with info reported by Montsame

Art Nomad: B. Tserendash and D. Ganbold

The blogging for this year could be off to a better start.  Ignore for the moment the fact that I'm a few days late and several dollars short (arigato very much, Japan).  I like to joke around about the fact that I have six readers, but for the moment, it's actually true.  If you are currently reading this, you are one of a very short list of people privileged to my writing.  To explain why, I've gotta take the Wayback Machine to last January.  A friend of mine asked me to meet her for dinner because she needed to talk about her then-husband's escalating temper.  Between myself and her other friends, we got her out of the situation before any lasting harm was inflicted, but unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the tale.  Her ex-person (as he turned out to not be legally married to her under either Japan or US laws) managed to get ahold of email addresses of some of her friends and has ever since been spamming us with emails that range from pathetic ("This is killing me") to manipulative ("I'm going to kill myself") to just plain creepy ("I pray to God that something happens to you like this one day," which I'd gleefully inform him isn't how God works - and even if He did, I'm pretty sure I'm on better terms with Him - except that would require a response, and I've been avoiding that).  And then last week my friend let me know her ex-asshole looked up her new Facebook account, because my friends list is public, and the fact that I've never had anything to worry about as far as internet security goes was a thing of the past.  There's not much solid info in here, thanks to the fact that I adopted The Evil One's practice of using code names shortly after I started this blog, but I suppose if someone wanted to be a creeper badly enough, they could figure out a lot, especially if they knew my actual name.  So here we are.  Eventually I imagine it will be okay to make my blog public again, but for now, I'm erring on the side of caution.

But that doesn't let me off the hook as far as the blog goes.  I promised that I was going to blog y'all some Mongolian art, and that was just as well, since I sort of got stood up by an old student on Saturday morning.  To be fair, I was dubious when he suggested meeting at 9:30 am, and it turns out for good reason, but I had a book and - as he pointed out - I had a good breakfast, finally learning exactly what eggs benedict are at ROC in Zaisan.  I went to Merkuri from there to continue restocking my kitchen, since I had inexplicably rediscovered the desire to bake again after two years without an oven.  After a well-earned foot massage I was finally ready to see some art.

The first artist I actually saw the previous week after visiting the Union of Mongolian Artists show.  The Sengeragi Gallery (formerly Best Art) is in the same building, and although Art Avenue said that Batmunkh Tserendash's Nomad Art exhibition was only August 4-7, there it was, so I checked it out.

Sculpture is really not my thing, but I keep telling myself that I need to get over that.  That's cause I'm an art teacher, yo.  Of course, I'd never thought about it the other way around...that being an art teacher could help me get over my blocks about sculpture not really being my thing  Looking at Tserendash's sculptures didn't make me a better sculptor myself, but I felt like I had a better appreciation for them because I teach about sculpture.

For example, the first thing that stood out to me about Tserendash's work was the materials that he used.  Although I can't give you particulars about what kinds, he works primarily in wood, with metal embellishments.  There is striking contrast between the warmth of wood and the organic qualities of its grain against the metal, but it's interesting to see the ways in which Tserendash manipulates these qualities to make them more compatible; staining the wood a cool color, or shaping the metal into more organic forms.  Some parts of the work appear at first glance to be metallic, but on closer inspection turn out to be distressed wood.   This purposeful manipulation of materials begs the question of what the the thought process behind the choice was.  To make the sculptures lighter?  To make a statement about the impermanence of nomadic life?  I'm pretty sure I'm not versed enough in Mongolian art at this point to venture a guess.

The other thing I most enjoyed about Tserendash's work was the play of the shadows on the gallery walls.  One quality of sculpture is that it does have that third dimension.  You can view it from different angles, but this also means that when light strikes it (particularly the bright, directed light favored in galleries) there will be an interaction with the space.  The sculptures were interesting but seeing the shadows they cast suggested to me that the work was the contemporary successor of Mongolian artistic traditions.  But then maybe I'm stretching.

Queens, by D. Ganbold

I dropped in on the Altan Khaan Gallery after the Sengeragi Gallery, but didn't look critically until a week later.  Dorjderem Ganbold's exhibition, "Once Upon a Time in Mongolia," highlights the usual Mongolian themes, but expresses them using a fauve color palette and abstract treatment.  He is the grandson of a Mongol zurag painter named Ch. Minjuur, and it wasn't until I was getting ready to write this post that I figured out that Mongol zurag is essentially the Mongolian equivalent of nihonga.  If you've ever seen a rendition of a Naadam scene, or a thangka painting, these are typically painted with mineral pigments, although the pigments used seem to be different from the ones I used over the last year and a half (unless they aren't, in which case it's probably down to the fact that I favored the large grain sizes that get that beautiful sparkle in sunlight).

Autumn Melody, by D. Ganbold

With these pieces Ganbold aims to give an eternal sense of grandeur to nomadic life.  The scale of these works works well towards achieving this; although he had some smaller pieces, such as "Childhood," for the most part his paintings are at a relatively large scale.  What makes these especially effective is the contrast between cool backgrounds and warm, vivid colors in the foreground.  Even from outside the gallery the glowing effect of his color choices catches the eye and draws you in.

Splendid Altai Mountains, by D. Ganbold

I do have to say that I found the surface texture to be somewhat distracting.  The paint was neither as thickly textured as some of the visual texture might lead you to believe nor super smooth.  Either one of these would have been fine, but instead there were areas where the paint rose away from the canvas that - at least to me - detracted from the overall quality of the work.  But maybe that's just me.  If his goal is to preserve what he (in his artist statement) calls "true intangible assets of Mongolia," I would say that this is a successful body of work.

However...I'm sure this will come up again as I try to write about Mongolian art, but Mongolian art largely seems to incorporate the same themes over and over again ad nauseum.  Herders and herds and horses and the fucking badass Mongolian queens, Chinggis, the steppe, the mountains, deerstones, long script: I'm probably forgetting one or two, but you get the gist.  Don't get me wrong - these are important traditions to Mongolia, but I feel like contemporary art here is so obsessed with its past that it's blind to the issues of its present and future.  And the more I've studied art, the more I value work that can shock and challenge and make a statement.  So here's hoping for more of that in posts to come.

Art Nomad: Sh. Baatar and B. Khongorzul

Gobi Zokhiomj & Khangai Zokhiomj, Sh. Baatar

There were times over the last two years that I missed Mongolia simply because I thought it would be nice to have some down time.  Japan was my own personal wonderland, but I ran myself ragged.  Starting my master's with painting sent me on an art-making adventure that took up so much time that I didn't finish a single plushie until I got home that first summer.  I didn't have much of a social life, but that was a moot point because my weekends didn't exactly leave much space for friends (especially since mine weren't really the kind to drop everything at a moments' notice to take a train to the other side of Tokyo for festivals or otaku events).  I did manage to sit down and post a blog relatively regularly, although this was mostly thanks to the drink bar at Denny's on Saturday mornings.  I know that someone, somewhere has said something about how you can't do it all.  I can't think of what the exact saying is, or who came up with it, but the gist is that you have to make choices, and that was kind of the story of my last two years.

Well now, here I am, back in Mongolia, and I've hardly known what to do with myself the last two Saturday mornings.  There's no Denny's, and Shibuya is too far to drop in for a nihonga lesson.  This is compounded by the fact that I lived in Mongolia for five years last time.  If there's something to do here, I have, most likely, already done it.

Going gallery hopping is no exception.  In fact, a long, LOOOONG time ago I mentioned in a post that visiting UB’S art galleries was a good thing to do in UB when you're broke.  However, I realized during my course in multiculturalism that I hadn't really studied Mongolian art; in fact, I was in the middle of that course the last time I was in Mongolia, but I didn't get to see a single show, in spite of spending an entire day walking from one gallery to the next.  There are almost no resources on Mongolian art in English, but this has led me to the conclusion that this should be my raison d'écrire this go-round.  To the extent that I can, at any rate.  I mean, I'm not really an academic writer (too many swear words, for one thing) and I have few journalistic credentials.  And by few, I mean none, unless you could second place in a blog contest and publishing a few yearbooks.

Nutag-2, Sh. Baatar

For my inaugural post I decided to visit my old favorite gallery, the Union of Mongolian Artists Gallery.  They had a joint exhibition that ended yesterday, so I figured it should have priority over whatever else I might come across.   The gallery was divided into two discrete sections, but I found myself drawn to Shagdarsuren Baatar's work first.  It was characterized by earthy colors and energetic, flowing line work.  Although she draws on a lot of well-worn Mongolian imagery - horses, knot work, Buddhist iconography, deerstones, and Chinggis Khaan, to name but a few - her style keeps them from getting stale.  Many pieces shared the perspective seen in traditional Naadam paintings.  Nutag-2 is one example, showing the way her treatment makes for a fresh and interesting take on traditional Mongolia.  I was less inspired by her more polished portraits, such as Ezen; these more figurative works felt more pinned to reality by their treatment, losing much of the liveliness of other works.

Khair, Sh. Baatar

Her ability to play with historical Mongolian art forms was also brilliantly demonstrated in paintings on leather.  Some of these were done on remnants stitched and applied to canvas, but she also makes use of traditional wooden stretchers to showcase her work, resulting in a beautiful recollection of the past.

But perhaps my favorite, somewhat predictably, were her erotic works.  (Remember please that I was hentai long before I moved to Japan).  She had a series of monochromatic drawings all titled Tatalbar in - best guess - charcoal, depicting couplings within gers.  These stood out to me not only because of the exuberance of their eroticism, granted by her trademark linework, but the careful details included, such as the stitching in the felt rugs being frolicked upon.  A more subtle reference to classical Mongolian artworks was found in Khair and Orshikhui, in which the subjects are posed similarly to tantric Buddhist sculptures (a replica of which - fun fact - I found in the school cafeteria this week.  It wasn't particularly explicit, but I would be surprised if the high school boys hadn't picked up on it). 

Uya-2 & Uya-1, B. Khongorzul

The other half of the gallery was taken up with the somewhat impressionistic work of B. Khongorzul.  Her art consisted of monumental sized portraits and historic scenes, as well as some flowers.  I was first struck with the feeling that her portraits were reminiscent of John Singer Sargent's, somewhat loose brushwork effectively rendering the cloth of her subjects' apparel.  I never felt that Sargent portrayed people as they were, though, instead layering grandiosity upon them (to be fair, he was painting the filthy rich for money; they didn't exactly want to look like their everyday selves).  Khongorzul's subjects, on the other hand, are everyday Mongolians, and her depictions of them as they are grants a feeling of dignity to such everyday people.

Khun Gurnii Uilchid, B. Khongorzul

Her historical works, on the other hand, have nothing everyday about them.  Although these are grandiose - in a couple of cases even mythological - they are nevertheless grounded in reality.  The labels demonstrate the meticulous research that went into making these works believable, even when the scenes depicted, such as the women sewing a felt carpet of which only a fragment remains, may not have happened at all.  I can respect the hell out of that.

I have to admit that I may have been having something of an existential crisis since leaving Japan.  The artistic work I've done over the last two years has been firmly rooted in my experiences there, so I feel a small bit justified in at least some panicking.  Will I be able to finish my works in progress when cut off from their source, let alone begin new pieces?  I'm still trying to figure that out, but I'm holding out hope that the sum effect will be a positive one.  I've found myself struggling to decide whether or not my ideas have relevance, or if my appropriation of Japanese culture and imagery into my art is worth anyone's attention.  Maybe by going outside my context I'll figure that out; if not, I at least hope seeing the ways in which Baatar and other Mongolian artists own their own culture might inspire me.  Either way, at least I no longer have to live for the weekends.  Even though it's only been a week and a half since work started - three days with kids - I remember why I loved working here so much.  It didn't feel like work, and that's a wonderful thing.