{"id":12411,"date":"2020-10-23T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/?p=12411"},"modified":"2020-10-23T19:42:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T23:42:46","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-mongolia-featuring-jenny-sandiford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-mongolia-featuring-jenny-sandiford\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Mongolia … Featuring Jenny Sandiford"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So Your Character is … is back for a time after a long hiatus! In this series, I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last time’s So Your Character is from Latvia … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span><\/p>\n

Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span><\/p>\n

(None of the Images are Mine)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hi, I\u2019m Jenny. I\u2019m from New Zealand but have lived in Mongolia since 2012. I live in an apartment in Ulaanbaatar, the coldest capital city in the world, with my husband Michael and our two cats. I started writing in the summer of 2018 when Michael and I were living and working at a remote mining camp on the edge of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. I have a travel blog focused around Mongolia, I also write book reviews and am working on editing my first novel, a YA contemporary fantasy which I hope to publish next year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Website<\/a>\/\/Instagram<\/a>\/\/Twitter<\/a>\/\/Pinterest<\/a>\/\/Facebook<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/h2>\n

Mongolia is a unique country in so many ways. You can see traditional nomadic life, animals roaming free, throat singing, shamans, huge national parks with rare animals, unique instruments like horse head fiddles, and ice festivals, and eagle festivals. Plus many interesting traditions around Buddhism, Shamanism and everyday life.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the biggest celebrations of the year is the Naadam Festival. This is held between the 11th-13th of July every year and is a huge attraction. Naadam is a celebration of the three manly sports; wrestling, archery, and horse riding. There is an elaborate opening ceremony in Ulaanbaatar every year before festivities start. Then all over the country, smaller festivals are held in every town.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Big Chinggis statue is a sight not to be missed. About an hour out of Ulaanbaatar, this huge shining monument stands out in the grassy steppe. Chinggis Khan is celebrated everywhere in Mongolia. He is the national hero and is still a huge part of life in Mongolia. Everything is named after Chinggis Khan; roads, hotels, beer, vodka, camps, rock bands, a city, an energy drink, and even businesses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Mongolia, you can experience developing urban life, or disappear into some of the most remote places on earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Eagle Festival in Ulaanbaatar, featuring the Eagle Huntress Aisholpan.\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Big Chinggis Statue Mongolia<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Traditional Mongolia performance\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Eagle Festival Ulaanbaatar<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Chinggis Vodka<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Tell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/h2>\n

My favourite place is out in the Mongolian countryside in summer. There are so many national parks and amazing places to explore. There are few fences in Mongolia, animals roam free and you can camp anywhere.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bogd Khan Mountain is a range of mountains that borders Ulaanbaatar city. This is my favourite place to go hiking on weekends. It is only 15mins drive from my apartment and has several hiking trails with forests, wildflowers, and wildlife.<\/span><\/p>\n

Going further afield, Lake Khovsgol is my favourite travel destination. This is in Northern Mongolia, near the Russian border. Known as the Blue Pearl of Mongolia, Lake Khovsgol is surrounded by Taiga forest and is home to the Tsaatan people (Reindeer people) and shamans.\u00a0<\/span>Check out\u00a0my blog post on Hiking at Lake Khovsgol<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of Mongolia is vast open spaces of grassy steppes or the great Gobi desert. In the west are huge mountains and the famous eagle hunters.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mongolia is also a harsh land, in summer it is easy to forget how extreme the winter is. It is winter for around seven months of the year and it is brutal! It becomes a land of ice, dust, and pollution with temperatures down to -40 at times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bogd Khan Mountain<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Terelj National Park\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Camping in the Gobi Desert<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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A camel herding families ger in the Gobi Desert<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Horses in the forest at Lake Khovsgol<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Yak at Lake Khovsgol<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Tell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/h2>\n

I have to say, I\u2019m not a fan of most Mongolian food. It is all we ate out at the mining camps and I got sick of it quickly!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The diet remains very traditional. Mongolians love meat. The staple meals for dinner revolve around boiled mutton, mostly. There is a range of traditional soups, but most have mutton, some have small dumplings called bansh (\u0431\u0430\u043d\u0448) sometimes there are vegetables (carrots, onions), or wheat-flour noodles. Rice is another staple.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Khuushuur, a deep-fried meat pastry<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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There is a Mongolian dumpling called buuz (\u0431\u0443\u0443\u0437), this is mutton in a wheat-flour dough and steamed. It is a staple during the Tsagaan sar, the Mongolia New Year celebrations. Families will visit each other\u2019s homes and eat endless plates of buuz.<\/span><\/p>\n

A favourite beverage among Mongolians is Suutei tsai (\u0441\u04af\u04af\u0442\u044d\u0439 \u0446\u0430\u0439), a salty milk tea. Another traditional beverage is airag, this is mildly alcoholic and is made of fermented mare\u2019s milk. It is very much an acquired taste!<\/span><\/p>\n

One Mongolian food I do like is khuushuur. This is a deep-fried pastry pocket filled with meat, often beef. In July, for the Naadam festival, there is a special Naadam Khuushur you can only get at that time of the year and it\u2019s delicious!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Naadam Khuushuur (\u043d\u0430\u0430\u0434\u043c\u044b\u043d \u0445\u0443\u0443\u0448\u0443\u0443\u0440)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Soup (\u0448\u04e9\u043b) with mutton and vegetables\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Mutton and with carrot and potato<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


\n<\/span>Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/h2>\n

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The national language is Mongolian, which is a very difficult language to learn. Most people over thirty also speak Russian fluently, and now many people speak English as well. It is normal to come across Mongolians who can speak four or five languages. Its pretty amazing!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The alphabet is a version of Cyrillic introduced by the Russians. But there has been a recent push to bring back the traditional Mongolian script, which is a beautiful, vertical text script.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Words you will commonly hear<\/span><\/p>\n

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