Travel China | All’s Fair in Love and China: Mongolia

Travel China | All’s Fair in Love and China: Mongolia

“Mendee, you’re Asian, why you’re eating like Western people?” I yelled at Mendee, my driver who kept eating bread in every meal including those typical Asian: instant noodles and rice. “You eat like Russian.” “Yes, it’s because of Russian influence,” Gambar, the guide, replied.

At first, I automatically assumed that Mongolia was more similar to China because they were both Asian countries and had years of assimilation. Their facial features are similar though Mongolians have more slanted eyes and rounder, puffier faces. They both use chop-stick. They eat instant noodle. They are both traditional and dictated by rules and traditional beliefs.

But as I saw the same basic food every single day every where I went in Mongolia, the traditional fried flour with beef (you would think it was noodle), greasy wet fried rice with egg and mutton dumplings together with mediocre they-threw-everything-together-and-call-it-meal, I realized how less Chinese they were. Despite thousands of years in contact with the Chinese including the century they occupied China, they still maintained a nomadic food culture. To summarize, you have amazing good Chinese food and the other amazing bad Mongolian food.

“Of course we are more Russians than Chinese,” Gambar told me. “You’re right, you even use Cyrillic.” I said.

I started to remember that those thousands of years of encounter between the Chinese and Mongolians had mostly been rough. New Chinese kingdoms replaced old ones, different rulers succeeded, China experienced its golden ages and its demise. Yet the only constant throughout the history was the threat from hostile nomadic northern tribes who kept a close watch on their more prosperous southern neighbor.

But this was years ago when we hunted, farmed and fought over territories. In such society model, Mongols were invincible. As we progress toward a “law-abiding” era where a man’s power doesn’t base on who rides horse the fastest, shoots precise arrows, how many animals he steals or how many square kilometers of lands he acquires; Mongolia, with only 2.5 millions, will be wiped off in a matter of days if it dares to stage war with China.

China captured Mongolia during the Manchu-led Qing dynasty during the 17th century and ruled it until 1911 when the Soviet Union assisted Mongolians to gain dependence after making an ultimatum with China for their help fighting the Japanese. China didn’t recognized Mongolia’s independence until 1946 and diplomatic relationship didn’t occur until three years later. During the next 25 years, China continued blocking Mongolia’s admission to the UN. The Soviet Union intervened again threatened to block entry of all newly independent African states.

So no, there is not much love between China and Mongolia. I fully understand why Mongolians rather choose to be ‘white’ Russians.

“Fucking Chinese. If we could kill them, we would.” Gambar, my Mongolian guide, said over camp fire one evening. He exaggerated a little but I could sense the deep hatred he felt toward the Chinese, and perhaps many Mongolians felt the same way.
The situation has reversed, Mongolia is no longer a threat to China, instead it becomes a classic case small-country victim against a bigger (way bigger) neighbor. “If only we had the border with Kazakstan, business would be much better. We depended on China for everything.” A Mongolian business man said. If you examine the map of Mongolia, you can see something fishy. Despite being very close to many Central Asian countries, Mongolia had borders only with Russia and China. It has a shape like a Chinese potsticker (guotie), knotted left and right where China, Russia and Mongolia all meet at tiny points. Where Mongolia and Kazakstan should have a border, I see the figures of two birds sharing a short worm or wanted to kiss each other but their beaks couldn’t touch because of a separation stick in between . It seems like two politically skilled, super big brothers, Russia and China, met and decided the fate of Mongolia. “You take that, I take this. Make sure no-one else has it. We draw a line here and there and keep an eye of this small fool.” The once-warrior Mongols, never good at nor had the patience for administration, probably didn’t protest and accepted whatever given to them. They had no choice anyway.

“Our politicians don’t care. They are corrupted and controlled by China. They sold contracts to China companies to develop our natural resources.” (China owns more than 70% mining asset in Mongolia.)
Mongolia can’t live without China. China sticks its face on every aspect of life in Mongolia. Let face it, China sticks its face on every aspect of life in the rest of the world, why not their next-door neighbor. Every clothing items on Mongolians I saw on the street, except for the traditional dresses, were made-in-China. Most household items and tools came from China including the motorbikes used by the nomadic herders. Processed food sold in supermarkets if not produced by Russia or Germany then traveled from China via China-controlled rail or vehicles on the road made by who-else Chinese.
“Chinese make good road and good food, but they are all bastards.” Gambar continued his harangue.
“I hear you man. I’m Vietnamese so fck the fcking Chinese.” I joke.
“Yeah, give me five,” and he gave me the fist.