Tsagaan Sar Highlights:
Here are some of the highlights from the past few days celebrating Tsagaan Sar.
— On Bituun, the Eve of Tsagaan Sar, according to our students a special (read huge) family meal of buuz (meat packets) and meat is prepared to celebrate the coming new year. You should note that buuz and meat are pretty much the staple around here and there’s nothing special about preparing buuz and meat, it’s simply an excuse to be able to eat more of it. =)
— When you visit someone’s house for Tsagaan Sar they’ll insist you eat a huge pile of buuz and potato salad. This is washed down by endless cups of salty tea, fermented horses milk, squeezed berry juice, and vodka.
— When we celebrated our teacher’s birthday last week (pre-Tsagaan Sar) he had purchased a bottle of french wine because he knew we were coming. Having never really purchased wine before he did not have a cork remover. He proceeded to take a chopstick and somehow force the cork DOWN into the bottle and then serve everyone.
— Tsagaan Sar food (actually most Mongolian food) has very strong odors. After a day of traditional foods all your clothes and skin are permiated with these smells. It’s like going to a smoking bar but you come out smelling like roast mutton instead of cigarettes.
— The singing. We visited our friends pretty early in the day but the later you go into the day the more people will have gone house to house and filled themselves on meat, fermented horse milk and vodka. This tends to bring the songs out, there’s a nice song going on upstairs right now by a crowd of men and woman who are (hopefully) reaching the end of their daily festivities.
— Our teacher’s deel. The outfit you see in the photo above is what you will see pretty much everyone wearing for the next three days. We have the benefit of having an older teacher, so he’s been in the army and is expected to show off all his medals during Tsagaan Sar as well.
Great holiday! Happy New Year everyone! Shiine jieliin bayariin mend hurgai!
