Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
ACMS Closed for Tsagaan Sar
The ACMS will be closed from February 21-March 2 for the Tsagaan Sar holiday. Tsagaan Ssar will begin on February 25th this year for those of you outside of Mongolia. Have a wonderful Tsagaan Sar, and don't eat too many buuz.
Buddhism in Mongolia: Rebirth and Transformation
Smith College will host a symposium on Mongolian Buddhism at the end of March. The main organizer of the event participated in the CIEE study seminar managed by the ACMS last summer, and I gather that the trip had some impact on the content of the symposium. Smith College is a liberal arts college for women in western Massachusetts, and it is encouraging to see that interest in Mongolia is finding its way to new corners of the world. Given the people involved, I think those interested in Buddhism and particularly Mongolian Buddhism would be disappointed to miss this event. More information is available on the Smith College website at Buddhism in Mongolia: Rebirth and Transformation. The photo on the website of the fallen statue has an amusing backstory, so those who attend the symposium should ask Jamie Hubbard to tell the story of the world's worst ger camp redeemed by warmish beer and wine.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Mamma Mia! I can still do without mutton.
Recently my wife and I watched the musical movie sensation Mamma Mia!, which is a screen adaptation of the musical by the same name. Given the movie's popularity--it recently unseated Titanic for highest grossing film ever in the United Kingdom--I probably do not need to explain what the film is about. However, I would like to mention that it is a musical entirely set to the music of the Swedish pop group ABBA, and this is relevant to what I am about to write.
I was never really a fan of ABBA. There was something rather too poppy about them for my tastes. Yet, while my wife and I watched, I found myself actually tapping my foot to the music, and for days afterwards I kept humming the music in my head and sometimes out loud. I was completely surprised by the impression this movie had on me, and it led me to quip to my wife that I've spent five years in Mongolia and all I've got to show for it is a stinkin' appreciation for ABBA.
ABBA, Bonnie Em, Suzie Quatro and Chris Norman, these are all musical "sensations" that live on in Mongolia hearkening back to a much simpler and drabber period in Mongolian history. This new found appreciation for ABBA comes from me thinking what it must have been like to hear this music for the first time on bootleg tapes in the 80s when it first made its way into Mongolia. It must have sounded like the most exotic and addicting of sounds, which I think says something more about the condition of life in Mongolia at the time rather than the musical depth of the groups. ABBA is catchy. You don't have to understand the lyrics to begin to dance along, and many of the songs have simple refrains which to the snobby critic might seem fatuous but to a non-native speaker of English are easy to pick up and sing. "Waterloo! Blah-blah-blah, da blah, my Waterloo!" is a good example.
This music has a special meaning in Mongolia because it has nostalgia attached to it which you won't encounter anywhere else. Watching Mamma Mia! I began to imagine it must have been a breath of fresh air or a window into a more colorful world beyond the Soviet Union when the music first began to be traded among high school and college students in Ulaanbaatar. It was something really easy to dance to at a time when many of Mongolia's senior democratic revolutionaries and conservatives alike were young and very impressionable. My new found appreciation for ABBA has a lot to do with understanding how something as frivolous as pop songs can really have a profound effect on the world. One can imagine that Zorig, Elbegdorj, and even President Enkhbayar were inspired in some measure to change the political landscape in Mongolia by the sounds they heard from groups like ABBA and Smokey (even if it doesn't seem to inform their decision making today). It's a really odd thing to consider, but is more believable and real to me now that I am sitting writing this and humming "Stumblin' In" to myself.
It is a fact that living in Mongolia walls off many mainstream sources of music, as well as many other forms of entertainment, by the standards I grew up in. But, really that happens in any country where you have the time to begin to appreciate the local tastes because of an inability to recreate one's world of entertainment back home. Living in Mongolia has definitely stretched my appreciation of Swedish and other pop music and the nostalgic position in holds in modern Mongolia. And, yet, I can still do without mutton, so Mongolia still has a long way to go in modifying my tastes overall, I suppose. But, ABBA is one victory I will give it.
I was never really a fan of ABBA. There was something rather too poppy about them for my tastes. Yet, while my wife and I watched, I found myself actually tapping my foot to the music, and for days afterwards I kept humming the music in my head and sometimes out loud. I was completely surprised by the impression this movie had on me, and it led me to quip to my wife that I've spent five years in Mongolia and all I've got to show for it is a stinkin' appreciation for ABBA.
ABBA, Bonnie Em, Suzie Quatro and Chris Norman, these are all musical "sensations" that live on in Mongolia hearkening back to a much simpler and drabber period in Mongolian history. This new found appreciation for ABBA comes from me thinking what it must have been like to hear this music for the first time on bootleg tapes in the 80s when it first made its way into Mongolia. It must have sounded like the most exotic and addicting of sounds, which I think says something more about the condition of life in Mongolia at the time rather than the musical depth of the groups. ABBA is catchy. You don't have to understand the lyrics to begin to dance along, and many of the songs have simple refrains which to the snobby critic might seem fatuous but to a non-native speaker of English are easy to pick up and sing. "Waterloo! Blah-blah-blah, da blah, my Waterloo!" is a good example.
This music has a special meaning in Mongolia because it has nostalgia attached to it which you won't encounter anywhere else. Watching Mamma Mia! I began to imagine it must have been a breath of fresh air or a window into a more colorful world beyond the Soviet Union when the music first began to be traded among high school and college students in Ulaanbaatar. It was something really easy to dance to at a time when many of Mongolia's senior democratic revolutionaries and conservatives alike were young and very impressionable. My new found appreciation for ABBA has a lot to do with understanding how something as frivolous as pop songs can really have a profound effect on the world. One can imagine that Zorig, Elbegdorj, and even President Enkhbayar were inspired in some measure to change the political landscape in Mongolia by the sounds they heard from groups like ABBA and Smokey (even if it doesn't seem to inform their decision making today). It's a really odd thing to consider, but is more believable and real to me now that I am sitting writing this and humming "Stumblin' In" to myself.
It is a fact that living in Mongolia walls off many mainstream sources of music, as well as many other forms of entertainment, by the standards I grew up in. But, really that happens in any country where you have the time to begin to appreciate the local tastes because of an inability to recreate one's world of entertainment back home. Living in Mongolia has definitely stretched my appreciation of Swedish and other pop music and the nostalgic position in holds in modern Mongolia. And, yet, I can still do without mutton, so Mongolia still has a long way to go in modifying my tastes overall, I suppose. But, ABBA is one victory I will give it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
ACMS Annual Meeting - Call for Posters
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 1, 2009
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is organizing a Mongolian Studies poster session to be held on Friday, March 27, 2009 at Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers (301 East North Water Street, Chicago, IL), in Chicago Ballroom VI, in conjunction with the ACMS' Annual Meeting.
Posters on any topic related to Mongolia are welcome. Poster presenters are required to appear at the meeting to discuss their work. Posters may be in either English or Mongolian language, and students and scholars from all countries and fields of study are invited to participate in the poster session and reception.
To propose a poster for the session, please send a brief abstract (no more than 250 words) to Enkhbaatar Demchig at info@mongoliacenter.org before March 1, 2009. Posters will be accepted on a rolling basis. For more information visit: www.mongoliacenter.org/poster.
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is organizing a Mongolian Studies poster session to be held on Friday, March 27, 2009 at Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers (301 East North Water Street, Chicago, IL), in Chicago Ballroom VI, in conjunction with the ACMS' Annual Meeting.
Posters on any topic related to Mongolia are welcome. Poster presenters are required to appear at the meeting to discuss their work. Posters may be in either English or Mongolian language, and students and scholars from all countries and fields of study are invited to participate in the poster session and reception.
To propose a poster for the session, please send a brief abstract (no more than 250 words) to Enkhbaatar Demchig at info@mongoliacenter.org before March 1, 2009. Posters will be accepted on a rolling basis. For more information visit: www.mongoliacenter.org/poster.
Senegal: The Movie
One of the participants in the recent Council for American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) conference in Senegal put together a video montage of our time in the country. The video gives the impression that we spent most of the time dancing, which is really not too far from the truth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)