Moving to Mongolia -- What do YOU want to know?

So, I don't know a lot about what's going on in Mongolia today.  I don't know a lot about Mongolian history.  I don't know a whole lot about the culture, I don't know how to speak the language.

And I certainly don't have a sense of "I've got this" as I prepare to leave for that cold, dry country across the world.

If you're just passing through, or you're one of my dear friends who know me and love me (even if I am a little touched in the head) then you're here and you know that I'm leaving in less than three weeks to serve as an English teacher at a school in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

You may also know that I just came back (well, four months ago just-came-back) from a year doing the same sort of work in China.  Woohoo Taiyuan!

And the long and short of this post is: I knew a bit about what I was getting into when I went there.  I knew a few things to expect.  I knew how to say "Hello", Goodbye", and "I love you".  And I have NO CLUE about Mongolia.

Not only will it be an incredible experience, it will be a fascinating encounter with the unknown.

So I've decided to write down a few of the things I want to be able to answer after I've been there a little while... and we'll see how I do and what things surprise me that I didn't expect to wonder about.

Here's an easy one:

What's the food like?

How do you get around?  Bus? Car? On foot? Moped? Planes? Trains? Boats? Horses?

(Ok.. maybe not too many boats...)

Who are the people?

Where did they come from?

What languages do they speak?

What do they believe about the world?

How do they perceive their place among the nations?

In regards to the "West"?

In regards to America?

What do they think Americans are like?  How do I live up to their expectations?  Or NOT?

What social unit does society revolve around?

What social norms am I likely to mess up?

How do they feel about learning English?

What do my students aspire to achieve?

What do they dream of?

What are they afraid of?

What do they love?  Why?

What is the most important thing in the world to them?

What is Mongolia?  What sets it apart from other countries?

What will my students learn from me?  (Besides English, of course!)

And what will I learn from them?

And the last question is for me, mainly.  How am I prepared to have Mongolia change me?

Here's what I'm thinking: =)  Why don't you post some of your questions too?  Maybe some important ones I've missed or obscure details you'd like to know about.. Like what their stamps look like, or what a public bathroom is like.. etc.  Be creative.  I'll consider it my personal challenge to discover the answers while I'm there.

I'm excited.  To learn a lot and to make mistakes, and to be cold.. brrrrr... and to grow as a person, and to meet people who will become my friends, and to share my life with the people I meet.

AND, I'm excited to share it with you, too!!

Post your questions and I'll keep a list... we'll see how I do.

(I'd say "goodbye" in Mongolian, but I don't have any idea of how to do that.  Chinese will have to do.)

Zai Jian!!  Bye!! 再见！

Children's Day (Catching up on my China days)

So in China we celebrate everything and everyone.

We celebrate Teachers.

Parents.

Women.

The Moon.

The New Year.

And this week we celebrated Children.

And it was awesome.

And it was probably the most stressful week in their lives they've had, but also one of the happiest.

First, the weeks of preparation that have led up to it.  They've been learning their performances and dances and speeches to perform at the English Performances for Children's Day.

They had to do art projects and put their homework on display.

They gave up their recesses some days to practice their English lines or learn choreography.

And their teachers facilitated all of this.

(Enter the time of life of All of my co-teachers being ridiculously stressed out to the point of tears and collapse.)

The Foreign Teachers (Me and my team) were invited to perform a dance to open the festivities.

Which, since our school has split into three competitive departments and we all teach in different ones, we all had to do the performance at the opening of all three department's performances.

So we danced.  Jenessa and Alex (and with help from Laura and myself) assembled and mashed the music and choreographed the dance.  We all learned it, found costumes, made props, and applied stage makeup...

And performed to much confusion (and enjoyment) from a whole crowd of parents and students and fellow teachers.  Yay!

Here is a previous performance of ours that will give you an idea of what this was like.  Credit to my teammate Laura Love for posting it on Youtube for all of us to remember and enjoy again and again...
Mashup of Call Me Maybe and One Direction from our English Festival performance on the stage at Shanxi Modern Bilingual School.  The voice you hear in the video is one of my favorite co-teachers, Miss Sky.
Hope you enjoy =)