Street life

Aaah UB.  What a city.  Every day brings new curiosities and puzzlements.  Just walking around here is an experience in itself.

OK, so we have done roads and traffic, now for somehting more pedestrian.

I mentioned before that there is a lot of building work, road resurfacing and other stuff going on.  The streets round where I live have particularly fervent work going on.  There are HUGE mounds of earth and HUGE craters all over the place.  Nothing is fenced off.  Large machines trundle around with wiry Mongolian men climbing on them.  Blocks of concrete litter the sidewalk.

(NB, I have not gone american, it is just not possible to call what the walk place at the side of the road a "pavement" at the moment, so sidewalk is more appropriate.)

The other day I was almost hit in the face by a swinging lump of concrete as I circumnavigated a crane.  On the corner of the street where LSM lives (his hole has been blocked up! Yana, I will miss him) a group of aimless looking "workmen" constructed and deconstructed a wall three times, before demolishing it and abandoning it.  You've heard of shed boat shed, this was rubble wall rubble wall rubble wall rubble.  I totally reckon it could be a contender for the Turner Prize.

People on the streets are a fascinatingly diverse crowd.  Young mongolians are, for the most part, super trendy and flash.  There are the "migga's" as we call them, who dress hip hop, all baggy trousers and basketball vests and bandanas and attitude.  There are the emo-like boys, skinny with floppy fringes and an air of quiet angst.  There are also the "skin 'eds", neo nazi nationalists, who have shaved heads, wear ripped jeans and bovver boots, and have swastika tattoos and facial piercings.  It was quite weird, I was on the bus once and there was a pair of them, textbook image of a couple of BNP punks (only Mongol).  And I realised that I was the immigrant here, the minority ethnic group.  I had an inkling of what it must have been like to be, for example, an indian living in Peckham in the 1980's or somthing.  We (foreigners) have had a subtle fear of the nationalists instilled in us from horror stories and security briefings.  I just tried to make myself look invisible, and mentally practiced my more ferocious ju jitsu moves.  They pretty much ignored me though.

Then there are the street people, dark red faces and faded brown garb.  Then the traditional people, who are still, in this 30+ heat, walking around in their dels and boots.  They are wizened and dignified.  The men walk with their thumbs stuck in their belts, and wear stetson style hats.  The women are bow legged, and remarkably beautiful despite their deeply lined faced.  They look about a hundred years old, like witchy women from fairy stories.

The young women are the most eye catching at the moment.  In this weather many of them have taken to wearing the tiniest shorts you ever saw.  Others wear beautifuly cut summer dresses, and high heels.  Others look cute in cropped jeans and snazzy vests.

In the evenings the girls go all out, some of the things they wear look like they came straight out of the wardrobe of an eastern european prostitute.  The other day I met a mongolian singer, who was wearing basically lingerie. 

In this heat the men pull up their T-shirts, walking around with their rotund bellies exposed, slappng or stroking them as they walk.  ewww.

There are some bins on the street, and there are street cleaners, but unfortunately the mongolians are, from what I have observed, terrible litter bugs.  There is rubbish everywhere.  Samshed vodka bottles are everywhere and also, oddly, playing cards.  Playing cards all over town. Like confetti outside a church after a wedding.

Then there are bodies and bones.  It is not unusual to see a dead dog in the road, its stiff limbs outstretched, flies covering its mangy flesh.  It is also not uncommon to see a dead, or comatose tramp lying on the ground.  This is the unsavoury side of the city, and of the mongolians harsh attitude to animals and alcoholics.  Random bones are everywhere too, sheep skulls, jaw bones, etc.

In the centre of town, opposite the state department store, there is a huge electronic billboard, that plays adverts all day.  It is like something out of Bladerunner.

Up my end of town, because of all the road works, the cars have taken to drving on the sidewalk.  Every morning I have to throw myself out of the way of an oncoming land cruiser.

So - disjointed post I know, but thats kind of a reflection of street life here.  I was thinking the other day, I am no longer suprised by anythng I see in mongolia.  I love the city for its exceptionally high random factor.  Its such a tiny little metropolis, but every day it changes in some way, its like a living breathing growing entity, that is a bit mental.

Aaah UB.