An American in Mongolia: Part VIII

On Alcoholism

He who drinks, dies; he who does not drink, dies as well. -Mongol Proverb

*****

Drunks! Yes, alcoholism is absolutely rampant in Mongolia and compounds all of the other problems of the developing economy and political and social transition. Of course there is the presence of the melancholy, drunken condition in all countries and societies, but it is especially common in poor ones. In poor countries or societies where appealing options in terms of labor and daily commitment are few and resources and education as well as help for alcoholism are more meager still, while the drink selection is broad, alcoholism (and other drug abuses) abound. Beyond this obvious point, there are several explanations for the extreme problem of drunkenness in contemporary Mongolia that have been offered to me. One is a genetic predisposition identical to that of the American Navajo, which is to become drunk very easily and not experience very bad hangovers. The BBC News proposes instead that “Mongolia’s appalling level of alcoholism is, quite literally, a Soviet hangover.”12 Another justification is the climate, which in the case of Mongolia is of the bitterly cold, extreme continental variety, and liquor warms the body in the often long hours spent outdoors and wiles away the dark hours indoors. Furthermore, other drug use within the country, if it exists (which it must to a small degree, but penalties are enormous) is virtually un-documented, leaving vodka: the old standby inebriant in which to drown woes.

I inevitably and unwillingly had my eyes opened to the hellish condition of a great deal of the Mongolian population when I realized how rampant drunk driving is there (especially apparent in Ulaanbaatar), and how it was a reality that I needed to be aware of on a daily basis to stay alive while walking to school. This awareness was informed by the appearance of daily roadside casualties of drunk or reckless or uncaring drivers, such as puppies, street kids (who lived huddled in alleys or in the sewers to keep warm in the winter), older women carrying buckets of water or milk to or from the ger district13, and everyone in between. This reckless driving even played out on film. I went to see a movie on my 21st birthday with my host brother that could roughly be translated as “Hello my life!” (Sain uu mini amderdag) in which one of the strands of the story line is a young man dealing with the near loss of his mother’s life to a drunk driver at an intersection (near the Military Palace) that I had to walk through everyday to get to school. Perhaps more tellingly, one afternoon my roommate came home hysterical because, while she was walking home, a reckless driver killed a young pedestrian right in front of her; her head smashed into a windshield a block away from our hostel.

My next awakening to the crisis of alcoholism arose when I was informed of the melodrama that had been unfolding in the weeks before my arrival in Ulaanbaatar. A two-week ban on retail vodka sales had been placed after the Mongolian government forced a recall, because distributors were carrying methanol-tainted batches from zero-regulation factories. The ban resulted in an extreme (ridiculously extreme) decrease in crime rates for two weeks, approximately 90% of crime and hospitalizations were eliminated for those two weeks, despite the fact that around 15 had already died from consuming the liquor and over 100 were hospitalized immediately, initially leading to the ban. Notably, the recall resulted in a protest in which hundreds of small vendors filed a lawsuit against the national government for profits lost in vodka sales for those two weeks.14

Finally, I had an experience that made me even more wary of drunks in late April of 2008 I went to Bayan Uul, Dornod province along with my translator and my traveling partner. We took the trip to interview shaman and observe a yearly ritual called chanar in which new shaman are initiated and already practicing shaman gain more power as a result of having their ancestral spirit repeatedly possess them over a period of three days. Before heading to the countryside, and the grounds where this ritual would take place, I was staying with a Buriyat family of primary school teachers (the father was also the local governor) with their two charming children, who were three years old and six, respectively. We had just arrived, and Buriyat tradition called for us, the guests, to present the family with two bottles of vodka that we would drink later that evening over dinner, which we would be cooking in gratitude of the family’s hospitality. Therefore, we went to the local grocery store to pick up the fixings for dinner and the bottles of vodka. We procured some wilted, harried looking vegetables, milk, juice, chocolate, vodka and eggs, and because the selection at the shop was limited, and Buriyat frontier-style homes of logs typically have a big clay oven that heats the entire home throughout the winter despite its lack of insulation, we thought we’d make a frittata.

I was charged with carrying the carton of eggs and the sweet little three-year-old boy, and my two companions were loaded up with the remaining groceries, the little girl running ahead excitedly. Shortly after we emerged from the shop the wind started to pick-up and the toddler in my arms started crying as sand blew into his eyes (Oh shit, this is a seriously violent dust storm!) I was running as fast as I could with this screaming little boy in one arm, and a carton of eggs in the other, my hood was up and I had my eyes closed, just making a mad dash towards the gate of their home, which was about 100 yards away when I felt myself yanked backwards. This sensation was accompanied by the acute feeling that someone was digging their fingernails into my arm (this was through my thick Carhartt padded sweatshirt and three or four other layers as well as wool long-johns, mind you.) I turned around, and behind me there was a man yelling at me, his nails still digging into my arm. This man was the same one we saw earlier that morning wearing a dirty green del hanging around the police station while we were letting the authorities know we were in town (we were right on the border of Siberia, and we didn’t want the border patrol to think we were going to try to flee into Russia.)

I knew his kind well already, Mr. dirty green del. Ulaanbaatar and the countryside were teeming with men in dirty green or navy blue velvet dels who had given up on herding or searching for some scarce short-term work in favor of vagrancy and would drink all day along with others in dirty dels occasionally harassing people who looked worth harassing (in this case, me, a foreign female who spoke only enough Khalkh Mongolian to get myself into trouble for being friendly.) This man in the dirty green del had been drunk in the morning, and curious about my nose ring. I was cordial with him but didn’t linger or oblige his request to see me take my nose ring out of my nose (it’s kind of a hassle, and I had been advised not to dilly-dally as we were in a rush.)

He was digging his fingernails into my arm, seemingly unaware of the fact that we were standing in the middle of a violent dust storm. He didn’t seem to notice that I had a carton of eggs in the hand of the arm he wasn’t releasing. He didn’t care that there was a screaming babe in the other hand who was upset at the whole absurd situation. He was intoxicated and all that he could do was chase after me and grab me, only to slurrily request once again that I “show my nose ring.”