November 2006
Once again, yk has brought me somewhere I would never, in my wildest dreams have expected to visit – Inner Mongolia.
We are traveling with a group of Korean businesswomen who are interested in buying a building and setting up several retail businesses, including an English academy. That’s where we come in.
We flew out of Beijing on Wednesday night (11/21) arriving at the brand new airport (opened in August) in Hohhot at about 11PM. We were met by a bus, the local district manager and a bilingual (Korean, Chinese) guide. The government guy gave us an introduction to the city as we rode to our hotel.
Hohhot and environs comprise 2.5 million people and is growing rapidly. In fact, we were told it’s the fastest growing region in China which could well make it the fastest growing region in the world.
We are staying in a 1000 room (that’s right, 1000 room) luxury hotel that is as fine as any hotel I’ve stayed in in the U.S. and better than most. It’s the only hotel I’ve ever been in which features a “pillow menu.” The only reminders that we’re not in a luxury hotel in the U.S. is the admonition not to drink the tap water and the ubiquity of matches and ashtrays.
Wednesday we were shown around the city by our guide and numerous local officials in full sales mode, concentrating on marketing area and areas in development. Late afternoon we met with several government officials, including the chairman of the local communist party, for two hours. They offered to negotiate with owners for us.
The chairman then hosted a traditional Mongolian dinner for the group. If this guy were an American, he’d be a Republican. He explained that the job of government is to support the business person.
The dinner featured an interesting drinking ritual. A young woman and young man in traditional Mongolian dress entered the room. While the man played a stringed instrument, the woman sang and approached someone at the table and presented him or her with a tea cup full of strong Mongolian whiskey. Being the only westerner, I was one of the first approached. Yk had told me that I had to down it all at once, so, of course, I did. The young lady, still singing, had the cup refilled and gave it back to me, so I had to down another. I was subsequently told that if you empty the cup before she finishes the song you must drink another.
At the end of the song, she would drape a white silk scarf around the neck of the drinker.
I subsequently learned, after watching some local people, that there was more to the ritual.
Apparently one should dip one’s finger in the drink, then toss three drops over the right shoulder, then anoint the forehead. Then you finish the drink and turn the cup upside down over your head, presumably to demonstrate that it is empty.
On Friday we drove about two and a half hours to Baotou City, an older city in a region of heavy industry. Hotel and meal were decidedly less spectacular than in Hohhot.
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous ethnic region of China, similar to Yanbian. As such, signs must be bilingual with the ethnic language first. I don’t recall ever seeing Mongolian script before this road trip. The characters appear to be vertical bars with various curlicues coming out of them. We were told that virtually no one reads or speaks Mongolian.
We took the long way back on Saturday, stopping at the Genghis Khan mausoleum. Oddly enough, it does not contain his remains, the location of his grave is unknown, but some of his clothes and weapons were found here and the site is considered to contain his spirit. There were about ten older men bowing and singing at the shrine inside. I was told that they were the 39th generation of Genghis Khan’s first general and were praying for a family member, a recent suicide.
Stopped in another booming city, Erdos City, for lunch, then returned to Hohhot for dinner, at which yk and I met with the dean of a local university and his English interpreter. He is interested in our program and invited us to visit him at the university on our next visit to Mongolia. We’ll see what happens.
We flew back to Beijing on Sunday morning. That morning, in the hotel, I saw the first, and only, western face I saw during the 4 days in Inner Mongolia.
Small Wide World 