While I was shivering and turning blue watching the horses in Khentii, the Mongolians smiled and said that weather was just a preview for what’s to come in January. Yikes! You may be interested to know that over generations, people can develop genetic differences to tolerate the areas where they live. Mongolians have adapted the biologic mechanisms necessary to thrive in this unforgiving climate. They also tend to have a different taste palate. I watch people scarf down foods like aarul and hoshuur that make me grimace after a single bite!
Another difference is that coming from the United States, I am used to a certain level of organization: things happening at the scheduled time and receiving information well in advance. In Ulaanbaatar, people are far more spontaneous with timing. Meetings get moved around or canceled. Plans change more regularly that I expect. While this was frustrating at first, I realize it is just the norm here, and I can use this aspect of the culture to become more flexible and easygoing myself. This is something I think about often: how can I take something that seems at odds with or unfamiliar to me, and use it to improve some part of myself?
But the best part of coming abroad is recognizing that these differences – from the weather and food to schedules – are truly just surface-level differences. For the most part, people live their lives with the same emotions you and I. When I go out to the steppe and see people in traditional deels herding horses around their gers, at first I think, “Wow!
