Sally and I have now been working at our new jobs for over a
month. Last Thursday, October 1st, was teacher’s day in Mongolia. It
is during this day that teachers switch places with their best students and
enjoy a holiday from teaching. Usually gifts are exchanged between the chosen
student and the teacher. Later at the end of the day the 12th grade
students put on a sort of party/dance for the teachers and entertain them with
music and games.
Teacher’s day has been a climatic event that seems to have
been building in anticipation for a month. Sally and I have witnessed multiple
competitions between teachers of various schools throughout September.
Volleyball, chess, and singing were a few of the ways that teachers could
compete with each other to determine who was the best school, or rather the
best teachers… If I was to offer one complaint about the festivities, it would
be the lack of activities for the children. The focus of all of the fun was
toward the teachers who have only just started their school year.
My teacher’s day started like any other, but upon arriving
to work I realized that the teachers had already attended their morning lessons
and were free from school for a couple of hours. So I joined my foreign
language teachers in a nice lunch at a local restaurant. It is amazing to think
that the students did such a good job of maintaining discipline and respecting
the event that the teachers were essentially granted a holiday. I found myself
marveling many times that this might not work in America.
In the afternoon, I went with Sally to her school event
where current teachers were putting on a performance for older retired
teachers. Sally had been asked to play a song in the performance, and she asked
me to join her. We arrived on time, and true to Mongolian Standard time we
waited for an hour or so before the event started. Our performance was a
ukulele/tin whistle rendition of a classic Mongolian song. I experienced slight
performance anxiety and slaughtered the tempo, but Sally was able to
masterfully keep us together. The Mongolians loved it.
A word on the Mongolian clap, which is not an STD.
Mongolians have a tendency to clap together at the end of a performance at
about 90 beats per minute. This is unnerving to an American. To an American
performer it feels like one large silhouetted person is clapping slowly and
ominously at the end of a dark room. To an American audience member you find
yourself wanting to show enthusiastic appreciation, but forced to slow down to
this monotonous clap, clap, clap…
Later in the evening,
I attended the student led dance and games. It was entertaining to see the
students have the teachers do a number of games and activities all in good
humor. Students and teachers competing for whose group are the best dancers.
Naturally both groups thought they won.
Friday marked another day of festivities for me as a social
worker. My counterpart instructed me be in the town square at 9:30 a.m. I
failed to accommodate for Mongolian Standard time, so found myself waiting in
the cold for an hour and a half before the event started. My CP had (through my English/Mongolian Dictionary)
explained to me that this was to be a children’s demonstration. I was expecting
a performance. There were some speeches, and a few children’s performances.
Teachers, myself included, received a red neckerchief for our service. I walked
with a number of my school students in front of the stage and then out of the
square and down the street. If you have never found yourself in a parade in a
foreign country, let me assure you it leads to a lot of self-reflection on the
art of miscommunication which I seem to have mastered.
The parade completed a two mile circuit, and I found myself
at the town theater with my social worker CP. We took seats, and it was there
that I gathered that the celebration was for 90 years of government children’s
programs. Two hours were spent at the theater listing to speeches that lacked
enthusiasm or infliction. The result is
that a significant portion of the audience fell into peaceful slumber. After
the speeches came the award section of the show where a significant percent of
the audience received medals, plaques, or ribbons to a pleasant march by John
Philips Sosa. This section of the event lasted about an hour and a half and led
directly into children’s performances. I found myself watching a multitude of
performances that the local children had put together for their teachers and
government workers. The acts were very entertaining ranging from singing, to
Mongolian string orchestras, to dancing. (Unfortunately
I didn’t have our camera with me at this time.)
Two hours later I left the theater at the end of the
afternoon marveling at how a demonstration had become a performance, a parade,
speeches, award ceremony, and musical performance. The most ironic part was
that I did not see any of it coming…
The third day of festivities found Sally and I back at the
theater at 11 o’clock for a teachers meeting. From my experience the day before,
we had a good idea of what this “meeting” was going to be like. All the
teachers went to the theater where we received shorter speeches, longer award
ceremonies (so many medals and plaques…),
and performances put on by the teachers. (Hoping
for the children again, I did bring a camera.) It seems like there is a lot
of prestige for being a teacher here. The event at the theater lasted until 4
in the afternoon at which point we emerged into the light with stiff legs and
sore buttocks.
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| Picture of traditional Mongolian Dance |
After the “meeting,” all of the schools had teachers’
parties at various restaurants around the city. Sally and I were planning on
not attending our separate parties because the cost per person was more than we
could afford with winter clothing still needing to be purchased. However, it
worked out that we were able to go at cheaper rates. We attended our parties
for a several hours enjoying good food, dancing, singing, and lots of vodka. At
one point I even played my tin whistle for all of my teachers spinning them a
traditional Irish jig. Sally and I are becoming experts at moderating our
drinking while maintaining the illusion that we are drinking as much as
everyone else. The result of this careful moderation is a nice sober walk home
while the night is young. (To everyone who
travels or plans to travel, I cannot express the importance of maintain some
sobriety while walking distances in the dark in a foreign countries. In
Mongolia a majority of crimes against foreigners are done against people who
are inebriated.)
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| Some teachers from my school singing |
After the conclusion of three long days, we find ourselves
at the other side of the much anticipated Teacher’s Day. Now the celebrations
here will be tuned down until the New Year, which will no doubt be a party.
~Caleb
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