Live From Mongolia

by Patricia Sexton

  Both men and women compete in the archery events, and if any of the legends are true, Mongolian archers are some of the most superhuman shooters on the planet. From hitting targets as far off as 1,760 feet (536 meters), to hitting moving targets twice in midair, to splitting arrows in a single shot, lore has it in Mongolia that this is where the ancient bow and arrow was perfected. Made from nylon, sheep guts, bones, and fish glue, the entire contraption is enormous—and elegant. If the stencil outline of a viola could be a weapon, this would be it.

  Although the archers no longer take aim at people, they do take aim at a target the size of a golf ball up to a hundred yards off in the distance. Oddly, for a sport requiring so much upper-body dexterity, competitors dress as if it were winter, tied up tight in long-sleeved silken deels. As each archer shoots forty times wrapped in his elaborately decorative strait-jacket, judges actually sing out the results.

  But legends and popularity aside, probably the most thrilling of the three Naadam sports is horseback riding. Frankly, any sport that allows a five-year-old to compete on a national level is going to be thrilling entertainment, especially when these miniature jockeys aren’t wearing helmets. Or shoes. And there is no racetrack—just the wide-open steppe and speeds of up to fifty miles per hour. Hundreds of horses race across seventeen miles of hard riding; then, upon arrival at the finish, often drop dead from exhaustion. The lucky ones simply survive, and the luckiest horse of all is proclaimed the winner by sprinkling a cup of fermented mare’s milk airag over his head.

  Strangely, although Tem hadn’t spoken to us since the incident with the press passes, he’d provided Tobie and me with a car and driver so that we could attend and cover the horse racing event out in the countryside. The morning of the race, Tobie and I met just before dawn in TV5’s parking lot. It was cold, and we waited for an hour as we began to wonder if our driver would show at all.

  Just as the sun was cracking its yolk over the horizon, two journalists emerged from TV5’s studios. Before they slipped into their waiting SUV, we called out to them, hoping to hitch a ride. We knew they were headed to the same race, and it was getting late. Tobie and I worried we’d miss the start. Wordlessly, they ignored us and sped off.

  Finally, an old Russian Lada van rolled into the parking lot. Still half-asleep, the driver leaned over to the passenger door, grumbling about the early hour, and motioned for us to get inside.

  “Where is Naadam?” he began shouting into the empty stillness of the morning. At every stop light and every intersection he did this, shouting to anyone who was awake, and these people numbered exactly two: Tobie and me. Eventually, he found someone who showed us how to get where we were going.

  “North!” the passerby had shouted, and we were on our way. Crouching on metal benches bolted to the walls, Tobie and I hung on tightly while the driver sped deftly over dirt roads and jagged bumps, negotiating catnaps along the way. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that the ceiling was carpeted not for its aesthetic appeal, but to prevent head injuries.

  Finally, we made it. Tumbling and jostling as we crested the lip of a low hill, we saw spread out before us a carnival. Smoke from cooking fires rose out of white tents dotting the valley. A large banner that read Finish had been erected alongside a huge wooden platform and sets of bleachers packed with nomads. Parking in a field of swishing grass and meat-roasting stalls, we gathered our equipment and hurried off to where the young jockeys would soon arrive—at the finish line.

  Just as we presented our press passes to the guard, we heard it before we saw it, the unmistakable thunder of approaching hooves. Tobie set up the shot just as they emerged. Rounding a bend in the valley to our left, a black SUV led the pack, purring softly ahead, an enormous TV5 flag fluttering and flapping in the breeze from the rear tinted window it was affixed to. A camera had been hoisted from the back seat and latched onto the frame of the open window. Just behind the TV5 crew, a herd of tiny jockeys on horseback stampeded through the steppe and into the base of the valley to the finish line.

  “Quick, get ready to roll!” Tobie said, turning on the camera and panning the fields around us from our vantage point atop the media riser.

  “I’m at Mongolian Naadam!” I shouted into the mike. “Where boys as young as four ride horseback through the steppe, right to the finish!” Just as I finished, so did the jockeys. Cap askew, the first boy crossed the finish line with one hand on his horse and the other hand on his head, clasping his cap. Nomads lined the edge of the cordoned-off finish line, and all of them excitedly whooped as if it were their own son who’d won.

  Sliding off his horse, the boy adjusted his hat one more time. He looked like he was trying pretty hard to keep his emotions in check, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Pulling down the corners of his smile into cool glowering ambivalence, he couldn’t have been much more than eight years old. Later that afternoon, in front of a huge crowd and in a very traditional ceremony, he’d be proclaimed “Tumny Ekh,” or “Leader of the Ten Thousand.” He and his horse would be so revered that, as the Mongolia Expat magazine described it, his “sweat [will be] treated as liquid gold and flung about like champagne, and a life of stud awaits the lucky horse.” Lucky boy, luckier horse!

  “Come on, I’m starved,” Tobie said. “Let’s go find some khooshur!” There’s nothing quite like a platter of meat pancakes to round out a day of adventure. Drinking in the sunshine and bottles of cold orange soda, we sat at a meat-roaster’s stall. With a bird’s-eye view of the countryside, I could see a completely uninterrupted horizon, something I’ve never caught sight of anywhere else in the world.

  “You are a journalist?” an old Israeli photojournalist asked me, after introducing himself. Older, distinguished, and with a camera slung from his neck, he had that weathered look of an aged artist who has spent a lifetime on the road.

  “I guess I am,” I acknowledged, and proceeded to tell him the abridged version of how and why I’d come to Mongolia.

  “One day,” he said. “One day you will return here. Mongolia will get under your skin, and you will come back to find out how that happened.”

  And just as mysteriously as he’d shown up, the Israeli photojournalist left.

  CHAPTER 26

  Chance of a Lifetime

  The Asian Cultural Prize of Fukuoka, which has been awarded internationally since 1990, was once awarded to another Mongolian, Mrs. Norovbanzad, a famous singer. Asians awarded this prize have achieved extraordinary success in the fields of science, culture, or art. Japanese Secretary-General Yamaguchi Ishimora presided over the award ceremony, where Mr. Bira was awarded along with a Japanese and a Pakistani.

  —Voiceover, MM Today broadcast

  For the rest of the week, Tobie and I wove in and out of Naadam events. We ate a lot of mutton dishes, sampled airag and arkhi, and watched knucklebone dice competition under the eaves of hawker stalls. Even though the festival was winding down, the entire capital was still in party mode. It was like a weeklong Christmas in July; no one went to work and shops and restaurants only opened for business if they felt up to it.

  But by the time the week had ended, absolutely everyone was worn-out. The organizers seemed especially exhausted. Likewise, Naadam’s finale was so muted and understated that it seemed no one, not even the officials in charge, could take one more minute of partying. After one last interminably long wrestling session that wore on for the better part of an entire day, the prime minister finally took to a dais and bid everyone farewell. The closing ceremony was so brief, I double-checked my schedule to make sure it had actually taken place.

  Tobie and I had plenty of footage and interviews to produce a piece on Naadam, the story we’d pitched to Tem for international broadcast, but I never heard from him again, and it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. And although our office was right down the hall from his, I never even once saw him again. So, one day, I gave up on Tem and TV5 and packed up my desk to resume full-time work for Gandima at Mongolia
National Broadcaster.

  Tobie stayed on at TV5 until he left Mongolia later that summer. He even produced a music video for Bold and Quiza, featuring one of Quiza’s best songs from his chart-topping album.

  “Chinzo has food poisoning,” Gandima said to me one morning. “And you need to comb your hair.”

  “Huh?” I said, looking up from the scripts I was correcting. What did Chinzo’s food poisoning have to do with unruly hair?

  “He called in sick,” she said, a playful smile curling her lips.

  “I’m sorry to hear that?” I said, unclear what my response was supposed to be.

  “And he can’t anchor the news tonight.”

  “And?” I prodded, suddenly knowing what it was she was about to say. Of course, I’d only landed the anchor role in theory, and Gandima had made it very clear to me that I’d only ever anchor in a pinch. But with Chinzo sick and the other anchors unavailable, Gandima was finally in the pinch I’d been waiting for.

  “And,” Gandima said, obviously enjoying herself as she drew out the conclusion, “tonight you will anchor the Mongolian news.”

  “Really?” I said, so many times that she interrupted me.

  “You need to hurry. We don’t have much time before we go to air. Do you have a suit at home?”

  Did I? Did I ever! Freshly pressed and hanging in the closet was my “Cry Clean Only” suit, waiting for just such an opportunity. Racing home, I collected the suit, a comb, and makeup and raced right back to the station to put myself together.

  “You look old,” Gandima said, surveying me after I’d finished. “But it’ll have to do. This time, anyway.”

  Had she said “this time”?

  Gandima led me downstairs to the same studio where I’d auditioned, and I recited my lines from a sheet of paper. As usual, there were a lot of land mines embedded in the script, endless combinations of consonants in words like “Gobi Gurvan Saikhan” and “Nambarin Enkhbayar.”

  “You know,” Gandima said as she grabbed my elbow. “Mongolia National TV has never allowed anyone to take over the anchor chair so quickly. Not a foreigner, and certainly not a woman.” She smiled at me conspiratorially but emphatically and led me into the studio.

  Enkhtuya, Gandima’s boss was there waiting. Beside her, in a row, stood most of the station’s production staff. I only recognized a few of the editors; the rest of the faces were new. Clearly, I had an audience.

  “Sain bain uu,” I said, nodding at them. “Hello.”

  No one spoke; the studio was completely silent. I was so nervous I felt as if I were standing on gelatinous, boneless legs.

  One by one, the spotlights flickered on and blazed, and I was shown to my seat in the anchor’s chair. Affixing a mike to the lapel of my jacket and smoothing my hair, Gandima whispered in my ear. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

  Steeling myself, I sat ramrod straight and glued my hands to the desk in front of me to keep them from shaking.

  The leathery old cameraman, the one I’d apologized to just a few weeks earlier, tinkered with his equipment. While he adjusted the angle of the lens and the height of the tripod, I reminded myself of some very good advice a friend had given me many years ago.

  “The body’s reaction to fear is the same as its reaction to excitement,” my friend had said, and I’d never forgotten it. There was no doubt that I was feeling fear: fear that I’d make an idiot of myself in front of millions of people, fear that I’d disappoint Gandima and Enkhtuya—again.

  But I was also feeling more excited and alive than I’d ever felt in my life. After all, this was the opportunity, at least so far, of my lifetime. And it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t left behind what I thought I was supposed to be doing with my life.

  Suddenly, and without any adieu at all, someone called out the Mongolian equivalent of “Action!” and I welcomed viewers to the evening news.

  “Good evening. I’m Patricia Sexton for the MM Today English News Broadcast of the Mongolia National Public Broadcaster,” I began, reading from the teleprompter, and then opened with our top story. “The emblematic torch of world peace is currently in Mongolia. After traveling nearly six-hundred-kilometers from Bayandchandmani soum in Tov Province, the torch has arrived in Ulaanbaatar.”

  While I paused to catch my breath before introducing the second story, I stole a glance at Gandima, and she nodded, urging me to go on.

  “A local art gallery will present an exhibition centered around ancient household items and personal effects. In honor of the eight-hundredth anniversary of the Great Mongol State, the Mongolian Life Exhibition will display artifacts from as early as the seventh century BC as well as more recent pieces from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

  I went on, continuing with a story about yaks in Bayankhongor aimag. And then, licking my lips, I sneaked a swallow. I was about to need it.

  “A five-meter statue of Demul will be erected in Manlai soum of Omnogov aimag, … ” I read, careful to enunciate each and every last consonant. “The sculptor of this statue hopes to immortalize the legend of the famous wrestler as well as inspire young wrestling athletes.”

  And, then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

  “For MM Today, I’m Patricia Sexton. We’ll be back on Friday. Thanks for watching,” I said. The cameraman sliced at the air, gesturing that we’d finished. Gandima clapped, and then the producers, editors, and even Enkhtuya followed suit.

  “Good job, Patricia,” Gandima said as she removed my mike. “Very good.”

  I was elated. And not just because I’d managed to tiptoe around all those missing vowels. I was elated because I was actually and finally here, because it had taken me so long to believe that a risk was worth taking, and now I knew for sure—the risk was worth taking.

  That evening, as the sun sank behind the monolithic apartment blocks, I walked home. On the way, I bought a sack of peaches from a street vendor. A pearl moon illuminated the twinkling, cloudless twilight. Together, Meg and I tucked onto the couch in Batma’s living room and watched the broadcast. And there it was, right on the screen in bold typeface: “Patricia Sexton, Anchor.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Mongolian Heimlich

  We’ll be back on Friday. Thanks and good night.

  —MM Today Broadcast

  “Pa-tricia!” Batma called out as she opened the apartment door. Judging by her empty satchels, she’d returned from the countryside to restock. “You are hut-lugch!” she said with a big smile.

  “Hut-lugch?” I asked, rummaging through my Mongolian-English dictionary for a translation.

  Placing her hands out in front of her chest, as if they were resting on a flat surface, she bobbed her head and moved her mouth silently.

  “Oh! Is hut-lugch ‘anchor’?” I asked.

  “Teem!” she said, “Yes!” her familiar smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Nervous,” she added, miming my rigid hands pasted to the anchor desk. Bobbing her head, just as I’d done, Batma began to laugh hysterically.

  “Good!” she proclaimed—finally—and walked off still giggling.

  It was our thirtieth consecutive day without hot water. And I was definitely counting. Often, and in most places, the absence of hot water means the presence of lukewarm water. Not so in Mongolia, where streams of recently melted ice run in the country’s streams and from their taps.

  “Batma, is the hot water coming back now?” we’d always ask, on the few occasions when we’d run into her during one of her trips into the capital from the family’s summer home at Yellow Horse in the countryside.

  “Not today,” she’d say with nearly limitless patience, until that day when her patience wore a little thin. “Not until the summer is over,” she said with finality, and we never asked again.

  “Want to go to the theater?” Meg asked later that afternoon. It was a great idea, the perfect way to spend a lazy summer evening. But there was just one problem—we’d have to bathe. This was a prospect neither of
us relished. Meg and I drew straws and I lost, so I went first.

  Marveling once again just how cold “cold” could be, I knelt on all fours in the family’s bathtub. Clenching my teeth, I reversed backward into the faucet. With a lathered hand already prepared, I quickly soaped and rinsed. Taking a deep breath and holding it, I turned forward and squatted upright in front of the thin stream of frigid water. Lathering once more, I washed my armpits, rinsing my hands first and then using those corpse-cold and bluish hands to wipe away the soap, rather than wash it away. Standing, to avoid at all costs any excess water dribbling down my chest, I bent quickly to scrub my face. Over the last thirty days, this was a technique I’d perfected, and I’d made sure to clean only the most important parts. For logistical reasons of goose bumps and ice cream headaches, shaving and showering were simply out of the question—even if Meg and I were going to spend an evening at the theater.

  Theater began here in Mongolia back in 1922, a year after the Communist revolution. An ambitious youth league began to put on European-style plays, a combination of local folklore with a Soviet bent. Although their productions were amateur, they grew in popularity. A decade later, the group went pro and set up a drama company as well as an opera and ballet company. They did so with the help of the Russians, which surprised me to no end, until I read that the drama company had started out staging revolutionary plays, one of which Meg and I were about to see.

  On our way downtown, I insisted, somewhat regrettably, that we get a bite to eat beforehand. Sitting at an outdoor picnic table in the sun at a German restaurant, I ordered cold tea and a platter of coleslaw.

  “You know,” Meg said after I’d ordered. “I think the platter of slaw is for an entire table; I don’t think it’s an individual portion.”