9:13 PM “Actually, as we discuss what we’re seeing is that we can only travel back and forth between mediational abstractions created by discourses of power that conflict with one another and make your reality FUCKED!”

Yes Foxy, but

FUCKED I SAY

But

DISCOURSE OF POWER

Had this at the beginning before, as I usually put rambly crap, but it really belongs somewhere where no-one will mistakenly read it as actual content

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div>Oh, my… just enabled the visual editor in WordPress to paste in the google chat stuff above… worked alright. Then I editied it a few times and WHAMMO, DIVS EVERYWHERE! Couldn’t even insert its own more link without breaking the post. Pretty lame, especially seeing as blogger has this down pat (then again they have google and writely, etc… behind them… but still its a crappy blogging platform!)

Not that I ever use WYSIWYG… noooo that would be, heresy?

If, at any point, you manage to perform an act of explosive and/or otherwise notable bowel movement–be sure to proudly proclaim so to your travelling companions. If they fail to recognize you for your achievements (i.e. survival), realize they don’t get it (yet) and have faith that their time will come. Or find new travelling companions.

Develop some form of superstitious logic to explain how best to preserve your gastrointestinal health–if only to maintain some semblance of composure (sanity). The mind does not take well to dreading diarrhea after every meal, arbitrarily.

Halfway home, the bus breathes its last breath. It’s really more of a wheeze. Watch the driver frantically fan at the flames peeking out of a hole in the bus’ side panel as you walk away.

I see it all unfold from about, without. A meta-travel. We goto this land for many reasons that are all the same. We run from broken homes, repentant lovers, dead pets.

Flip through the study-abroad brochures advertising semesters in Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam. Flip to the next page.

Now you are in the Exotic section. Beijing, Hangzhou, Dakar, Yaoundé. Wish you hadn’t dropped Chinese. It couldn’t have been that bad.

The Dark Continent and the Exotic East, like two stepchildren. Appreciated intellectually, but when it comes down to the wire, people’s loyalties reveal themselves, and align conveniently with the flows of capital and genealogy.

You have narrowed your selection to two choices: Vietnam or Mongolia. Or Nepal. But you eliminate that because you’ve been, if only briefly. Feel bad for not wanting more to go to Africa. You must be an Orientalist asshole, or something. Make a note to work on that.

Vietnam, home of rice paddies and shards of American shrapnel embedded in jungle soil.

Mongolia is nowhere, nothing. Marco Polo and Genghis Khan. He is still Genghis to you.

Mongolia gives new weight to the phrase “Golden Years”. Nostalgia on a new plane.

But now’s your chance to see Vietnam. Before it develops they say.

Realize there is something morbidly fascinating about (post)-communism.

Choose Mongolia because you get to spend two weeks herding sheep and goats, and living in a yurt in the countryside. This appeals to you, but seems to be lost on others.

Develop some stock answers to the question, Why Mongolia? Your favorites are: Why not? or even better, Because it’s fucking awesome, that’s why. Deliver these with an air of definite confidence, as if the subject should require no further exploration.

you become a minor celebrity in certain circles. Your mom’s email list. Your sister’s friends. Relatives. No-one at your school cares, or they hide it well. It is likely they resent you for out-exoticizing-internationalizing them. This makes you happy.

Go away–far, far away. You are tired of living comfortable. Which is ironic, since for a rich white male, you’ve had it less than easy. Then again, that’s not saying much. you long for culture shock. To be hung by your feet and shaken until everything falls from your pockets.

You are going to Mongolia. Repeat 3 times. The words fail to become any less surreal. Two months later, you will echo this experience in downtown Ulaanbaatar, You are in Mongolia. Repeat 3 times.

Wonder if there’s something wrong with you because you don’t seem to be falling in love with this place. What does that even mean?

And the food is bad enough to prevent any long-term relationship from developing [past the early stages].

Learn that everything extracted from, or grown in Mongolia goes to China; that everything that can be bought is made in China, perhaps from Mongolian materials. Which you hadn’t dropped Chinese.

You want to make sure your Mongolian language skills reach a decent level. Find one of the five Mongolians in Boston and organize private language lessons for th etwo weeks before you leave.

Buy “Colloquial Mongolian” by Alan J. K. Saunders and Jansangiin Batereedüi.

Six months later, the most played track in your iTunes® will still be “Lesson 1, Dialogue 2–Fast”.

Have a sinking feeling halfway thorugh track 2 on the cd. Sample words: Sandal, Kharandaa, Tom, Jijig, Gobi. Goiv? Gobi. Figure it must be a mistake or typo. How can Gobi become.. well the G is swallowed, and calls up from the bottom of your throat, leading to a slippery o that somehow terminates in a soft V. Realize you won’t be learning this language from a book. You need corroboration for these crimes against reason. Wish you hadn’t dropped Chinese.

Enjoy thinking about how you must appear, Mongolian phrases emanating from your throat as you practice to the recordings on your daily commute on the wonderful MBTA.

Be glad you dropped Chinese.

Try not to think about how knowing this language will help you later in life. Fill your head with lots of liberal-arts learn for its own sake bullshit.

Mongolia is fucking awesome, that’s why.

With perestroika and the decline of Soviet power in the late 1980’s, Mongolia entered the first period of its post-communist development. This romantic period was a time of hope; Mongolia was to become the next Asian Tiger. Yet with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the halting of related aid money, newly democratic Mongolia was faced with an economic crisis of epic proportions. The fruits of democracy were enjoyed as well; newspapers sprang up, their variety reflecting the budding of Mongolia’s new multi-party democracy. Churches tripped over each other to send missionaries to cultivate her fertile sands, and Buddhism re-entered the public sphere. However, the lack of visible progress led many Mongolians’ to enter into state of now-familiar disillusionment.

Elections brought the young Democrats into power, who hastily implemented an intensely neo-liberal plan to shock the Mongolian economy into complete liberalization. Despite optimistic forecasts from policymakers, the life of the average Mongolian took a serious turn for the worse. Problems that had been forgotten during the times of Stalinist ‘utopia’ ravaged the country. Unemployment, massive inflation (as much as 350%), shortages of essential goods, and an almost complete collapse of the Mongolian economy were among them.¹ Social ills soon followed, with Mongolian males and their fragile egos faring worse that the women; alcoholism and violence, especially, spread amongst the growing population of unemployed young men.² Such chaos swept the MPRP back into power, beginning another dark era of de-democratization, though with some economic recovery.

PART II. AWAKENING THE TIGER

Big Brother is watching, don’t say the

Wrong thing, look the Wrong way.

Traditional systems dis-

Integrate. Morals, ethics, freedoms and structures of life on the steppe.³

Yet what happens when Big Brother falls?

The veil is lifted, euphoria blossoms;

The image of the Tiger mesmerizes,

Nurtured by romancing Western winds.

Yet change proves illusory, as do the goods

That once lined the oppressive shelves of state-owned stores.

A dissatisfied electorate speaks with their vote;

Old are replaced by new: the heroic Democrats

Stumble forward.

The electric paddles they hold still drip saliva,

Fresh from the drooling mouths of the waiting West.

With the suavity of a toddler’s first step, they apply the shock;

Sparks fly, illuminating their fresh faces frozen in naïveté and terror.

With the ferocity of a dead fish the Mongolian economy coughs,

Collapsing into torpor.

PART III. THE PERILS OF FREEDOM

With the fall of the soviet-installed communist system, freedom was thrust onto the Mongolian people in every capacity. Suddenly, Mongolians were free to think, worship, vote, move, and work (if they could find a job) as they pleased. Yet with this freedom came an immense individual responsibility, to make it in this new system without the help of the state, a drastic change to say the least. Also, these freedoms came without any tradition—after 70 years of socialism, only a faint memory remains of what came before. Some consequences have been rapid urbanization, pastureland degradation, over-hunting and over-harvesting, and generally unsustainable patterns of development. Where a cohesive state plan once was, is now blind free market, “me first” capitalism.

According to various religious leaders, the economic crisis was, and continues to be accompanied by a moral crisis.⁴ Alcoholism, crime, and violence all became endemic, though whether this was due to the abysmal economic conditions and lack of law and order, or the supposed demolition of Mongolian morals by the Soviets is not clear. That the moral structure was destroyed by soviet policies and oppressive moral policing makes sense only if people were truly too scared to think independently (like East Germany with the STAZI⁵). Nonetheless, Mongolians clearly have a dark history behind them, one that must be confronted if they are to move forward, “Here in Mongolia… I think only with dealing with the reality, also admitting what went wrong, they can really find out again what they are, and what they want to be.”⁶

In greatest danger of degeneration by the toxic societal climate are the nation’s young men. Faced with a crisis of national identity, these young men and their already fragile egos must come to terms with the anarchy unfolding around them. The easiest way is to find a scapegoat: the Chinese (and Koreans). Thus groups of young men have formed together under the financial and moral manipulation of powerful politicians, to carry out a campaign of terrorism against foreign-owned businesses and their employees. Powerful messages of militarism from abroad catalyze this transformation.⁷ Yet they are just that, pawns of people with money and an agenda.

It is not only the young men who face the new deluge of media imagery from abroad. Where they were once shielded by an overprotective government, Mongolians are now left completely exposed to a barrage of alien culture, “Its not just the lifting of the pressure, it’s the moving of a completely different world, with all the television, with all the Western, European, American values and which come in a completely unrealistic way.”⁸

PART IV. IDENTITY

The Christians say, “Of course! This Beast is Lost,

Searching for the Something more.”

The Mormons wait with their sharp suits and

Clean-cut lines. What happened to that

Which once filled this place? A Buddhism since

Gutted by the years of not-so-subtle stifling;

Banished to a realm of irrelevance. Yet does Christ,

And those who use His name, truly fill this void?

Do the 50% under 25 really know

That to which they subscribe?

Or that over which they passed

To accept this foreign faith?

PART V. POINT OF NO RETURN

“The free market is blind, following it blindly leads to collapse.” –Ganbaatar, CEO Confederation of Mongolian Trade Union⁹

A look around Ulaanbaatar is all one needs to sense anarchic levels of freedom. Buildings sprout from a cement sea like the grass that once grew beneath. Chinese workers scurry about, erecting monuments to the new Lords of the Land: the ₮ugrik, the ₩on and the ¥uan. Law and order resonates nowhere; the MP’s poaching marmots send a clear message to the rest of their people. The insanity that is traffic in UB reflects this; why obey traffic laws when those who write them show such blatant disregard? Walking the streets, one sees street children begging for food from well-dressed businessmen and politicians as they descend from shiny land-cruisers. The emerging Mongolian middle class makes UB feel like the capital of a much more prosperous country than it is. One need only travel in any direction outside the city center to witness the kilometers and kilometers of families trying to eek out a living in this new system, despite the odds against them.

After 15 years of transition from authoritarian communism to the current ‘democratic’ free-market system, Mongolia is approaching a precipice, a point of no return.¹⁰ Corruption in the highest levels of government breeds corruption in the lower levels. A growing shadow economy, and widespread bribery indicate the financial interests that are developing and becoming entrenched. Perhaps the most frightening development has been the worsening of Mongolia’s elections. Once famous for its quick transition to internationally approved elections, suspicious events during the 2004 elections call such innocence into serious question.¹¹ Such corruption only worsens existing problems of poverty, unemployment, insufficient infrastructure, growing crime and violence, and especially a pervasive air of lawlessness. While some manage to be optimistic about the future of governance, cynicism seems to be far more pervasive.

In order to secure their future, Mongolians must work through their disillusionment, come to terms with their past take ownership over the present and future of their country. They must take their democratic rights in hand, no matter how tenuous they may feel, and use them to catch the rapidly closing doors of political legitimacy. Only by building a viable civil society movement, with support from the public to keep a stern watchful eye on all aspects of government, does Mongolia stand a chance for a truly sustainable future. Without such a movement, politicians will continue to work for their own interests, and corruption will continue to flourish. The growing symbiotic relationship between government and business will become one of permanence.

PART VI. SURREALITY

The Mongolian cat still bares her humble teeth,

If only in campaign ads.

From her mouth peer politicians: slick suited,

Pockets fleeced with Copper and Gold.

They will reform, herald a new era;

Or so they say. Until then

The youth wander the streets, crackling

With insecurity and xenophobia.

Coal fills the winter air;

Pastures fade;

Lines form to overpay at ger district water pumps;

Drunks stumble across sidewalks, their bloodshot glassy eyes half-open;

Street children recede to the sewers, watching the world above pass them by.

References

I’ll post more after I take my computer back apart, then reassemble it… Hope everyone is having a great summer so far!!!

Each year, loggers cut down more than 4,000 majestic mahogany trees, laying waste to the lush habitat of the giant otter and the squirrel monkey. More than 80 percent of this contraband is bound for the United States to be made into dining room tables, luxury car interiors and other high-end consumer products. Yet, in violation of domestic and international laws, U.S. border control agencies have refused to stem the passage of millions of dollars worth of Peruvian mahogany through our ports each year.

To help protect the rare wildlife and indigenous peoples of Peru’s rainforests, NRDC has joined forces with Peruvian groups to sue four leading U.S. mahogany importers, the Department of the Interior and two U.S. agencies for failing to crack down on the illegal mahogany trade. At the same time, we are calling on BioGems Defenders like you to urge the Bush administration to take immediate action.
» Tell the Bush administration to act now to curtail illegal mahogany imports.

Kitten huffing is a controversial practice that has recently been growing as a popular and healthy alternative to street drugs.Despite a long history in Western culture, the practice remains largely taboo. Excessive huffing has been known to produce undesirable side effects, including addiction, damaged sinuses and, in some cases, death. Veteran huffers often caution against huffing more than a couple kittens per day as overdosing can be very unpleasant and quite dangerous.
…
The first documented case of kitten huffing is from Artemus of Capadocia in 432BC, who described “ae wydenyng of ye soule wyth yon huffe” upon sucking out the soul of a young wild lynx kitten from the plains of central Asia Minor. Kitten Huffing achieved only a minor level of interest outside of the Asian sub-continent until famed Englishman, This Guy, wrote his treatise Me and the Marquis get down with some crazy shit on an extended huff-binge he took with the Marquis de Sade and brought the practice to the forefront of haute couture.
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A cute example of the kind of humorous faux-but-really-maybe-not-so-faux (as in, fiction gets at a greater truth etc…) intellectualism, which I’ve noticed is especially popular among frisbee team members, but which is pretty much all over the place in a brain-trust kind of environment where everyone’s stressed and people often take themselves, and their work )and studies) just a little too seriously… Actually, another more direct to remedy this is the recent growth of no pants day

And incidentally, the huffing site also serves as an interesting example of hyper-fiction…

edit: even better: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Making_up_Albert_Einstein_quotes

“It’s quite simple, really. If I’m the Moon, and I’m traveling at the speed of light in the general direction of your eye, and I then collide with it in the manner of a large circular object consisting of bread, cheese, and tomato sauce, then there is naturally an impact – which can be theoretically termed, in a word, amoré.”

And on how to be funny when writing articles (anyone can submit or edit articles, since it is a wiki)

Well that’s all for now… just had to share it with someone!

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I’m sick…

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I will return.