July 21-22 Hulunbuir

 Bad bad person, no keeping up with my journal. How do I learn the habit; make it a ritual? Well, better later than never, since I kept the sketches anyway, but don't have the habit finishing it.

FRIDAY, JULY 21 FLIGHING TO HULUNBUIR

In the afternoon we flew to Hulunbuir, to the East of Inner Mongolia. Nikita Mikhalkov, before becoming fascist, shut a good movie called "Urga" in those lands in 1991.

I read some of Lu Xun on the flight. Interesting his story of starting writing – how he was skeptical of his writing having any impact on people's life:

– "Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?"

– "But if a few awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.

True, in spite of my own conviction, I could not blot out hope, for hope lies in the future. I could not use my own evidence to refute his assertion that it might exist. So I agreed to write, and the result was my first story, "A Madman's Diary." From that time onward, I could not stop writing, and would write some sort of short story from time to time at the request of friends, until I had more than a dozen of them.

Then I played some Politopia. 

Hulunbuir looked curious to me from the first sight. A big stone just put aside the road and lighted up stylishly. Lighting is pretty good on China in general – there is no this massive light pollution like in New York; but they have the luxury of having little light on the streets because of low crime. In New York this low light on the streets would make it feel quite unsafe. This strange obsession with tech, as everywhere in China, but in Hulunbuir it seemed just tech enough without excesses – like a toilet seat cover opening up when you approach it. 

After dinner our friends drove us outside of the city to stay in a Mongolian yurt (called "Mongol ger" in Mongolian, a sound closer described as "монгл гыр" in Russian). On our way it started raining so heavily that I imagined running 20 steps from the car to the yurt would make us absolutely wet. Fortunetely, it stopped raining as fast as it started. The yurt was located somewhere outside of the city in the dark; it was like AirBNB except there is no AirBNB in China anymore. A host met us with a flashlight – a Mongolian guy with long hair, with a beard, just like the Mongol from the movie "Urga", of our age in the 30s, and in the Addidas sweatpants with the white stripes on the sides. I heard them talking Mongolian and Chinese, then they told me that the yurt is too wet from the rain, so we'd stay in the wooden house – I was happy we have a place to stay, and, not understanding a thing, smiling.

When everyone left B told me that the host guy was somewhat rude – first thing he told us when we drove in was: "Don't drive here on my grass!" Then he told us that the yurt was too wet from the rain, and we were better stay in the wooden house that he offered for 800rmb, instead of 600rmb that we agreed to play for the yurt. He told us it was normally 2000rmb room (US$300), but he was nice enough to give it to us for 800. That was shitty, indeed, I agreed with B – if they couldn't provide the place we agreed on they were supposed to let us know in advance, or provide something livable for the same price. I told B that we were gonna stay there that night anyway, but, still, we could tell them our grievences at least, and forget about it. So she texted them, and then the guy came again and asked if we wanted to move to the yurt. I thought "damn"; I asked if we could see the yurt first.

We walked to the yurt, in the dark of Mongolian steppes; the air was pleasantly wet and cool. I noticed a dog running along with us, then I realized it was a cat running like dogs usually do. The inside of the yurt looked alright – a bit damp air, but not too bad. I looked around. The bed looked tempting after a day of traveling, with white sheets and four pillows waiting for guests. I touched the sheets – they were slightly moist, but not too bad. I touched more – nope, they were quite moist sheets. B and the guy talked something in Mongolian. Then B asked me what I thought, and if we should stay in the yurt. Somehow, what I said completely changed the guy. What did I even say? I said:

– Look, these sheets are wet, I appreciate what you're doing here with the yurt, but these conditions are unlivable at the moment; I mean, I don't know about China – it's my first time in China, perhaps it's okay here – but where I come from it'd be considered unlivable. And when we agreed on the price, we were paying for a livable place to stay. Just give us the agreed price for the wooden house and let's go to sleep. You won't give us that price – it's fine too, we'll still stay in the wooden house, but I just wanted to tell you that we were unhappy about it.

Translation was not needed – turned out the guy understood English well. I don't know how my short speech helped, but then they talked in Mongolian with B again, and not with me, and their conversation turned warm – the guy was explaining something, and tapping his chest with his hand in a warm guesture. 

B said the guy says that we could stay for free in the wooden house. He said that he came back from Shanghai today, where he is an actor in a local theater; he was tired. He said our friend was rude and freaked him out – turned out our friend (that drove us to the steppes) was asking about a permission ƒor the yurt, and then asked him when he was gonna register me as a foreigner (a local law that turns out locals give a crap about). He said he doesn't do this yurt for money – it was for friends. If we were fine people, we could just stay for free. Supposedly we were fine people. It took a while for us to finally go back to our room – the guy was starting over again and again explainig something in Mongolian. We finally wished good night to each other, and went to our wooden house. It was around midnight. B was happy that we sorted out this situation.

– He's a typical Mongolian with a good heart who doesn't know how to run a business, – she said.

I took a shower in the wooden house; there was hot water, and everything. On the balcony there was a nest of birds, and a big, apple-size, tarantula-kind spider making a web from the roof to the balcony. I fell asleep in seconds.

SATURDAY, JULY 22 A DAY IN HULUNBUIR

I woke up at 6am from the loud rain in the wooden house. It was drums like sound, with high beat, with lots of water falling on the wooden house's roof, and to the grass around, making it a loud drumbeat. The ourside was green, very green grassfield, the steppes, but not much to see under the rain. Then slept again till 8:15am.

The view from the wooden house.

The hosts gave us a breakfast – as usually here, Mongolian milk tea, with unsalted cheeses, and eggs, and bread. And coffee – I thought the coffee was quite good; turned out it was Nespresso. Well, Nespresso is decent. Mongolian tea is not my thing though cause I don't like milk. His name was Stoop, I think, was it? He played some music – first, played something from The Hu, that I've heard before, a Mongolian metal band that I often heard around Inner Mongolia, then he switched to some American pop, like Jay Z or whatnot; then he said we should put our out music. He said he was glad we didn't stay in the yurt last night cause it was raining too heavily overnight. Stoop often travels to Shanghai where they are rehearsing a theater play that should come out soon – something absurdist based on Camus. I said I was very interested in Camus, but that was an irrelivant comment; he understood my comments in English, but was apt to speak in Mongolian with B. While busy with theater in Shanghai, the Stoop's wife meanwhile was taking care of their baby and managing the yurts booking – so that quite too much work to do for her. Then he invited us for a BBQ in the afternoon when their friends will come over.

Stoop left, and his wife came join us with the baby, only 6 month old, while we were still eating the breakfast. The wife was young and very pretty, probably 10 years younger than us, speaking English with me and Mongolian with B. She went to school in Beijing, and then as life goes so quickly, she is married with the kid here, and they are trying to build their life with the yurts and the wooden house in the Mongolian steppes, and her husband travels to Shanghai often for business.

We rented a car that was driven to us to the yurt, and went to pickup GQ in the city. The Hulunbuir museum was next on the plan, organized by our friends. Oh, well, all those provincial Chinese museums are funny, at first, with all these "China is a multi-ethnic society" messages, but then it is too repeatitive and not as funny anymore. All that the central government needs from these lands is to calm down and not to try to separate.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, under the cordial care of the Party Central Committee and the brilliance of the Party's ethnic policy, and under the strong leadership of the Party Committee and Government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the people of all ethnic groups in Hulunbuir have worked extremely hard and endeavored to become strong. They have written a colorful and magnificent epic on the magical land with their wisdom, hard work, and sweat. Hulunbuir has achieved great changes from "backward" to "developing" from "poverty" to "prosperity", and from "closed" to "opening-up".

Russians are the villains here – all the territories north of Hulunbuir used to belong to China; Baikal is Mongolian name; Russian far east was sacred Manchu land. Formerly inland, now Hulunbuir is the border town. 

What else? They say some of the first people lived in this lands long time ago. Models of ancient local villages show people skiing – I was surprised, but wiki says skiing actually appered 6000 years ago in China. I thought it was invented by the hipsters 50 years ago.

In the afternoon we went back to our wooden house for Mongolian BBQ. Mongolian BBQ is just small scewers of meat, not much different from Japanese izakaya. This time we met all the animals of the house: the cat that acted like a dog; a friendly dog; a stubbort goat that I was tasked to move from the porch and almost failed; two small baby goats that kept together everywhere like two troublemaker brothers. What an interesting useless gang of animals.

Mongolian steppes.

Stoop proposed to drive to a hill for a better view of the steppes. We jumped in his big American car, then he drove us off-road too fast, as it was an off-road car racing; "it's impossible to take a photo in this car," – B said, trying to take a picture in the shaking car. Stoop put the music on; something American, 808 beats. In 15 minutes we were on top of the hil, viewing the steppes, putting the sweaters on as it was chilling. Stoop went away not saying anything, just standing in the steppes along. 

– He went to see a hourse, – B said, – that's what they say here when they go for a pee.

I picked up this phrase. "I need to see a horse," – I would say when we were driving later to ask for a stop. 

The steppes were super green; somewhere far away I could see dark wooden buildings, like an old Russian village. Stoop said it was a very expensive hotel for bankers. We spent there till the sun set. B was talking to Stoop in Mongolian. I was quite. Then I realized GQ doesn't understand a word they say either – she only speaks Mandarin, and zero Mongolian. 

Back to the wooden house, we were served "Buryat buuz" – a kind of dumpings, pronounced here more like "bryat boaz", also known as "manti". Stoop is a Buryat Mongolian. I asked him if he knows about Buryatia republic within Russia; he said he heard about it, but never been there; he didn't look interested in it either. I thought his pronunciation was almost Russian – some sounds are so hard to pronunce for both Chinese and English speakers, but he could say them easily. He said, yeah, Buryat Mongolian is closer to Russian language.

We called it a night, and went to our room. 

– I wonder if he doesn't wash his face like other Mongolian guys, – B said in bed.

– What do you mean? – I asked.

– They just splash some water on their face, and that is all, – she replied.

I was thinking if I washed my face enough before I fell asleep.