Conquering the World: Tsagaan Sar Part Deux

Tsagaan Sar: February 22-24

Now that you all know what went into the craziness that was Tsagaan Sar, it’s time to share the shenanigans that happened during the holiday itself. And since I thought ahead, I was the obnoxious foreigner who took pictures all week so we all win. Hooray!

To start us out, buuz are the most important part of the holiday. Maybe not for Mongolians, but it’s my favorite part. They’re meat-filled steamed dumplings and I impress all Mongolians with my mad buuz pinching skills to the extent that I know poems about buuz and after I help a family pinch buuz, they brag to everyone about how the foreigner in their town is a great buuz pincher. It’s a fantastic life skill. These are buuz:

Similar to Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, there’s a Tsagaan Sar Eve called Bituun. I invited myself over to my hashaa family’s house that night in order to not miss out on the tradition. During Bituun, people eat a large meal so that they start the year with a full stomach in addition to a clean house. I forgot to mention the cleaning in my last post – EVERYTHING must be cleaned before Tsagaan Sar begins. To the extent that my hashaa family built a new ceiling for one of their rooms and either re-wallpapered or painted all of the other rooms. Insanity. Anyway, that night I ate buuz, potato salad, and boiled meat and drank seabuckthorn juice with my hashaa family before going to my hashaa dad’s parents’ house for vodka shots and more buuz and salad.

the spread

my hashaa dad cutting the meat

The first day of Tsagaan Sar is reserved for visiting family members so that morning I dressed up in my traditional deel and did the traditional greeting with the members of my hashaa family.

The younger person puts their arms under the older person’s and you say the traditional greetings of “Amar baina uu?” and “Saikhan shinelej baina uu?” with a little cheek sniffing. After visiting Mergee’s parents again, we went to the most important/sacred place in my town with an ovoo and a statue of a man in whose ears people whisper their desires after walking around him three times. It was around this time when I realized I was one of the few people in town who was actually wearing the traditional deel because everyone else who went to the statue was wearing street clothes. It was disappointing but I think seeing the foreigner in the traditional Mongolian outfit guilted the Mongolians into following suit next year.

We tried to visit my director and training manager but they had both left town for the holiday and that was disappointing. We eventually did meet up with a former PCV who served in my town and who is now PC/M’s admin officer to visit the soum governor. She used to be a math teacher and the director at school so many teachers visit her.

That afternoon, my hashaa family left for Bulgan to visit Gerlee’s family and I tagged along because it would have been too dangerous for me to stay in the hashaa by myself during the holiday season. I stayed with another PCV in the city and hung out with the two PCVs there for the night and almost the entire next day. There were naps involved, mostly because the two of us really didn’t have anything to do while everyone else was out Tsagaan Sar-ing. Being there was a nice reprieve from the holiday festivities back home.

Unfortunately, everyone who invited me to visit them left town to visit friends and relatives in other cities so I didn’t have anyone else to visit for the rest of the holiday. I asked my hashaa family if we were going to visit people on the third day and she said it was rude to visit people on the third day, so I really didn’t have anything to do. I visited my two other counterparts at various times over the weekend. But even though there was limited visiting, I got to see three cool things that were sort of Tsagaan Sar related.

First: I attended my first haircutting ceremony. When Mongolian children turn 3, they receive their first haircut of their lives. Friends, family, and coworkers (and the occasional random foreigner aka me) visit the family, give the child money, cut the hair with ENORMOUS scissors, and place the lock of hair in a bag. My CP Odgoo grew up in my soum so she has many friends who are herders in the countryside and we went to one of their gers about 5 kilometers outside the town part of the soum.

Second: My HF took me to see a horserace on the outskirts of town. The horses ride out into the countryside so there’s a lot of sitting around and talking until the 3 minutes of excitement while the horses race to the finish. The riders are mostly school children so I knew some of them.

the crowd watching the race

the car in front tells the audience that the riders are approaching

neck and neck!

almost a photo finish

Third: In another first, I attended my first Mongolian wedding. Actually, it’s the first wedding I’ve attended since I was old enough to be the flower girl. My soum is set up oddly in that half of the soum is on the other side of the river and is only accessible in the winter when you can walk or drive across it. By the end of February, the river had begun melting so walking across a partially thawed river elicited a lot of “I’m going to die” comments from me. Everyone else thought it was terribly funny. Jerks.

walking across the river in pairs so we have someone with us if we die

The groom is the son of one of out jijuurs (sort of janitor) so the entire faculty and staff of the school made the walk over together. We squeezed into a room, ate some buuz, drank vodka, and everyone had to sing a toast to the couple. I had a minor moment of panic because nobody thought to warn me of this beforehand but luckily my friend reminded me of the first verse of a song we learned in training via text message and I stumbled through that until everyone picked it up and helped me out.