A Study in Frustration
I can't describe how galling it is to read this item from Xinhuanet. It would hardly be more ironic if France became the leading center of British studies.
HOHHOT, Aug. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- China is the leading center of Mongolian studies in the world, according to experts convened at the International Symposium on Mongolian Studies, which closed in the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Sunday.One anticipates the day when Mongolia becomes heralded as the academic center of its own heritage. Perhaps I'm giving too much credit to this report, but I don't think it's that far off base. Regardless, I wonder how scholars who are Mongolian would weigh in on this. Baabar, are you reading this?
More than 330 scholars of the Mongolian studies from 13 countries and regions attended the three-day academic meeting, which collected 240 thesis papers covering linguistics, translation, culture studies of the language as well as the latesttrend of economic, military and archeological development in the Mongolia-speaking regions.
Professor J. A. Janhunen of Helsinki University said China is in a very important position to offer materials for Mongolian Studies.
Janhunen witnessed that Chinese scholars in the sector have hadincreasing contacts with their foreign counterparts in recent years. "Many scholars from China's Inner Mongolia University studyin Germany, Britain, France and also in Finland. I had two doctoral students from the university in my institution in Helsinki."
The Finnish professor, who first visited the Inner Mongolia Region in 1986, said that the international meeting held in Hohhotwas better organized and larger than most previous ones, which showed that the Mongolian studies had received more attention fromthe Chinese government and also the regional government of Inner Mongolia.
posted by nabetz at 9/14/2005 11:21:00 PM
9 Comments:
C'mon, even the Secret History was discovered in Chinese archives. And it's not like there are no Mongolians in China either - most of them would even have better access to old Mongol scripts than Outer Mongolians.
As far as I can tell it's very much true. While Mongolian history, literature and culture are studied and researched in Mongolia, the amount of research and number of students/scholars are incomparable to the numbers in Inner-Mongolia/ China.
As galling it may be, Inner-Mongolia/ China holds much of Mongolian history, has large numbers of students and scholars, and are working harder at researching and teaching Mongolian Studies. Mongolia can only hope to catch up but it's like the Fiji Islands trying to catch up with the USA: nigh impossible.
This is not to say that much good and solid research is done in Mongolia. And people there are working hard at researching and teaching their own history, literature and culture.
One person trying his utmost is the poet G Mend-Ooyo. He's actively promoting Mongolian poetry, literature and culture in the USA now and organising the 26th World Congress of Poets, 2006. In combination with the new Gunu magazine and the celebrations next year, this is one event that should boast the standing of Mongolian culture, poetry and literature.
RML
Shards of Mongolia
Yan, Recall I didn't say that it wasn't true. I just said that I wished it wasn't true.
RML, thanks for the comments. I'll link to your blog soon, when I get a chance.
IhMongol, as always, we appreciate your comments. Very insightful, and clearly coming from someone who loves his country and has more than a mere curiosity. We'd love to have more Mongolian commentators like you join the conversation at this blog--that's why we created it in the first place, to have an English-language outlet for the Rest of the World to know what's going on in Mongolia and what Mongolians are thinking. Tell your friends.
I'm inclined to agree with Ih Mongol, while also recognizing that Khokh-Khot in Inner Mongolia is doing a great deal of work and is certainly one of the top-tier cities for Mongol research. I've lived in Mongolia, (even married a Mongolian) and have done some research on the history and traditions.
While there are certainly a great number of Mongols living in Inner Mongolia (5 million identify as at least 1/2 Mongolian, isn't it?), many of the schools there have been dropping Mongolian language from their curriculums in favor of Manadarin Chinese. Children there are more and more being encouraged to conform to Chinese culture and values, and the more that China is writing the "authoritarian" and "groundbreaking" scholarly articles on Mongolian culture and history, the less likely it will be that future generations in Chinese Inner Mongolia will have a sympathetic view of their "barbarian" cousins to the North. (They still use that term at the Great Wall, by the way...)
Even Mongolian bands, such as HURD, that have been viewed as too "irridentist" have been denied permission to perform.
An excellent example of this dynamic was the recent TV series based on the life of Chinggis Khan made in Inner Mongolia. It had to be dubbed into Mongolian for the Mongolian public, from the Mandarin Chinese in which it was originally produced. Again, I don't deny that excellent research is being conducted in Inner Mongolia, but it seems to me to be straying closer and closer to distcinctly Chinese perspectives.
The big problem it seems is that the unviersities in Mongolia are not as well equipped as those elsewhere, in places like Bloomington, Indiana -- another source of Mongolia-related scholarship, by the way. And Mongolians don't have as much of a scholarly tradition as the Chinese. And the bottom line: Mongolia is a poorer country.
The element of this discussion, however, that I think Ih Mongol is stressing, and that ought not be down-played too much, is that China has demonstrated a tendency to Sinicize certain "foreign" elements of the history of the region as they relate to China. I read one book that went so far as to state that Chinggis Khan was from Inner Mongolia!
I suppose cultivating relationships with foreign universities with less of a vested interest in the area (than those in China) might be the only way Mongolia can become a leader in Mongolian Studies.
I dont get this selection at all! it is hard for me.. but like i need to know a trajic historical event that happend in Mongolia. Thanks alot!
i do not get it. grr.
I want to say first that I am a Mongolian born in Inner Mongolia, now living in the United States.
This blog is so biased against the Chinese, it makes the average Chinese want to invade Mongolia just from reading it.
Of course China is the leading country in Mongolian studies. There are MORE Mongolians in China than there are Mongolians in Mongolia. You Mongolians in Mongolia under your Russian masters are using the Cyrillic alphabet (and sometimes the Roman alphabet).
If you want to have someone to bash for wrongs against Mongolia, go bash the Russians or the near-extinct Manchurians.
No worries guys.. Let me share this article with you.. Mandarin will still dominate...
When in Rome, why not let the Romans teach you?
In Huangshan Southern Anhui province in Eastern China, Fu Shou-Bing logs on to the computer in the public library near his village. Since discovering ECpod.com (www.ECPod.com ), the retired High School Chemistry teacher has been logging on almost every day to the English-Chinese teaching website. Sometimes he cycles the 25 miles home, cooks himself a simple lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables with salted fish, often returning once again to the library and his new hobby in the evening.
ECpod.com boasts an educational website that teaches members conversational English or Chinese (no "this is an apple" stuff here) via video clips contributed by other members. After a vetting and often transcribing process by language tutors commissioned by the site, the clips are available free of charge in YouTube fashion. The twist? Members film each other in everyday activities, hoping other members will learn not just their native tongue, but also cultural innuendos lost in textbooks and more conventional means of language learning.
"One member filmed himself cooking in his kitchen. We got a few emails asking what condiments he used," says a bemused Warwick Hau, one of the site's more public faces. One emailer even wanted to know if she could achieve the same Chinese stir-fry using ingredients from her regular CR Vanguard supermarket. "We often forget our every day activities may not be as mundane to people on the other side of the world," Hau adds. Another such clip is "loaches" - a Chinese mother of 3 filmed her children and their friends playing with a bucket of loaches - slippery eel-like fish the children were picking up and gently squeezing between their fingers.
Lately the members have also begun to make cross-border friends and contacts. The ECpal function works much the same way sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com work - members can invite each other to view their clips and make friends. And it has its fair share of juvenile humor as well. Farting Competition features two teenagers and graphic sound effects. Within several days, the clip was one of the most popular videos that week, likely due to mass-forwarding by the participants schoolmates.
For other members keen to learn more than the fact juvenile humor is similar everywhere, there are many home videos featuring unlikely little nuggets of wisdom. "The last thing I learned from the site is why you never find green caps for sale in China", says Adam Schiedler one of the English language contributors to the site. Green caps signify cuckolded husbands, particularly shameful in China as they are a huge loss of face. Adam vows not to buy any green headgear for his newfound friends.
The subject matter of the videos often speaks volumes about its contributors. Members choose their own content and film the clip wherever they please, some of their efforts drawing attention to rural surroundings and the quaint insides of little homes otherwise not seen unless you backpack your way thru the tiny dirt roads and villages along the Chinese countryside.
Idyllic countrysides and cooking lessons aside however, ECpod marries the latest video sharing technology with the old school way of teaching a language - from the native speakers on the street. It's a modern, more convenient alternative to spending 6 months in China. And why not let the Chinese teach you?
Visit www.ECPod.com
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