JOURNALS: Nomadic life in Mongolia
Of all the countries I’ve visited, Mongolia struck me as being one of the most culturally different. There is such a juxtoposition of modern city life and the traditional nomadic ger - however their traditions don’t seem old, and instead seem to be a part of the modern way of life. According a statistic from a 2023 post found on the Asia Foundation website, 30% of Mongolians still live as Nomadic herders.
I think their traditions persist due to the practicality of it in their landscapes and climate. The gers were surprisingly warm and insulated, and the same for their traditional outfits (the daal!) which provided much more protection against the wind than our own outfits and jackets. (It made me wonder if that is why traditions don’t seem to last in Singapore, given that our grandparents would have migrated from elsewhere and the traditions may no longer be in line to the new climate that the different cultures have moved to.)
I do not know enough about the complexities of the topic, and on why people move from nomad life to city and the challenges behind that. But given that the nomad lifestyle itself is so different from what I’ve experienced growing up, I wanted to note down some of it for anyone from a different background who might be interested.
What does it mean to be nomadic in Mongolia?
When we talk about nomad families in Mongolia, it does not mean they keep moving all the time. The families move every quarter, and have an area for each season (so they move to the same areas every year). For instance, in winter the nomad ger may be located in an area more sheltered from the wind. The families need to move every quarter also to ensure the ground has sufficient grass for the animals, and that the grass has time to regenerate. We were told that the gers can be dismantled and taken down in 2 hours.
Our guide told us that young couples were also choosing to move to the nomadic lifestyle, as they found it preferable to staying in cities. One young couple we met consisted of a wife who used to be a national volleyball player for Mongolia! But they moved back to the ger lifestyle instead with their young son and daughter. The way of life is so different from what we see in Singapore, and this particularly hit me when we met our ger host on the last day, a 30 year old man (so very close in age to us) who was responsible for hundreds of animals under his care.
The people are generous and leave the doors to their gers unlocked when they leave - in case a passerby in need. Living in a harsh environment, there is a need for mutual support and to look out for each other, and this comes across very clearly in how they help each other. There was some commotion at night during our stay in Orkhon Valley, and we discovered the next day that our host and guide had gone out to help someone whose moterbike had gotten stuck in a stream crossing.
How are gers set up?
Electricity: The gers use solar power, and we saw panels outside the camps. Our rooms typically had a battery powered by these solar panels, which were connected to our lights.
Heat: The middle of the gers has a stove with a pipe that runs up the center of the ger and out the top - this is powered by either coal, wood or dried animal droppings. When we stayed in the gers, the host would typically come in at dawn to help us put in more coal / droppings, so we would wake up warm in the mornings. The stove is actually very useful, and is also used for cooking. In some cases, they had electric heaters, but this was the minority. I found the stoves to be warmer than the electric heaters, although the downside of stoves was that they would need to be refilled once the coal / droppings ran out.
Water: I’m not actually sure where they get their water from - something I will need to ask the next time. But the gers have a little sink set up where you pour water in a basin and it drips out for use. We used these to wash our hands / face and brush teeth. When staying with the families, they would have seperate gers set up for tourists and guests, so in our case the 3 of us had our own ger. Not all the side gers we stayed in would have these little sinks so sometimes we would need to go over to the host ger for this. (When visiting Narantuul Market, you can actually see the different elements that make up a ger being sold that - this included. Worth paying a visit!) Nomad families actually do not have showers (we showered 3 times over the 10 days in public toilets in the cities) - They would actually use so much less water than we do in cities.
Outhouses / washrooms: It was actually pretty interesting to see the different bathroom setups across the different gers. These usually consist of a pit dug where you do your business over. But the toilets varied - in some of these you just squat over the pit, while some were actually pretty modern and had sit toilet over the pit. The outside of the toilet also varied - while some were like a cubicle, others were just a wall covering in front of you, no covering at the back, and the wall would actually just be up to your neck, I suppose to ensure others could see there was someone in the toilet and so would not approach. The toilets may or may not have had lights, but in one cool set up the owner had put in motion sensor lights leading from the gers to the toilet haha.
Note: this description is for the gers by the nomad families. There are also large tourist ger camps that are open in the summer. These are much bigger and from what I understand would have toilets and showers.
Greeting hosts: Hello, Thank You and the Snuff Bottle in Mongolia
Our guide shared with us the snuff bottle practice at the start of our tour - as we visited some of the gers this took place, always with the guides and sometimes with us involved. Our guide told us about how in Mongolia, a lot of communication is hidden and subtle, and an example of this is the practice that they have with the snuff bottle.
When visiting a host, the host would bring out their snuff bottle - a little bottle with powder inside. He hands it to you with his right hand, with it slightly uncapped. You are meant to receive it with your right hand, open the bottle and put some of the powder on your other hand, smell it, and then return the bottle to the owner, still slightly uncapped. Our guide told us if the bottle was handed to you fully capped, or if you cap it fully and then hand it back to the owner, it is meant to signify that there is some unhappiness between you two.
For hello and thank you: I am mostly definitely spelling this wrong, but based on what I hear - Hello sounds like Sung Benno and Thank you is Bayarlaa. I’m just jotting the phonetics down also so I remember hahaha. Pls actually use a translate app to find what is accurate.
