On a cold night in the Gobi, a tourist van, limping on three tires and a steel rim, bounced up to a ger, the circular tent of the desert nomads.
After peering into the tent, the three young tourists asked the herdsmen inside for help. The men grouchily gave them a choice: watch the last half of a South Korean soap opera on television, or wait it out under the stars.
"They were just too busy to notice us," Khorolsuren Byambasuren, the tour guide, said here, still miffed at the memory of her mid-September mishap. "They waited until midnight, when Min Sung-yong happily met Kim In-ha, at the last part of Intrigues of the Life. Then the guys enthusiastically helped us, and we were on our way to the tourist camp at 3am."
Mongolia's ancient hospitality takes a holiday during the time slot for dubbed South Korean soap operas. With Mongolia's two main television channels showing South Korean movies daily, a giant Do Not Disturb sign goes up every evening across this sparsely populated land.
Mongolians and Koreans are ethnically related peoples cut off by centuries of history. In the 13th century, Mongolians swept across China and down the Korean Peninsula, and were on the brink of invading Japan until several naval disasters changed their minds.
Mongolia's occupation of Korea left linguistic affinities, shared genes and wild horse herds, known to this day as Mongolians, on the South Korean island of Cheju, the staging base for the frustrated invasion of Japan.
Today's bonds reflect, to some degree, the solidarity of two small nations living on the edges of a rising China. Commercially, Mongolia is an outpost for Korean business. On an ethnic level, Koreans and Mongolians are like fraternal twins.
Advertising banners here implore "UB"girls to try a cosmetics line from Seoul, Ulan Bator's new style maker. For ad campaigns in Mongolia, South Korean companies do not bother to reshoot with local models.
"It works -- our features are that similar," Byambasuren said over lunch at a sidewalk cafe.
Kim Sung-chul, a South Korean pastor who has been here three years, said, "We look the same; our skin is the same; our grammar structure is the same."
Since 1999, the year Kim Dae-jung, then South Korea's president, flew here, the Ulan Bator-Seoul route has been one of the busiest for Korean Air and Mongolian Airlines.
Remittances from Mongolians working in South Korea have become an important source of income to this nation of 2.5 million. With 20,000 Mongolians in South Korea, the country now has more Mongolians than Japan, Europe and the US combined.
While some Mongolians say they are put off by a Korean arrogance, many Koreans say the advantages are there for both sides.
"After two years, Koreans can speak Mongolian," said Kim Wan-jin, a translator.
"But it is even easier for Mongolian people to learn Korean," Kim said.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS