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.
POLAND-GERMANY RIFT: Warsaw’s response to Berlin over a NATO system that would increase the alliance’s involvement in the war came as Kyiv accused Russia of war crimes Anti-missile systems that Germany offered to send to Poland should instead go to Ukraine, the Polish government said on Thursday, a proposal that is likely a nonstarter for Berlin because it would significantly ratchet up NATO involvement in Ukraine. Poland’s surprising response to Berlin’s offer was welcomed by Ukraine, which is desperate to protect its airspace as barrages of Russian missiles have knocked out power across the country. German Minister of Defense Christine Lambrecht said that use of NATO defense systems outside its territory needs to be agreed by all member states. “It is important to us that Poland can rely on allies
MONEY-MAKING SCHEME: Some students said they were misled about study or work opportunities, or were not told that they were coming to a self-proclaimed republic Foreign students are big business in northern Cyprus, a tiny, breakaway statelet only recognized by Turkey, but some warn that university recruiters are selling “dreams” in the internationally and economically isolated territory. One Nigerian student, who asked to remain anonymous, said he expected to arrive in the country whose soccer teams compete in European tournaments. Instead, when he saw the currency was the embattled Turkish lira, he realized this was “not the Cyprus I thought it was.” The Mediterranean island is divided between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and a northern statelet established after Turkey launched a 1974 invasion in
AWAITING EXTRADITION: Daniel Duggan has been classified as ‘extreme high risk,’ has not been allowed to use stationery and has been denied treatment, his lawyer said The lawyer for a former US military pilot arrested in Australia and facing possible extradition to the US said that his client was wrongly classified as an “extreme high-risk” prisoner, and he had asked the attorney-general to release him. Former US Marines pilot Daniel Edmund Duggan was arrested in New South Wales in October at the request of the US government, the same week the UK announced a crackdown on its former military pilots working to train Chinese military fliers. The US must lodge an extradition request for Duggan by Dec. 20 under a bilateral treaty, a Sydney court was told yesterday.
WARTIME DIPLOMACY: Zelenskiy met EU leaders and hosted the International Summit on Food Security, which included discussions on agricultural exports from Ukraine Fleeing shelling, civilians on Saturday streamed out of the southern Ukrainian city whose recapture they had celebrated just weeks earlier. The exodus from Kherson came as Ukraine solemnly remembered a Stalin-era famine and sought to ensure that Russia’s war in Ukraine does not deprive others worldwide of its vital food exports. A line of trucks, vans and cars, some towing trailers or ferrying out pets and other belongings, stretched 1km or more on the outskirts of the city of Kherson. Days of intensive shelling by Russian forces prompted a bittersweet exodus: Many civilians were happy that their city had been won back, but
RSS