Sorry for the hiatus, but last week was a bit hectic and, to be honest, sometimes it feels like the writing’s flowing, sometimes it doesn’t. Lately it’s been something of the latter.
Nevertheless, the Mongolia Project talks went well over the weekend, even if it didn’t exactly rain funds. On Sunday, I was the guest of the Friends of Mongolia and the Mongolian Cultural Center in the meeting room of a large apartment complex where many Mongolian families live. Thus, I was a little puzzled that the Americans (including, I’m honored to say, former Ambassador to Mongolia Alphonse La Porta) outnumbered the Mongols, since really all they had to do was come down the elevator.
All became clear when it was explained that the night before news broke that Mongolian boxer Badar-Uugan Enkhbat had just royally whupped up on Cuba’s Yankiel Leon to capture the bantamweight gold medal in Beijing (nice piece in the Wall Street Journal). Mongolia had never before won a gold in Olympic competition, and this was not the first, but the second that Mongolian athletes earned this go ‘round. Mongols around the world were already majorly stoked that their countryman Tuvshinbayar Naidan had gone for gold in judo. Fold in the two silvers that Mongolian athletes won in bantamweight boxing and women’s 25m pistol shooting, and the partying Saturday had been, I was told, exceptionally enthusiastic.
If you want to see what the scene looked like in the streets of Ulaanbaatar, Brother Guido has put up video he shot of Mongols cheering the Jumbotron outside the State Department Store, about 100 meters from my apartment, which broadcast the bout live. By the all-important metric that visiting Melbourne monk Lungtog says Australia loves to use – number of medals per capita – Mongolian athletes did their country proud, coming in 16th out of 87 nations.
I wish I could have whooped and hollered along with my buddies in UB (little known fact: our cheer “hooray” comes from Mongolian) but my teacher has asked me to stay back a month longer to help with some urgent temple business. New Mongolia departure date: October 2.
Happy news is always welcome... thank you! Joy abounds!
Posted by: Kay in New Mexico | August 27, 2008 at 09:46 PM
Konchog -- Thanks so much for presenting for us at River Place!
We all really enjoyed the presentation and were honored to have you and your colleagues come out and visit with us. Hopefully this is just the beginning of good things to come between MBRP and FOM.
Yes, Mongols are HUGE sports fans! And this was very big news!
It's funny, my buddy Saruul, who was i attendence for the MCC -- and let's give proper thanks to the Mongolian Cultural Center who secured the room for us and provided the soda-pop and treats -- he knows American football and college basketbal here better thna I do!!
:0)
-Ariel
p.s. I took some good pics which I sent you this morning, but that last group picture was recorded as 4 seconds of video instead of a picture somehow... Do you have a group picture?
Posted by: Ariel | August 28, 2008 at 04:22 PM