Korea - Tools for research: The Books

I think I went overboard this time, with the number of books I read and movies I watched related to Korea!  So much so, that I have to separate the books and movies into two blog posts, otherwise it would be a very long list for you to read, all in one go!

I've also spent two months on Korea, which is a long time - although this did include my summer vacation and other real-life travel. 

The Books

I read way too many books about Korea - although I finished most of them, I had to stop myself in the end, otherwise I could have spent another few weeks reading and writing about Korea!  If you're interested in finding out more about Korea, I would recommend all of the following:

Korea: Insight Guides (2003) - ed. Tom Le Bas - I always find the Insight guides really useful, to give me an overview of the history and culture of the place that I'm blogging about.  I don't usually buy the most up-to-date versions, as they cost a lot of money, but I get older versions for a penny (literally!) online. This guidebook mostly covers South Korea, but I'd recommend it nevertheless.

Korea: Culture Smart! (2012) - James Hoare - Culture Smart! is another great little series of books and I always really enjoy reading them - the edition on Korea is particularly good and James Hoare is an ex-British diplomat who has written quite a few books on East Asia, including a book on the conflict in Korea that he co-wrote with his wife, Susan Pares.  I did buy the newest edition of this book, as I've got quite a nice collection of these cultural guides building up on my bookshelf!

Nothing to Envy (2010) - Barbara Demick - this is a great book and I really got a lot out of it.  Barbara focuses on the stories of refugees from Chonjin, in the far north of North Korea and tries to piece together a picture of what life must be like for North Korea's 25 million inhabitants.  I blogged about this in my post Something to Envy?

The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (2012) - Victor Cha - it really pains me that I didn't have time to finish this book, but I discovered it quite late into my blogging experience and, at more than 400 pages long, I just didn't have time to read the whole thing.  In the 100 or so pages that I did read, I found Cha's writing incredibly engaging and interesting.  Ah well, perhaps I will be able to return to it at a later date!  I'd definitely recommend this book, if you are interested in learning more about North Korea.

Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour and Evolution (2001) - Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger.  This is a brilliant book and really made me question man's relationship with dogs.  The Coppingers are champion sled dog racers and passionate advocates of a greater, more scientific understanding of dogs than we currently have.  It's a bit heavy-going at times, but worth the brain power, if you want to understand the evolution of dogs and dog psychology.

My Sister Bongsoon (2005) - Ji-young Gong - somewhere in the midst of all this research, I even managed to read a Korean novel (in translation, of course!).  It was really interesting and covered a lot of social issues related to the treatment of maids and class differences in Korean society.

Literature from the Axis of Evil (2006) - a Words without Borders anthology, which includes writing from North Korea, but also Iran, Iraq and 'other enemy nations'.  This is a great collection and I read all of the North Korean texts - the first time I've ever read literature of this kind.  According to the editors, only 3% of books in the English-speaking world are in translation, which is pretty shocking and makes me wonder how much great literature we're missing out on, because it isn't translated into English?  I'm a passionate believer in discovering the literature of other countries and this book embodies the spirit of discovery and understanding that I think is so important in our increasingly globalised (and anglicised era)

The Food and Cooking of Japan and Korea (2010) - Emi Kazuko and Young-jin Song - last, but definitely not least, I discovered this wonderful book of Japanese and Korean recipes.  Having initially borrowed a copy from my local library, I felt the need to buy my own copy, in the end, as it's probably one of the best recipe books I've ever come across.  Not only does it give you lots of great recipes, with plenty of pictures and easy explanations, but there are also extensive sections on the Japanese and Korean kitchens - everything you might expect to find there, as well as detailed descriptions of the ingredients used in Korean and Japanese food. It's a book that I'm sure I will treasure for a long time to come!

Image credits:

The image of the book cover was taken by me. 

Korea - Is Man a Dog's Best Friend?

When I was researching for my blog post on Korea - the Google Instant Test, I noticed a lot of interest from Western readers, as to whether or not Koreans eat dog meat.  It got me thinking, in a much broader sense about the human-dog relationship, probably one of the most important inter-species relationships/partnerships on our planet and how this key relationship matters to us, even when we are assessing our relationship with humans from another culture. 

My experience of dogs

I've always liked dogs.  Being Irish, I grew up in a society where dogs were everywhere.  We had a Jack Russell for many years and she produced several litters of pups, some of which became household pets.  I now live in England, where people seem to be obsessed with dogs.  People allow dogs to sleep in the same bed as them - people take their dogs to groomers, costing up to £50 a session!  Just take a walk through an English park in early summer and you'll begin to understand the important place dogs occupy in English society.

When I was growing up in Ireland, dogs were mostly kept outside, as yard pets.  This now seems to be changing and I sense a general evolution in people's attitude towards dogs - they are no longer animals, but part of the family, companions, man's best friend . . . Dogs may be a man's best friend, but I'm beginning to wonder whether the opposite statement is also true - ie. Is Man a Dog's best friend?

Just another consumer product?



Dalmatian on Cable Beach, WA

In a way, dogs are evolving, or being shaped, to meet the demands of human consumerism - we're breeding them smaller and cuter into all kinds of freaky shapes and sizes, some of which are physically debilitating, even unnatural.  It's as though dogs are replacing a human need for control that has long since been blurred by the fast pace of modern living.  They've become another symbol of our desire to be a master over the natural world - to see unconditional love reflected in the eyes of another creature.

A new way of thinking about dogs

One of the things I love about doing this blog is that I read things and learn things which change my perspective on the world.  Like many people reading this post, I've previously just accepted man's relationship with dogs and never really had a reason to question it.  Now, just as many people wonder why Koreans would want to eat dog - I'm beginning to wonder why people would want to own a dog, to keep it in their house, feed it, groom it, entertain it, exercise it and pay expensive veterinary bills when the dog gets ill?

As part of my research, I've read an eye-opening book called Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour and Evolution (The University of Chicago Press, 2002) by Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger.  For anyone interested in dog behaviour and the origin of dogs as a species (and they are a relatively new species), then I would highly recommend getting a copy of this book (although I had to order it from the United States).  Raymond and Lorna are biologists and champion sled-dog trainers and I think their explanation of the role dogs play in human society makes a lot of sense. 

Dawn of the Dog

The Gamekeeper by Richard Ansdell

One of the main arguments they make is that man didn't somehow tame wolves and therefore produce dogs.  Wolves are wild animals and are not tameable - even after several generations, they are genetically programmed to behave in a certain way.  It's more likely that dogs tamed themselves, by modifying their behaviour and, ultimately, losing their fear of the human race.  Modern dogs are descendants of wild dogs (or perhaps wolves) who saw an opportunity in the new ecological niche that was created when humans first changed their nomadic lifestyles, turning to agricultural and settling in small villages based on clans. 

With agriculture and the first human settlements came food surplus and the first village dumps.  The Coppingers argue that the ancestors of dogs were scavengers at these village dumps (not only dogs, but also rats, domestic cats and other animals).  They became attracted to the constant source of food at these 'new' settlements and evolved their behaviour in a way that brought them ever closer to the ultimate source of food, humankind!  Over the years, dogs have become man's true companions and, as a species, they are flourishing with an estimated 400 million dogs worldwide, compared to 400 thousand wolves. 

Ways of interpreting the human-dog relationship

We've taught dogs to care for other animals, to guard our properties, guide blind people, rescue human beings trapped in the snow, pull sleds . . . you name it!  But what is the true relationship between humans and dogs?  The Coppingers' posit several different ways of understanding this relationship:

Dogs learn to respond to human needs from an early age

Commensualism: ie. where one species benefits (dogs), but the other doesn't (humans).  This would fit the mould for dogs scavenging at the village dump.  Whilst, in the West, we tend to think of dogs as pets, the reality is that most of the world's dogs are village dogs, belonging to no-one in particular and scavenging off the leftovers of human meals. 

Mutualism: ie. where both species benefit from each other.  Most people would assume that this is the proper interpretation of the human-pet dog relationship - ie. we feed them, they love us!

Parasitism: ie. where one species benefits at the expense of the other.  This is probably a truer reflection of the human-pet dog relationship.  In Western society, pet dogs cost a lot of money, giving us, arguably, very little in return.  The reality is that pet dogs are needy, expensive to feed and live short lives, often beset with health problems because we've bred them into unnatural forms!

Dogs as modern-day slaves?

Think about how we treat dogs - is it really love, care and loyalty?  Or consumerism, degradation and enslavement?  The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that man is not dog's best friend, but that we are somehow locked in a parasitic relationship that is degrading to both species! 

Dogs have evolved because of changes in the way humans live - they are a species that mostly owe their existence to us - if humans suddenly disappeared off the planet, most household dogs wouldn't survive.  Conversely, humans would survive without dogs, although I imagine the loss of dogs would have a great impact on our collective cultural psyche. 

I find the human-dog relationship endlessly fascinating and I'm sure I'll come back to it in future blog posts!

Image credits:

Both photos were taken by me - the first in Australia, the second in Russia. 

The painting is by Richard Ansdell and depicts a typical scene from the human-dog relationship.  It's in the public domain and therefore copyright-free. 

Zanzibar - Gurnah's Paradise

One of my main motivations for starting this blog was because I was interested in discovering literary gems from other countries and cultures that I might otherwise have missed. 

It's been such a pleasure to read Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah.  The novel is quite well-known in the West, having been shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1994.  Gurnah was born in Zanzibar but has made a career for himself in the UK.  He currently lectures at the University of Kent.  Paradise didn't win the Booker prize - this was awarded to James Kelman's, How late it was, how late - a controversial decision that led one of the judges (Julia Neuberger) to resign from the judging panel. 

Themes

Paradise is set in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) during the period of German colonisation.  The main character is a young man called Yusuf who is taken away from his parents at a young age and sent to live with his 'Uncle' Aziz, a relatively affluent merchant, who spends a lot of his time journeying into Africa's dark interior to trade with distant tribes who live beside the lakes of the Great Rift valley. 

Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

The urge to trade

One of the biggest themes of the book is the importance of trade and the great lengths that Uncle Aziz will go to trade with distant tribes and make a profit on his return home.  Not all of the trade is legal and it's revealed that Aziz is stock-piling rhinocerous horn, in a village at the end of the train line, where it can easily be transported to the coast and sold off to Indian merchants, when times are tough. 

A lot of the action of the novel centres on a disastrous trading expedition to visit a tribe on the far side of the lakes.  The journey itself is horrendous, with Aziz paying a fortune in 'gifts' to the tribal villages they pass through, some of his porters die in the jungle before they even reach their destination.  When they get to the village of the faraway tribe, they are held hostage and have all of their goods taken from them by force.  They eventually negotiate themselves out of the situation and leave with most of their goods, selling everything off at a cut-down rate as they make their way home.

Yusuf reflects on the human desire to trade 'it made him wonder what it was that people wanted so much that they could overcome that terror in search of trade'  Trade is certainly an interesting human impulse - wars have been fought over trade, societies have been corrupted and ruined in search of profit, and yet, it's an impulse that has driven forward progress and opened the world up to (what we consider to be) civilisation.  Uncle Aziz only seems happy when a trading expedition is in progress - it's as though it's the trade itself that gives his life meaning and not the settled life he comes back to and invests most of his profits into.

Zanzibar was at the heart of the East African and Indian ocean trade routes.  The wealth of Zanzibar was built on the trade of cloves and other spices and the trade in slaves from the African interior to the Arab world and beyond.

The pain of movement

Despite Uncle Aziz's desire to trade and travel into the interior, the language of the novel depicts the movement as frightening and unnatural.  When they are travelling to the jungle, the wheels of the train screech in high-pitched protests and the homesteads they pass hug the surface of the hurtling earth.  After the heavy rains in the jungle, the earth seems alive with movement, which scares the men, as they move further and further away from the civilised world. 

A new kind of slavery - Rehani and Magendo

Dhow at dusk by Caneles

Although slavery had been abolished by their European overlords, a kind of slavery persists in the novel and Yusuf finds out that Uncle Aziz isn't really his uncle and that he (Yusuf) has been given to Aziz by his parents as a type of rehani or 'bond', until Yusuf's father pays back a debt that he owes to the merchant.  When Yusuf arrives at Uncle Aziz's house, he is befriended by another young man, called Khalil, who is Uncle Aziz's shopkeeper and also bound to him as a result of a debt. 

As the novel progresses,Yusuf falls in love with Amina, Uncle Aziz's young wife and servant to 'the Mistress', the widow Uncle Aziz married because of her fortune.  Amina's case is even more deplorable, as she is megendo or 'stolen' and was sold to the merchant by Khalil's father, also to pay off a debt. 

Yusuf becomes fascinated by the old man, Mzee Hamdani, who tends to the Mistress's garden. He is a freed slave, who decided to stay with the family, even after slavery had been abolished.  He only speaks once during the novel and his words fascinate Yusuf when he says 'They offered me freedom as a gift.  She did [the Mistress]. Who told her she had it to offer?'  It raises an interesting point about whether or not one person can really own another person and that, somehow, freedom is not something that can be given or taken away. 

The Garden and the Jungle - desire and brutality

The novel is infused with a powerful and threatening sense of sexuality.  Yusuf is considered to be extremely handsome and arouses the interest of the various adults he comes into contact with .  He is the subject of unwelcome teasing by Ma Ajuza, one of the customers in the shop where he works with Khalil.  He is an object of desire for the men, as they deal with the hardships of the jungle.  He becomes an obsession for the Mistress, who convinces herself that she can only be cured of her mysterious illness, if she allows Yusuf to have sex with her. 

Brutality and romance are interwoven throughout the novel, a good example being the behaviour of Bachus, the Greek-Indian lorry driver, who constantly sings love songs, only pausing to unleash a string of obscenities, directed at the various porters.  Mohammed Abdalla, the mnyapara who manages the porters, is feared because of his great physical strength and his reputation for sexually abusing the men. 

Paradise, the title of the book, is ironic, in the sense that it describes 'hell on earth'.  The jungle is hell and paradise, at one and the same time - paradise because of the freedom Yusuf experiences there and the wonderful sights that he sees whilst travelling.  The garden is a sensual paradise, nurtured by Uncle Aziz's profits.  But it's also where Yusuf is watched by the Mistress - it is a prison and the walls are high. 

Reaching out by Caneles

Scavenging dogs and the fear of Wolf men

Dogs feature frequently in the book.  Yusuf associates them with his move to Uncle Aziz's home.  He and Khalil are forced to sleep outside and the dogs attack them, causing Yusuf recurring nightmares that haunt him throughout the rest of the novel.  One of their greatest fears in the jungle is of meeting the Wolf men - the product of interbreeding between the wolves of the jungle and the savage tribes.  Kalasingh is the Sikh driver who wants to translate the Qu'ran into Swahili, so the native Africans will understand the intolerance of their God.  He points out that Muslims are afraid of dogs, just as the Prophet Muhammad feared them.  As I've highlighted in previous blogs, dogs often herald death in art and literature and death pervades the novel Paradise.  When Khalil first meets Yusuf he nicknames him, kifa urongo which means 'the living death'.

In one of the key scenes at the end of the novel, Yusuf overcomes his fear, when he sees the dogs feasting on piles of excrement and they growl at him, warning him not to come near.  He realises that, like the dogs, he will be forced to 'eat shit' for his entire life, unless he does something drastic to change things.

Europeans and Indians - Gog and Magog

There is a real sense of fear in the descriptions of Europeans in the novel and hatred for the Indians who act as intermediaries between the Europeans and the native Africans.  The Africans believe that the Europeans have supernatural powers.  That they can eat iron and that they breathe fire!  They live in fear of the Germans and the brutal way that they make war.  The Germans bring an inflexible approach to punishment that fails to respect local traditions of retribution and being able to buy your way out of a hanging or whipping.  It is the Germans who rescue Uncle Aziz's property from the jungle tribe and it is the Germans who come searching for young men, at the end of the novel, so they can make war on their European enemies, the British.

The characters seem resigned to their fate and unable to counter the strength of European domination.  When Yusuf sees the German officer at the end of the novel, he thinks that the officer is smiling and, therefore, kind.  It's only when he sees the German officer up close that he realises the smile is a grimace, created by a physical deformity, it exposes the Germans rotting teeth and gums, prompting Yusuf to think of him as a living corpse. 

There are several references to Gog and Magog in the novel - the savage tribes that come from the north of the known world.  In the end, Yusuf decides to take his chances in the service of the Europeans, leaving his 'paradise' far behind him. 

Other themes

To Paradise Island by Caneles

Paradise is quite commonly compared to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but I also see elements of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (the madwoman in the attic) and Joseph, the son of Jacob in the Old Testament.  Like Joseph, Yusuf is abandoned by those who should take care of him and has to find his own way in a world that is incredibly hostile. 

The theme of language is an important one - especially the use of Kiswahili and Arabic and how this decides the nature of some of the relationships between the main characters.  When they are in the jungle, Nyundo the translator, ultimately holds the balance of power in the discussions between Uncle Aziz and the tribal leader. Yusuf is totally dependent on Khalil to translate between himself and the Mistress.  When Khalil refuses to translate any more, Amina takes over and the way she translates opens up a whole new conversation, which made me think about the different language used by men and women in the novel. 

The novel also has a lot to say about gender - although there are very few female characters, the world they inhabit is every bit as cruel as the world inhabited by the men. 

I see a lot of similarities with the last novel I read for this blog, Zayd Mutee' Dammaj's The Hostage (see my blog post about Yemen) - they both deal with young men who are removed from their families and kept as slaves/servants in a rich household.  They both deal with repressed sexuality and the exploitation of young people.  Both books have opened up a whole new world of Arabian and East African fiction for me, that I didn't previously know existed. 

Gurnah uses a lot of Swahili words throughout the novel and this has introduced me to a whole new language.  I'm pasting some of the new words I've learned below:

kanzu, tajiri mkubwa, washenzi, vibarua, mnyapara, kipande, maandazi, mahamri, nahodha, buibui, qasida, mganga, pombe, askari

Image credits:

The image of the book cover was taken by me.  I read the 1995 Penguin (2nd) edition of the book (no doubt published by Penguin, as a result of the novel's literary success)

For this blog post, I wanted to highlight the photography of flickrmember caneles, who is originally from Amsterdam.  You can see more of his work at his photostream - thanks caneles for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons license. 

Paraguay - The Geography of Guarani Legends

Apart from Guatemala and the Netherlands, all the countries I've blogged about so far have either been island nations or landlocked countries. I guess these contrasts fascinate me, having grown up in an island nation (Ireland) and also having lived in the world's most landlocked country (Uzbekistan).

Roa Bastos, Paraguay's most famous writer, described the country as 'a landlocked island'. This only makes sense when you look at the geography of Paraguay, specifically Paraguay Oriental, which is defined by the three rivers that demarcate this region. The Parana, on the other side of which is Brazil, the Pilcomayo, which separates Paraguay and Argentina, and the River Paraguay, which cuts the country in two. This might not seem significant now, in the age of air travel, but back in the 19th century, the 'easiest' way to get to Paraguay was by river, an arduous journey that could take weeks, or sometimes months. Paraguay's many dictators did what they could to isolate the country politically but, in some ways, it was a task made easier by the country's physical isolation.

It occurred to me, whilst learning about the Guarani legends, that a lot of our spirits and myths are essentially 'animist' in origin. Perhaps man has been so overwhelmed by the magic of the mountains and jungles around him, that he's personified them in both benign and monstrous ways. Ireland and Scotland are full of rainbows and lakes, so we have pots of gold and Loch Ness monsters. Iceland has its trolls and gnomes that live under rocks. Desert nations have their winds, which can drive people mad in their intensity.

The legends of the Guarani are fascinating. It's all reptiles, forests and swamps. Although the mythology is completely new to me, there is something universal about primitive man's relationship with the Earth. In the legends of the Guarani, there are echoes of a more generic world mythology, from the Chimera of the Greeks to the zombies of the Caribbean, to Chinese ghosts and Native American folklore.

What's interested me most of all are the Legendary Monsters of the Guarani people. It's very much an oral tradition and can, therefore, vary from one tribe to another. Also the myths of the European settlers have sometimes fused with traditional Guarani legends and, like voodoo in the Caribbean or the African religions of Brazil, the end result is something quite new.

I've used Wikipedia as my main source for this. I do make an effort to find other sources online, but it would seem that all roads lead back to Wikipedia in the end and, most of the time, the articles are well-sourced and provide links back to the original texts, in the original language.

So, according to Wikipedia, there are seven Legendary Monsters in Guarani mythology. These are automatically considered to be evil, as they were all born out of either wedlock or rape (depending on which version you hear) between the evil spirit Tau and Kerana, the beautiful daughter of the main (Sun and Moon) god and goddess. I guess, in that respect, Kerana represents the Earth. Their seven, supposedly evil, offspring are all spirits of the natural world.

Teju Jagua is the oldest sibling, and the most frightening, with a snake's body and seven dog heads that shoot out fire (compare this with Medusa or Hydra). Teju Jagua seems to be the least 'human' of all the monsters and inhabits the deepest, darkest caverns and recesses of the many hills in Paraguay. It doesn't seem to do anything except consume the fruits of the earth.

Mbói Tu'ĩ is a snake with a parrot's head, that can let out petrifying shrieks and is the master of all waterways and aquatic creatures.

Moñái is another snake-like creature, this time with horns and is the god of the open fields. It has a habit of stealing the harvest from villages and is duped by the virgin Porâsý, who pretends that she will marry him, but sacrifices herself in the end by tricking Moñái and being killed with him.

Jasy Jatere is the god of plants, most importantly Yerba maté and is responsible for the drowsy, soporific, Lotus-eating qualities of a sub- tropical siesta. Jasy Jatere means 'little piece of the moon' and is the only one that doesn't appear as a monster, but rather a pale, fair-haired boy that lures children into the forest and lets them be eaten by his cannibalistic brother Ao Ao.

Kurupi is a very familiar god of sexuality and fertility with a great 'talent' for impregnating women, most conveniently, due to the length of his manhood, through open windows and doors left ajar. I'm sure that more than one teenage pregnancy and extra marital affair was explained by Kurupi's lust driven appetite.

Ao Ao is the god of hills and mountains, a kind of fanged sheep or hog, that really reminds me of another mystical beast that I can't quite put my finger on. I think there is a Scottish monster which is similar to Ao Ao. It basically roams the hills, preying on lone travellers and naughty children lured into the forest by Jasy Jatere.

Last, but not least, is Luison, the god of death. Luison has somehow merged with the European myths about werewolves and transcends regional mythologies, appearing also in Argentina and Brazil.

It really fascinates me, how dogs are so closely connected to death. There is Anubis

I can, kind of, understand then why independent Paraguay's first dictator, the Rousseau-obsessed Francia, in one of his many bouts of insanity, ordered that all dogs in Paraguay be shot dead. Man's relationship with dogs is a long and complicated one and one that I will keep an eye on, as I continue my learning journey around the world.

Image Credits

The image of the Iguazu Falls has been provided by flickruser willsfca a.k.a Will Luo, originally from Taiwan and now living in San Francisco.  Will is a self-confessed photogeek and you can see more on his website http://www.wluo.org/

The drawing/image of the Kurupi is by flickruser cochabambahotel. 

The image of Anubis was contributed to Wikimedia by Jeff Dahl, who has created a whole series of Egyptian dieties - I'm very impressed Jeff!  This image is available under GNU Free Documentation License and the license is at the following link:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License

Mongolia - Cynophobia and Ger-tiquette

Apart from being landlocked countries, I was trying to find something else that Mongolia and Lesotho have in common and I came up with this:


they have similar levels of population.


Hard to imagine this would be the case with Lesotho being the size of Belgium (or a little bit bigger than Massachusetts, for our friends in the US), whereas Mongolia is the 19th biggest country in the world, right after Iran. It's also the least densely populated independent state in the world, with only 1% of Mongolia's territory being classified as urban.

I can't even begin to comprehend a 'space' like that. It must influence everything about Mongolia, from their love of horses, the bird dancing rituals before wrestling, the timelessness of a landscape barely altered by man.


If claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed spaces, then what is a fear of open spaces called? I've looked on the Internet, but no one seems to know the answer to this. Officially it should be 'agoraphobia' which is the fear of crowds (or markets), but can also imply the fear of an empty market, of being alone in a landscape.


By all accounts Chingis Khan had an irrational fear of dogs. Dogs seem to be all-present in Mongolian society. A common greeting is Nokhoi Khor, which is the polite thing to say on entering a ger (traditional Mongolian home, like a big tent made of poles and wrapped in felt). It literally translates as 'hold the dog'.

Being Irish, children and dogs are brought up (or is that dragged up?) together and, until I went to Uzbekistan, I'd always felt comfortable around dogs. Arriving in Samarkand, the floppy, affectionate puppies of my youth were suddenly replaced by the earless, snarling guard dogs (they chop off their ears, so that every sound will be irritating, which makes them incredibly nasty and fierce.) It certainly reminded me of their primary function and put their essential relationship with man into perspective, in a way I'd never really thought of before.


To learn more about Mongolia, I ordered a cheap second-hand copy of Lonely Planet, dating back to 2001, coincidentally the year I went to Samarkand and, much as I've learned a lot from Lonely Planet over the years, some of the advice made me giggle.


Although it's probably quite practical, the phrases they recommend learning, for when you're hiking in the Mongolian wilderness and finally stumble across civilsation are 'Where am I?' and 'Is that dog dangerous?'. I can't help thinking that if that dog were dangerous, I wouldn't get the chance to ask my question in the first place!


Okay, so I'm being a smart-alec but, to be honest, I think I would have found Lonely Planet's guide to does and don'ts, in a ger, terrifying. I loved the advice to leave your weapons outside. Who goes to Mongolia with weapons, honestly? I could just picture myself, the clumsy foreigner, walking the wrong way round the ger to avoid the dog, stumbling over ropes and people older than me, banging into poles and frantically shaking hands with everyone! Disaster!


I remember taking this kind of advice all too seriously when I went to Uzbekistan, being afraid to blow my nose in public, never knowing where to sit when invited to someone's house. I think people understand that you're a foreigner and can be very forgiving. That doesn't mean you don't make an effort to do the right thing, of course, but trying to remember lists of do's and don'ts can take away from the experience. The important thing is to interact with people and join in the laughter when you get it wrong. Stoopid foreigners don't have many uses, but at least we can be amusing, without even meaning to - oh, and it's nothing personal.


As part of my learning about Mongolia, I've been reading the blog of an American woman, Tara Munch, who is currently teaching in Ulaan Baator. It's called 'So I moved to Mongolia' and her stories about traffic and dodgy door knobs have brought a smile to my face and conjured up memories of Samarkand, the frustrations of living in a country that barely functions, the feeling of not knowing what's going on a greater part of the time, but also the sheer hospitality of the people you meet and the adventure of being somewhere so totally different from the place you grew up in. I like the way she tries to focus on the positive things, too many people end up being grouchy ex- pats! Enjoy it, Tara, while it lasts. You'll have enough time back in the West with all its rules and familiarity :-)


If you want to visit Tara's blog and wish her luck, it's

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Tara-Munch/


Image credits

The image of the Mongolian flag is from www.33ff.com/flags

The image of the snarling dog is from flickruser misterbisson an information architect and librarian from Manchester, New Hampshire.

The image of the Ger is by flickruser jrubinic