New Year (Sheen Jil)

The holiday decorations started appearing in UB in late December. As in the US, these were characterized by impressive quantities of gaudy sparkle and kitsch. However, since this is a country in which almost everyone is a Buddhist, I was surprised to see Christmas trees and "Merry Christmas" banners popping up all over. My subsequent inquiries revealed that few Mongolians are aware of the religious origins of Christmas. They know it's a holiday that falls on December 25, but they seem to regard it not as a stand-alone event, but more as a warm-up for the main celebration: New Year's. This understandable lack of context made for some interesting tableaux around town. For example, I saw many Christmas trees decorated with "Happy New Year" banners; Santa Claus made regular appearances at New Year's parties; and (my personal favorite) a local restaurant owner constructed a life-sized sleigh filled with wrapped boxes attached to two large, fake polar bears. (Well, they started off as polar bears, but within a few days they had morphed into black bears thanks to the filthy city air).

This somewhat confusing but festive holiday season was marked by non-stop parties. It seemed that every private company and government agency threw a fancy party to celebrate the new year. These parties typically featured special dinners, many kinds of alcohol, and entertainment. Attendees were expected to dress formally. For the women, this meant purchasing a special "night dress," piling on the jewelry, and, often, spending the afternoon at a beauty parlor having hair and make up professionally done. The government party that I attended featured all this and, in addition, a cabaret-style entertainment competition. (Mongolians love competitions). Teams of employees from each division performed skits involving jokes, costumes, music and dancing. Bottles of champagne were the prizes for the top two teams, and don't think for a minute that people weren't taking this seriously. To my horror, I was appointed to be one of the contest judges. This choice made sense to the extent that my role here as a consultant makes me seem neutral, but was problematic if they contestants wanted me to understand more than a few words of what they said. Anyhow, I did my best to rank them based on who had the best costumes, singing and dancing. Hopefully any hard feelings will fade with time....Here is a photos of me with two colleagues in our night dresses, and of the winning team doing its thing, a traditional Mongolian dance.