Монгольский анекдот

Про китайские тональности.

• По-китайский "отец" это 爹 – "diē", т.е. "е" первой тональности.
• Курительная "трубка" по-монгольски это "де", обычное "е".
• "Лошадь" по-китайски это 马 – "mǎ", т.е. "а" третьей тональности.
• "Мама" по-китайски это 妈 – "mā", т.е. "а" первой тональности.

Скачет монгол по степи на лошади и курит трубку. Трубка из руки вылетела; пошел монгол трубку искать. Пока искал трубку, лошадь ускакала. Подходит к монголу китаец и спрашивает чего тот ищет, монгол ему пытается объяснить по-китайски: "потерял де, а пока искал де так ма убежала" – то есть: "Потерял папу, а пока искал папу так мама убежал".

Wednesday, July 12 Museum of Inner Mongolia

(written a week later)

A rainy day in Hohhot – in contrast to Beijing's heat just a few days before, I wore a light jacket. A rainy day is a museum day; we went to the museum of Inner Mongolia.

A pomegranate metaphor of multi-ethnic China – essentially the same message repeatedly reinforced in Inner Mongolia: the country is comprised of many ethnicities, but they are better off held as a single country.

A typical plaque in the museum would talk about some history, and then reinforce the same message over and over – China is multiethnic country integrated in a single country for everyone's good. From the preface:

Our great motherland has been a unified multi-ethnic country since ancient times. The Chinese nation as one united community has formed in continuous exchanges, interactions and integration among various ethnic groups. Inner Mongolia is located in the northern frontiers of our motherland. ... The exhibition showcases artifacts dating from different historical periods in Inner Mongolia, to demonstrate the evolution and formation of China as a unified multi-ethnic country, and to interpret the development and growth of the pluralistic and integrated pattern of the Chinese nation.

Another one:

The convergence and integration of various ethnic groups laid a solid foundation for the formation of our country as a unified multi-ethnic country.

Another:

The stability in the border areas and the formation of the unified multi-ethnic country created favorable conditions for the prosperous development of culture. ... People of all ethnic groups living in Inner Mongolia together created the colorful culture.

From the afterword:

China is a unified multi-ethnic country. The Chinese nation has formed in continuous exchanges, interactions and integration among various ethnic groups. Rooted in the fertile soil of multi-ethnic cultures characterized by harmony within diversity, the Chinese civilization has a long history. The Chinese history is a history for all ethnic groups to interact and blend into the Chinese nation marked by pluralistic integration. Inner Mongolia has been a historical stage for many ethnic groups since ancient times, where the farming civilization and nomadic civilization have converged and integrated, injecting vitality into the sustainable development of the Chinese civilization.

Then we saw some old things heavily mixed with interpretations in form of modern made models and reconstructions. Mongolian tobacco bottles: when people met they would smell tobacco from each other's bottle. Models of houses, villages. Stuff like that. The central theme was China's officially recognized 56 ethnicities. 

A local joke goes like this: when the party was deciding on how many ethnicities existed in China, they asked Mao, and Mao asked: "how many ethnicities exists in the Soviet Union? In China there should be more." The answer was 55, so they decided on 56 ethnicities. The root of the joke is that the number is sort of made up, and there are much more ethnicities than officially recognized. But even those recognized ethnicities are under pressure of unification: while Western reports mostly focus on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, there are only scattered reports on the crackdown on Mongolian education in Inner Mongolia. Since 2020, Inner Mongolian schools are limited to a single Mongolian language class while all other classes are required to be taught in Mandarin. So the museum repeated messages are part of that unification today.