funnY Time

There have been many unique and humorous experiences while living cross-culturally here in Mongolia. In fact, it is kind of hard to think of them all and to narrow the list down to five. As sure as we post these we will think of something else funnier, but we hope that you get a kick out of these stories.


 At number five, this story doesn’t have much to do with living cross-culturally, but it was a funny part of our life last year. When we arrived in Mongolia, we expected to be living is a small and non-fancy apartment. We were pleasantly surprised to find an apartment larger than our last one in the States. It was also clean and very nice. However, the bed was another story. After walking into our apartment for the first time and taking stock of things, Joshua sat down on the bed. A rock would have been softer than it. We were blessed to have a bed with a Chinese mattress! Suffice it to say that we didn’t get a lot of sleep until we got a foam mattress to go on it. While that story in and of itself is pretty funny, what happened next was great! One night, after lying down, the bed collapsed under us. We got up and removed the mattress to find that the bed was nothing more than a frame of wood, wood that had dry rotted so bad that the hardware wouldn’t stay in the holes. We pieced the thing back together for the night only to have it break again the following morning. Then we got serious; we pulled out the duct tape! You would think MacGyver had gotten a hold of that bed after we were done! Sadly, our tape job didn’t do as well as we would have liked. After another collapse, we pulled the bed apart, put the rock mattress and foam on the floor, and slept that way for the rest of our time in that apartment. The real fun thing was trying to piece the thing back together before moving out this past spring. We got it together the day before moving and tried to sleep on it, but after reclining and hearing it pop, we quickly got up and slept on the floor one last time!

Number four also occurred shortly after we arrived last year. Within our first month, we took a car trip into the country to visit a very popular and important religious monument called Mother Rock. If you remember, we wrote a post about this event last year. After getting a ways out of the city, the roads stopped, and there were no buildings except for the occasional ger. The biggest event, aside from cows and horses in the road a few times, was meeting another vehicle. Since there were so few other people “out and about,” having the opportunity to chat with another passing vehicle was apparently an important social event. It was reminiscent of the time before cars when people would stop along their path in order to “shoot the breeze.” However, chatting was not the only order of business! Along with the absence of buildings was the absence of bathrooms. Not a big deal for those adventurous outdoorsy types! Not even all that big of a deal for us except for the fact that the social gatherings were the pit stops as well. In Mongolian thought, it is not the responsibility of the person taking care of business to get far out of sight but the responsibility of the other folks not to look. We were still new, this had not yet sunk in. Needless to say, it was a little unusual to look up and see several people taking care of things just a few yards away. It is also important to note that there was a serious lack of hide-behind material such as trees, and the wind was blowing very frigidly. I got one word, Burr!!



This was a purely innocent picture. I had no idea it included what it does until I picked it for this post!



Number three was one of our first interactions with a Mongolian individual. We, along with our teammates, were walking to the home of another country teammate and his family. We happened to veer off course and walk through a gas station. After turning into the gas station, we heard and saw a car zoom in behind us. We thought the usual, the guy needed gas; however, the car stopped behind us, and a young man jumped out and ran up to us. At this point in our time here, we did not know any Mongolian which was okay because he came up speaking English to us. Feeling a little accosted, we heard him saying, “You help me. I help you. We be friends!” He repeated this several times, and we could get little else out of him. I called the friend that we were going to meet and had him speak to the man. Come to find out, he saw Americans (we stand out) and wanted us to help him learn more English. In return for our language, he was willing to help us in any way we needed. This is very Mongolian. If I do something for you, you owe me. Free gifts are not usual. We said we would help him, so he gave us a ride to our friend’s house and stuck around for an English book study. Before it started, he left to get his girlfriend and brought her back, but for about half of the book study, he left her in the car while he was visiting with all of us. Jennifer and I met with him a couple times, but the relationship was short lived. He changed his phone number and stopped trying to contact us.

Number two happened less than a week ago. It was Saturday, and we were hanging out at the school where we teach our lessons. We had a little bit of time before the lesson needed to begin. Several students had arrived and were getting settled. I (Joshua) sat in a chair at the front of the class waiting to begin. In the moments of boredom before beginning, I was scanning the room. I stopped at a large sign hanging on the back wall. I had seen the sign before while in there for other lessons but could not understand the Mongolian on it. Out of pure curiosity, a desire to expand my Mongolian database, and to break the pre-class silence, I asked the students what it meant. I didn’t point it out though. I just asked “Could someone tell me what (insert Mongolian here) means?” I should have suspected that something was amiss when the students turned a light shade of red and started giggling. By the way, all but one of the students there at that time were female. I was oblivious, and Jennifer was otherwise occupied, unaware of my question. After a few tense moments, one of the students said something about the Red Cross. Believing that it was difficult for them to translate the few words I said, I took this response to mean that it was the motto of the Red Cross. That was wrong. Turns out, the four words on the poster on the back wall of the classroom say something akin to “Be safe and healthy, use condoms!” Can you say “Awkward!!” Of all the things I could have said in Mongolian to a classroom full of women!! The blood eventually drained from my face, and class began. Later, I realized that there was a condom package on the poster with wings like a dove coming off of it. You cannot make this stuff up!

The sign! A bit blurry, but you get the point!!

Number one on our list of funniest foreigner moments again includes me and our cat Jejeg Baatar (Mongolian for Little Hero). Last fall, we adopted a stranded kitten and added him to our family. Since we found him in our stairwell, we took him to the vet to have him checked out. It was cool but fine to carry him in a thin-walled cat carrier. The vet was only about a ten or fifteen minute walk from our house, and Jejeg did fine except for freaking out when we crossed the road (don’t we all!!). We were told to take him back in December to get some shots. December came, and it was about -20 degrees outside. Fearing that he would freeze before we got him to the vet, I had a somewhat brilliant idea. I put Jejeg in my coat! He was still small but refused to stay in one spot. All bundled up, we left our apartment. Aside from having a very unusual lump in my middle that was moving, Jejeg would occasionally stick his head out of the jacket by peeking up over the zipper. You can only imagine the looks that we got that day!! For one thing, we are foreigners. Most people don’t pay us any attention, but others will just stare at us for being us. For another thing, most Mongolians hate cats and consider them evil omens or spirits. Can you get the significance of this picture? A foreigner walking around with a cat sticking its head out of the jacket. After seeing a few looks, I refused to look at people until after we got to the vet. Jennifer got a kick out of it though! After getting his shots, I tucked Jejeg back into my jacket. Being the curious cat that he is, he refused to stay put in the lower part of my coat but tried to climb into my sleeve. We removed him, wrapped him in the pink towel that had also been in my jacket, and Jennifer carried him like a baby. The looks on the way home where of curiosity to see a foreign baby and disgust to see a white fuzzy face hidden in the folds of the towel. There was also the occasional meow now and then. I don’t think either of us where ever so glad to just get home. Usually we try to keep a low profile, but that was difficult to do that day!

Next time, we will share our four scariest living-in-Mongolia stories. Perhaps a little less entertaining, they will still be interesting and informative.

Mouthwatering Mongolian Morsels

The answers to the Mongolia trivia questions in the November newsletter are:


1) C. 13   There are far more horses and animals in Mongolia than people!!


2) True   The Bogd Han National Park which is just south of where we live was established around the mid 1700s. We have hiked and camped in this park.


3) B. 5,000 ft   Ulaanbaatar is just under 5,000 ft above sea level but the highest point is well over that!


4) A. Indian Jones   In case you didn’t know, Roy Chapman Andrews was the first Paleontologist to find intact dinosaur eggs and nests in the Gobi.


5) True   Though there are other “wild” herds of horses in the world, Mongolia has the only remaining truly wild breed of horse which has never been totally tamed and domesticated.


In this blog post, we are going to introduce you to some Mongolian cuisine! Prepare for some mouthwatering descriptions of some of the best Mongolian foods we have eaten. Feel free to drool a little, but don’t let anybody catch you because they might think you are going crazy!


There are thousands of restaurants in Ulaanbaatar. Some are big, fancy, and expensive. Some are akin to a more western dining experience. Some are Indian. Some are Italian. There is even one that is Mexican though we would not call it that. And surprise of all surprises there are not only Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurants but there is also a Kenny Rodger’s Roaster, not that we can afford to eat there. Alas, the only thing missing is a McDonalds or Burger King. The most numerous of restaurants in UB are the guanzes. “What the heck is that?” you are probably asking. A guanz is a Mongolian café of sorts. One can find all sorts of traditional Mongolian foods in a guanz. Most of the time, they are also very cheap. Thus these are the restaurants that we eat at the most.


A guanz is usually small sometimes in a building that doesn’t look very sanitary. Once you get by that though, the food is most often delicious and very affordable. While there are many guanzes around our apartment building, two have arrested our attention and patronage. They are located across the street from our building very close to our meeting place and the school that we teach in. Because of this, it has become a habit of ours to eat at one of them at least once or twice a week. When we teach a double workshop, we will eat at one of these places during the hour lunch break. Also, every Sunday after meeting we eat lunch there. We have frequented one so many times that we know the owner, waitresses, and the cook. It is fun to go in some place that often and know the people and they know you.

The most traditional Mongolian food that a person can get at a guanz is called Buuz. Buuz are like dumplings which have meat, generally mutton, and are steamed. Sometimes they might have cabbage or onion, but the traditional way they are made is with only meat and fat. The fat of course becomes liquid when the Buuz is steamed and remains that way as long as it is hot. Because of this, a fresh Buuz will be full of hot liquid, so you have to be careful how you bite into it.

Besides Buuz, another traditional food is Khoshur. Khoshur is a deep-fried meat pie. Sounds good, right!? These are flat and a little larger than the size of your hand. They have less grease than Buuz and, if cooked well, are nice and crispy. They can also be found with potato, cabbage, or kemchi filling, all of which are very nice. One variety that we have never tried is the horse innards Khoshur. Not real sure if we will ever be quite ready for that one!












Another dish that is usually crispy is Bansh. Bansh are like Buuz but a little smaller. They are meat filled dumplings that you can sometimes find steamed but most often fried. Fried Bansh (pronounced sharshan Bansh) is usually drizzled with mayonnaise and served with a Mongolian potato salad and cabbage salad.

Another dish that we like is called Tsooven.  It has chunks of meat that have been cooked in oil with carrots, onions, and noodles. The noodles are firmer than most Italian noodles and are more like Oriental noodles. The dish is usually a little dry and tastes even better with some soy sauce on it. Tsooven is very easy to make, so Jennifer has even made this a few times at home. We have also eaten this with a Mongolian family in there ger; however, that meal had a lot more fat than we prefer.

Paroshky is kind of like khoshur but the outside is made with yeast, so the breading gets thicker. Paroshky is not a native Mongolian dish but is more Russian. It is likely that Paroshky became popular during the years of close ties between Mongolia and the Soviet Union. Paroshky usually has meat, rice, and onions but can also be found sometimes with potato and peppers or sausage and egg. This is another one of our favorites!












There are so many other interesting and tasty dishes that this post could go on longer than you would care to read, so we will conclude our list of food items. You can see a few more dishes in the pictures. A good explanation of Mongolian cuisine would not be complete without talking about milk tea. Milk tea (called suuta tsaa in Mongolian) is perhaps the drink of Mongolia. It is served hot which is very nice when the temperature is well below freezing outside. To make it, chips of black tea are scrapped off a block into a pot of water. A large amount of cream, milk, etc. is added. Though it is called tea, the dairy aspect is the predominate element. Some people add butter or animal fat in order to flavor it, and salt is always added. The end product is creamy and salty with a hint of black tea flavor. Though this was not our taste last year, we have become very accustomed to it this year and usually order it whenever we eat at a guanz. We can get instant milk tea packets, but the fresh made stuff is by far the best tasting.












It has been evident this year that our tastes are changing. Things that we tried last year and didn’t like, we are trying again and finding that we enjoy eating them. Though we are not as extreme as Craig, the specific fats and greases of Mongolian food have actually become more appealing and tasty! Who knew!?!
Here are a few more Mongolian food dishes that we enjoy!  Hope you enjoy them too!

Other Guanz Foods VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Next time, we will share our top five funniest foreigner-living-in-Mongolia stories! You won’t want to miss that!!