Mongolian Weddings

Autumn, especially October, is Mongolian wedding season. I actually went to a wedding for another teacher exactly a year ago today (October 25). This blog is turning into a “This Day in History” for my life, so I’ll write about weddings today. I’ve got some wedding pictures to share, and I’ll describe what generally happens at the Mongolian weddings I’ve been to.

Prior to the wedding, there are a lot of arrangements to be made. I don’t know much about them, because I’m not a family member of anyone who got married. But a date is chosen - maybe astrologically, and on the advice of a Buddhist priest. After that, the priest doesn’t have anything to do with the wedding, unless he’s a relative. Weddings are not religious in the same sense as most American weddings. An announcement will be posted. Some times, though, I have just been told, “So-and-so is getting married tonight. You should go.” People will usually be expecting "So-and-so" to get married soon anyway, because the wife has probably given birth, or at least gotten pregnant. Notice that I said “wife”; Mongolian couples get called “husband” and “wife” long before the wedding happens.

Weddings are especially common on Friday nights, but plenty of them happen on weekdays too - in the late afternoon after everyone gets off work. So around 5:00 we go to the new ger (or house). The ger has been erected for the occasion. After the wedding is all over the new husband and wife will move into it as their new home. Up until now they’ve probably been living with their parents. But before they can have the home entirely themselves, the whole town, practically, will have to go through it. Their coworkers may arrive in a huge block. This is how I got to go to so many weddings: someone who works at the school (or that person’s cousin) would get married, and the entire faculty and staff of the school would show up, and they would bring me. Being related to a school teacher is a surefire way to get a huge party. Mongolian parties are very space efficient too. I’ve seen 40 people packed into a ger no bigger than mine. Another advantage of being affiliated with the school is that you can borrow school benches to seat your guests. But people will sit on just about everything solid and level in the ger anyway. If the couple gets a house instead of a ger, there may be more room for the guests to move.

Mongolian parties have a T-shaped table arrangement. The head of the table (top bar of the T) is near the back of the room (the north side of a ger), and it is laid out with the most important food items. These may include a tower made of stacked боов, a boiled sheep’s back, and a large vat of айраг (kumiss). The couple sit at the head of the table. The oldest guests are usually seated in the back too on the sides of the couple. From there, the guests get younger as they get closer toward the door. However, many times I was told to sit near the head of the table, which I should probably take as an honor. The system quickly breaks down though as more guests arrive in a crowded ger, and it’s impossible to reorganize everyone by age.

T-shaped table in a house. You can see bowls of tea in the front, bowls of ааруул, a vat of kumiss, several bottles of vodka, two stacks of боов ...

Before the couple can sit down though, they serve the guests. First you get to pick a piece of candy or ааруул off a huge dish, then you get a bowl of сүүтэй цай. Then the alcohol - айраг and vodka - come out. Americans each get their own glass of wine or beer and then start drinking at the same time. Mongolians drink in sequence. The groom will pour a shot of vodka and give it to one guest. That guest will drink it (or some of it) and hand it back. Then the groom refills it and hands it to the next guy. He keeps moving clockwise, refilling the glass, until he gets back to the first guest. Usually a couple of people make the rounds at the same time, so you don’t have to wait half an hour for your vodka. The same goes for айраг - the server fills a bowl, then refills it for the next guy.

After you get buzzed, you’ll get some more appetizers - especially a plate with pickles and sliced хиам. Unlike the vodka, the guests can pass this around themselves.

Mongolian bride and groom - in this case, a math teacher and a Mongolian language teacher. Marriages between teachers are common.

Our chemistry teacher and her husband. Notice the bride and groom wear matching дээл.

I’m often full from appetizers and drinks before the actual dinner (usually soup) is served. It’s hard to stay hungry for dinner, because Mongolians always provide a lot of food and are very insistent that guests eat. And eat. And eat.

When everyone is served, the couple go to the proper place at the head of the table. Someone gets up and gives a speech, and presents them with a хадаг, a bowl of айраг, and some wedding gifts. The first notice I get of a coming wedding is sometimes when the school takes up a collection from me for wedding gifts.

Song kumiss

By the time the party has been going on for several hours and several bottles of vodka have been drunk, it’s so hot in a tiny ger that the windows in the top have to be opened in order to let the heat out, even if the temperature outside is below freezing. Another thing that usually happens is singing. Eventually someone will decide to serve дууны айраг - “song kumiss.” The person who gets a bowl has to stand up and sing a song before they can drink. It’s not as hard as it sounds, because as soon as you start to sing, everyone else begins to sing along too. This singing and drinking will continue until everyone is about to fall asleep, and they go home - often late at night.

Erecting a Ger - Part IV: Inside the Ger

Inside the ger, they put up curtain-like wall hangings. These sheets are the equivalent of wall paper. They look prettier than the wall framework and gray felt sheets. Like some of the other stuff, they have loops that are tied to the top of the wall beams and hang downward.

Now they attach the rope that runs from the very center of the roof ring, goes through the eastern pillar, hangs down, and and is bunched up above the roof poles. Every ger has one of these, but I don’t know why. I'm convinced it must be symbolic rather than functional. In fact, it's taboo to hand your clothes (or anything else) from this rope.

Now the floor needs more work. When it turns out that the floor boards aren’t completely even, one of the boards is padded up by folding an old instant-noodle bulk box and slipping it on top of the board, underneath the plastic floor cover. Now the floor is even!

Giant rolls of scotch tape seal the cracks / gaps in the plastic sheet, so less air seeps in through the bottom of the ger. (Fun fact: The Mongolian word for tape is скоч, from the word "scotch.")

Later part of the floor will get covered with a proper carpet. But as one of my friends asked, since Mongolians have been living in round gers for thousands of years, why don’t they make round floor coverings or rugs?

This is not round

Now the ger is complete and people can live in it! (Well, actually, they still need to set up at the bed and stove.)

Erecting a Ger - Part III: Dressing the Ger

A layer of canvas is put over the roof poles. Ropes help keep it down.

So do cloth loops.

Then there’s a felt sheet over the roof.

Push more of them up with a spare pole.

Felt sheets around the walls. Ropes threaded through one corner of the sheet, over the roof, and threaded again through the other corner, help keep the sheets on the ger.

Putting up the paper covering.

This is Russian. Apparently the paper covering is … milk?

Putting up the waterproof plastic tarp.

More canvas on top.

There are two pillars on either side of the doorframe. Two ropes (or in this case, giant rubber bands, I guess) run all the way around the outside of the ger. They are looped around the poles and then tied to the doorframe.

Erecting a Ger - Part II: Assembling the Framework

The center of the ger is put together first, upside down. The pillars are lashed to the roof ring.

Roof ring + pillars

Some other people extend the walls and put them up around the floor. You can’t tell, but the tops of the walls lean inwardly slightly. The walls themselves are also a little bent. So the side of a ger isn’t straight but a little convex.

Putting up walls

This is the assembled pillar-and-window set, lying in the middle of the ger and waiting to be put upright.

The beams at the edge of each wall fit together with the edge of the next wall like a puzzle. A rope is woven through the place where they join.

Edges of walls with rope woven through

Then the roof poles are put up. The laced ends rest on top of the walls, and the twine loop is looped over the beams in the walls. The tapered ends are fitted into the notches of the center ring. There’s also a rope running around the top of the ger, through the wall beams, and another one running through the wall beams near the bottom.

Roof poles in place

Twine loop + top of the wall

Roof poles fitting into the roof ring

The ropes running the circumference of the ger are tied to either side of the doorframe. There’s also a rope running from the roof ring to the top of the door frame. Everything is getting all tied together, literally.

Doorframe

Here's another rope in the roof. It must have some function, but I don’t know what.

Another rope

Erecting a Ger - Part I: Building Materials

Since I’ve already discussed winterizing an already-standing ger, this time let’s discuss putting up a ger from the ground up. Three months ago (of course) I got to help put a new ger together, although I ended up doing more photography than actual labor. It’s OK though, they understood that I don’t get to see this in the U.S.

Seeing as this is so long, I'll try something new and split this into several posts. It's a ger-building series!

Elements of a ger

In this first picture you can see the parts of a ger gathered together and laying in a dusty yard. We have the doorframe, walls, center pillars, canvas cover, tarp, wall hanging, rope, roof poles, center ring, and floor. Here they all are individually:

Ger floor

At this point the floor (шал or хаяа) has already mostly been put together. The workers swept, leveled, and stomped the area where the ger would be put up, and layed out nine wooden floor pieces made of boards nailed together. Then there’s a thick plastic sheet with a fake linoleum design on it.

  

Ger walls

A ger wall (хана) is a framework of hinged wooden beams that can be compressed or stretched out like an accordion. The size of a ger is expressed by how many walls it has. My ger is a five-wall ger, so there are five of these accordion-like segments put together. This ger only has four, so it’s a little smaller than mine.

Here's a close-up

Roof ring

The roof ring (тооно) is the ger’s “window,” the round opening at the top of the ger in the center. It is painted with traditional designs. The outer rim of the ring has slots for the ends of the roof poles to fit into.

8259

8263

Roof poles

These poles (унь) form the roof, or at least the basis of the roof, of the ger. One end of each roof pole has a twine rope threaded through it. The other end is tapered.

Pillars

These pillars will hold up the roof of the ger. They are also highly decorated.

Ger coverings

Among the various sheets and covering that go in the ger are the canvas layer, the wall hanging, and the water-proof plastic tarp, all shown here.

These paper sheets - basically like a giant paper bag - also form part of the covering.

Felt sheets (эсгий)

Ger door (хаалга)

Next up: Assembling the framework...

Winterizing a Ger

Gers change through the year. In the summer, they're light and cool. In the winter, they're heavy and warm (provided you keep your fire going). To ensure this, they are modified twice a year. These processes are called "winterization" (дулаалах) and "summerization." Peace Corps has requirements about how and when the gers that volunteers live in are to be winterized. As you may recall, the frost came on September 7. Three days later, on September 10, my хашаа (hashaa) family came and said they were going to winterize my ger. Looking up at the bright sun, I thought, "Whatever," but we got down to work and worked up a sweat. There was more sweat on their part than mine, because I spent so much of the time taking pictures. My hashaa dad seemed to think it was funny, but they all understood that this was all really interesting to Americans, even though it was pretty mundane to them. Even though it didn't seem like winterizing was urgently necessary, the the Mongolians, naturally, turned out to be right: two days after that, we got our first snowfall.

Phase I: Adding Insulation

One of the great things about gers, compared to houses or apartments, is that you can easily take it apart, fix something, and put it back together without too much time, effort, a work permit, or contractor's license. Phase I consisted of improving the insulation of my ger by adding more felt. This is the biggest step in making the ger warmer. It can be compared to putting on thermal underwear in that you have to take off your clothes, put on your thermals, and put your clothes back on.

Step 1

The first step in winterization, naturally, is to strip the ger almost naked. The ropes are surrounding it are untied and the outer canvas layer and the waterproof covering are removed, exposing the layer of felt inside.

This is my felt-y ger with the blue tarp lying on top.

Step 2

The next step is to add more felt. Felt layers are what keeps insulates the ger. In the summer, there's only one layer, and in the winter there are usually two. You could add more, but I've been told that if you too much felt, if it gets wet, it won't dry out quickly enough and can get moldy. Each layer of felt actually consists of five or so separate pieces: three long rectangular sheets that go around the sides of the ger, and two pieces, shaped sort of like half-moons or wedge fries, that go over the top around the central opening.

Mongolian men hauling pieces of felt

Unless you're a giant you can't reach all the way across the top of the ger to pull the felt pieces up and lay them out neatly. We heaved the top pieces as far up the top as we could. We used a roof-pole to reach over the top, pick up the felt, and spread it out as needed. Then we pulled the felt back down to get it to the proper height.

A roof pole helps to manipulate the felt when it's out of reach on top of the ger.

Spreading out and pulling down a piece of felt on the roof

The men use scissors or knives to puncture a few places in a piece of felt. Then they run string through the holes in different pieces to tie all the felt together and keep it from falling off the ger.

Securing a piece of felt

We also put up a clothesline inside, because it will eventually get too cold to dry clothes outside.

Ger with new felt layers in place

Mongolians are wonderful with spontaneous, DIY responses to certain issues that come up in the middle of certain processes. In the case of my winterization, it turned out that the top felt pieces didn't completely cover my roof. So they made up the difference ... with a quilt made out of old clothes stitched together.

Notice the butt part of some jeans in the quilt draped across the top of my ger door.

Step 3

The last step of the insulation phase is just the reverse of the first step: putting back everything you took off in order to add more felt. We took this opportunity to add more plastic tarp as well, since I had some leaks the last time it rained heavily. At this point one of the other English teachers helped us, and since she is a short little woman, she was small enough to climb on top of the ger to smooth things out around the roof hole, without upsetting the balance of the ger.

Putting the tarp back on

Putting the outer canvas layer back on

Gers have two ropes that encircle the walls of the ger and secured to poles on either side of the door frame. They're another way of keeping the ger together.

Putting the encircling ropes back on. Left: history teacher; Top: English teacher; Right: hashaa dad / social worker

The top of the ger has an opening, which is covered with a square piece of cloth (not pictured). Each corner of the cloth has a rope attached to it. Three of these ropes - in the back and on the left and right sides of the ger - are threaded under and tied around the encircling ropes, then tied to a rock or brick on the bottom of the ger. The weight keeps the flap from blowing away in the wind. I think it also stabilizes the ger itself. Are there any engineers reading this who can explain how this works? The last rope - in the front - is not tied down with a brick. This way you pull it back to open the top of the ger, or pull it forward to close the top of the ger.

Tying a brick to one of the ropes running from the roof flap. In the larger view, notice that this rope is also tied around the ropes that run around the ger in a circle.

Phase II: Sealing the Bottom and Erecting the Ping

The second phase involved sealing the bottom of the ger with dirt and erecting a shed called a пин (ping) in front of the ger. For this phase, my hashaa dad recruited Class 10b students to do the dirty work.

Step 1

In preparation, students took strips of plastic tarp and put them around the base of the ger, tucking them into the lowest rope that runs around my ger.

Putting sections of tarp around the bottom of the ger

Strips of tarp tucked into the ropes

Then the students hauled buckets of dirt (not hard to find) over to my ger and dumped it around the base. When it surrounded my ger from one side of the door to the other, they ramped it up against the base and compacted it with their feet. The floor of the ger is always the coldest part, because cold air seeps in under the canvas and felt. The hard dirt blocks air coming in around most of the bottom. And in the event rain or melting snow dampens the dirt, the plastic protects the ger from moisture.

Hauling dirt

Compacting dirt

Step 2

Then they put up the ping. This was actually the small outdoor kitchen that my hashaa family used during the summer, taken apart and moved across the yard. The area in front of the ger door was cleared and a wooden floor put down. Then three wooden walls were put up, and finally a metal a roof, which also helped hold the whole thing together.

Making grooves for the crossbeams of the floor to fit into

With the floor of the shed in place, the walls can be put up

A little dirt is cleared from the bottom of the ger so the ping can be slid right up against the ger with no gap.

Fitting all the parts together and putting the roof on.

The inside of the ping

Ger with dirt ramps and new ping in place

Phase III: Windows

Phase III consisted of putting glass windows into the opening at the top of the ger. The windows actually rest on some wooden strips nailed to the sides of the beams inside the roof opening. With these in place, the flap can be opened a little bit to let light in, without letting warm air out.

Installing windows

Phase IV: Sealing the Ping

I don't have pictures, but later we ramped dirt around the bottom of the ping too, and put tied a rope from the roof to some heavy, rusty car part, probably for the same reason we tied bricks to the ropes from the ger's roof flap.

Phase V: Insulating the Door

The last addition to my winter ger was insulation for the door itself. This consisted of a sheet of felt, inside a pretty-looking cloth cover decorated with a traditional knot design. Hashaa dad set this up against the front of the door and secured it with some wooden strips nailed into the door through the cover. The sheet is bigger than the door itself, so it also covers the spaces between the door and the door frame.

Now my ger is all set for winter!