The real Nergui?

This intriguing story seems, even more intriguingly, to have slipped almost entirely beneath the radar in the UK.  I’ve seen mention of it only in the Independent newspaper although it’s also received limited coverage in the overseas media.  I’ll be keeping my eye out for more…

All those killings

I wrote in The Outcast about Mongolia’s uneasy relationship with China, and from time to time I’ve also blogged about the rise in extreme nationalism in Mongolia.  In The Guardian yesterday, Tania Branigan wrote very interestingly about the links between these two phenomena.  It’s difficult to know how seriously to take this.  It’s certainly not easy to take seriously the individual, quoted by Branigan, who says of Adolf Hitler: “We don’t agree with his extremism and starting the second world war. We are against all those killings, but we support his ideology. We support nationalism rather than fascism”.  Damian Thompson, picking up on Branigan’s article, writes thoughtfully on the Daily Telegraph‘s website about the growth in ‘Nazi chic’, and concludes by wondering whether Nazi imagery is being ‘trivialised’ by its adoption as a supposedly chic brand and, if so, whether that’s necessarily a bad thing. I don’t know, but I’d suggest that anyone who thinks Nazism is chic should perhaps read some history.  Or, if that’s too much trouble, have a listen to this performance of Pete Atkin and Clive James’s extraordinary song ‘Hill of Little Shoes’ performed by Coope Boyes and Simpson.

Dressed as a space alien

While the world of sumo is being rocked by takes of scandal and corruption, I’m pleased to see that the Mongolian former champion, the tremendous Asashoryu – himself no stranger to the attentions of the tabloid press – has taken time out to throw his not-inconsiderable weight behind Argentina in the World Cup.  This is perhaps not so surprising as Asashoryu has previously been dubbed the ‘Maradona of Sumo’ (although these days Maradona arguably looks more like the Asashoryu of football).  But I’m sure the team will welcome the endorsement ahead of this afternoon’s clash with Germany.

Hostile border relations

I wrote in The Outcast about some aspects of the often uneasy relationship between Mongolia and China.  Here’s an interesting piece which explores that relationship in some detail, highlighting in particular the worrying growth of a rather unpleasant streak of Mongolian nationalism.

This year has been too hard

One final post on Mongolia’s harsh winter, to draw your attention to this piece from GlobalPost, which contains some excellent photographs capturing the climatic cold and human warmth that is characteristic of the country.