Mongolian customs

Here are a few Mongolian customs we have studied in the past couple days at language school. This is my rough translation for Mongolian, so there are bound to be some errors, but I think I’m generally pretty close.

1. The best food and drink is given to the head of the house. If the head of the house is gone, his plate is traditionally filled with the best food.
2. If you are offered tea or snacks and don’t want to eat them, don’t say so. You begin by tasting some of the cream from the white foods plate.
3. Don’t leave dregs in your cup; drink everything.
4. Don’t eat with one chopstick.
5. Before you go out, sit and eat your tea and food.
6. Don’t give a knife, fork or other sharp object with the pointed part facing out.
7. Don’t put water on top of milk. You can put milk on top of water.
8. Don’t throw things from the whetstone. Give things with the right hand.
9. Put meat, fat, oil, cream, and butter in the fire. Don’t put milk, water or soup. Old people say these will blind the fire’s eye. Don’t put bad things in the fire.
10. Men don’t dump the dirty water or trash.
11. When you enter a house, the lady of the house should fling the best tea upwards.
12. Don’t enter a ger with a gun, whip or shovel. Put them on top of the ger.
13. When you enter a ger, step with your right foot first. Sit where the head of the house tells you to sit. Stand up when older people enter the ger.
14. The older person should enter the ger first. The younger person should sit to the lower side of them. In western Mongolia, the people entering the ger traditionally bow to each of the people in the ger.
15. Listen to people first; don’t interrupt.
16. Don’t put your hands behind your back in the ger.
17. Don’t grab or lean on the support poles in a ger.
18. Don’t sing or cry in your bed. If you’re happy, don’t sing in your bed. If you’re sad, don’t cry in your bed.
19. Don’t point at people with one finger; use your right hand palm up to point.
20. Don’t kiss babies too much. Kiss babies on top of the foot. Don’t praise babies as “beautiful,” “smart” or “nice.” If you praise them, they will have a “white tongue and mouth.” When children play outside at night, put soot on their nose. When children don’t say “thank you,” say “Grow up.”
21. Don’t walk in front of a pregnant person. You need to respect her child.
22. When you are going on a trip, if you meet a wolf, it’s a good omen. If you meet a fox, it’s a bad omen. You need to go back and start again.
23. When you go to the countryside, if you encounter an ovoo, place 3 rocks and walk around it clockwise three times. While you are walking, say “The ovoo becomes big, and I become lucky. The ovoo becomes tall, and I become lucky.”
24. Don’t let your shadow fall on a bird’s egg.
25. When you give a gift to someone, say, “We’ll hold one thing for you.” Say, “Let’s hold one small gift. Give cups, shoes, pants, etc., because something that has an opening to the top is a good omen.
26. When you step on someone’s foot, say “Please forgive me” and take their hand.
27. Mongolians say that 7 is an unlucky number; 9 is a lucky number.
28. Don’t block the door. Don’t step on the threshold.
29. When people go to a far place, kiss them on the right cheek. Stroke them gently on the left cheek and say, “When you come back, I’ll kiss you.”
30. In the daytime, walk behind teachers and older people. Don’t go ahead of them or walk beside them. At night, you must walk in front of them.

New teacher and blessings

On Monday, we started a new term at our language school, so schedules and teachers got moved around a little bit. I was somewhat nervous about what the new arrangements would be. Last term, I had two main teachers–Aijan and Uranchimeg. Aijan is a Kazakh believer who speaks English relatively well. This is a great help when I get stuck on some new grammar or trying to figure out some unfamiliar word. Uranchimeg is the owner of the school. She also speaks English well, although she usually waits longer to let me puzzle things out in Mongolian. Because Uranchimeg has other responsibilities at the school, I often had substitute teachers during last term. I knew, then, that it was unlikely that I would have her as a regular teacher during this trimester.

When the new schedule came out, I still had Aijan for five lessons a week, for which I was very thankful. My new teacher was Tonga, who I believe had been away from the school for a month or three. She is an older teacher, also a believer and she speaks English quite well. She teaches me four times a week. That leaves one lesson in limbo. As far as I can tell, that means I will always have a substitute teacher for my first class on Thursdays.

This morning, I had my first experience with this. I can’t remember the name of my teacher, but she spoke hardly any English and never showed much recognition to anything I said in English. I assumed then that she would review old grammar, run me through a few review exercises or maybe just give me a test. But, no… Her assignment for the day was to teach me blessings (ёрөөл бэлгийн үг) for various occasions, such as what to say when someone is playing chess or shearing sheep or boiling water or reading a book. Because she spoke no English and I speak little Mongolian, this presented a huge challenge. Here are a few guesses of what some of those blessings are.

When someone is milking an animal, say “full container.”
When someone is churning the fermented mare’s milk, say “oil ride high.”
When someone is shearing sheep, say “sharp scissors shear sheep very well” (surprisingly, that’s not a tongue twister in Mongolian).
When your children give you something, hold it high and say “Grow as tall as this.” Okay, that was a total guess based on my teacher’s pantomime.
When someone is sewing, say, “Every action.” What?!?
When someone sneezes, say, “God grace/favor/mercy.” Hmm, sounds familiar.