Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

After breakfast we left for our grassland tour. We drove through the mountains and up to the flat grasslands plateau north of Hohhot. Brenda explained that it was pretty much impossible to see authentic Mongolian pastoral culture because real herders move around and they are so deep in the grasslands that they are inaccessible to folks just making a day trip. So instead we made for a type of cultural reservation where people present Mongolian life in a permanent, bus-trip friendly way. We had our own car and guide, though.

The Mongolians of Inner Mongolia seem to parallel the Native Americans' lot, at least from their own point of view. They led an animistic, nature-loving nomadic lifestyle until the Han, the dominant Chinese ethnic group, began moving into the area of Inner Mongolia in the early 1900s. These Han brought knowledge of farming that the Mongols did not have, but they also brought a greed for the land, and quickly burnt out the land with overgrazing. Now former yurt-living nomads are paid by the government NOT to herd sheep, since large herds contributed to desertification of the grasslands.  So they get to live on their land, but they can't use it like they used to. I'm not sure what the Han story of this economic/environmental conflict is.

We enjoyed  a light meal on the raised bed of one permanent Mongol dwelling, sort of a restaurant. The bed is like a three foot high counter covered in oriental rugs, and it is hollow so that they can make a coal fire beneath it during the brutal Mongolian winters that pretty much trap folks indoors for months. They gave us salty milk tea in little bowls (which we sort of liked if we added lots of sugar, but only once it cooled off a bit and you got down to the bottom where all the sugar was). We tried the raw millet in our tea too--the vegetable-less Mongols' one source of easy fiber. I even put the rock-hard cheese in the tea to soften. It was like an extremely hard cheddar after 30 minutes of soaking. Ruby loved the shortbread-esqe biscuits and gobbled them up one after the other. She slurped up the salt tea too. The girls eats anything. Maybe I'll give her a chicken foot tomorrow at breakfast!

We walked around their compound afterward. They had some permanent yurts on concrete slabs for their customers to enjoy tea in, but none was the mobile, teepee-like yurt that herders traditionally use. Some chickens pecked a the dirt, and we saw a sheepfold with the owner's twenty sheep. Then the butcher arrived, threw a live sheep out of his pickup truck's bed, and began slaughtering it right in front of us (and the other sheep!). He was just making a delivery and we happened to be there to see it.   I wasn't ready for this level of authenticity! I walked Ruby away. Jasper watched as the butcher pulled out the heart of the sheep first, then finished it off. I could appreciate the precision of his butchering, once it was dead. The man barely bloodied his hands during the whole process, which was fortunate, since he answered his cell phone in the middle of the job!

We drove past a sunflower field stretching to the horizon. The sunflower butter I put on my toast every morning may have come from that field. Beekeepers with dozens of hives dotted the roadside too.

Ruby handled the long car ride very well, though she did get antsy. No car seat to hold her in, mind. She got very still and nervous when, after an especially painful bump into my stomach, I suggested Daddy hold her. This seems like an ironic threat, and we wonder if we will ever use it to calm her down--"sit down or Daddy will hold you!"  She did make some progress with Jasper after he fed her lunch bite by bite while I held her. She doesn't mind touching him a little bit to play, but she has to warm up to get even to that stage. We think it might take seeing how much fun her big sisters have with their daddy before she'll really attach to him. His patience is amazing (but I was well aware of that long before this).


Some advice we've received about raising a child born in China: don't hire a Taiwanese tutor, because she will teach the child to resent her birth-country; don't feed female children (or grown up women) ice-cream or anything cold, because it accentuates menstrual cramps; don't feed children in an outdoors breeze, even if it is a balmy, gorgeous, 75 degree day. I'm just passing that on.

And here's a medical question: Ruby briefly broke out in hives just around her mouth after our trip. The inquisitive lady selling chicken on a stick told us it was because of the heat and humidity (once again, balmy, 75 degrees, and no humidity here to my senses). I think it might have been the thick, strawberry-yogurt drink she chugged down in the car and got all over her face.  Would that be possible? a mild strawberry skin allergy? The rash is gone already.

I'd just like to add a brief mention of thanks to our family and friends who are so supportive. I feel blessed and loved even though we are so far away from home.