Strange Conversations in Mongolia

This morning I arrived in Ulaan Baator. Mongolia is one of my favorite places, and the local guide here is one of my favorite people on the road. Very friendly, very cheerful, very educated. We get on quite well in a travelers' camaraderie sort of way, but we've never had a terribly serious conversation about anything outside of tourism. So I was taken aback this morning when, at 7am, he asked me about homosexuality.
"You know, the last group that came here, there were a lot of people who were..."(vaguely illustrative wrist flaps)"...gays."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he continued, "there were five of them. I think it is a record for one trip."
"I see." I wasn't sure where this was going but I was fairly sure the conversation would become awkward for me very quickly. I was right.
In an outburst he suddenly said, "what makes them become like this, these homosexuals? How can they...why do they...What makes them become gay?"
I didn't quite know what to answer. Delicate subjects are best discussed at times other than 7am-post-overnight-train-pre-breakfast. I started to answer with an "um," but he continued.
"I think they are very ugly. I think maybe they're so ugly that no woman would have them. That's why they look at each other. And lesbians? I think maybe they always fought with their fathers. Maybe their first boyfriends were bad. That's why they don't like men."
I had to answer something, however unpopular the response.
"Actually...I think it's biology."
He looked shocked.
"Biology? No, there is no reason for it to be biology." His expression of shock grew as the idea expanded in his mind. "If it was biology...that would mean there would be gay people here...Mongolian people...no, it can't be."
He was clearly at a loss.
I said something about it being ten percent of the population worldwide, and he answered with a hmph and a change of subject. I thought it was just as well. It was a strange way to start the morning.

In some ways his question surprised me. Not so much the question itself, but the fact that it came from him. He knows a lot about Mongolia, its culture and its history, much more so than the average citizen. He knows that in shamanism here hermaphrodites were once considered sacred. (I know this because the subject came up in somebody's joke once and he didn't understand the English word. When the term had been explained he said yes, people like these used to be special shamans). Given that he knew this, I'm surprised that he considered the possibility of homosexuality in Mongolia shocking. But maybe he thinks that's all in the past. Nothing continues today.

Later in the afternoon, I saw part of the movie "V for Vendetta" dubbed in Mongolian, playing on the tv in the hotel lobby. It was the part of the film where Evey is in prison, receiving messages from the cell next door. The life and loves of Valerie were there onscreen, a lesbian narrative dubbed in Mongolian, and I have to assume the translation was accurate. But none of the hotel staff seemed to be paying attention. I wished that the local guide was there to see the movie. I don't know if it would have helped. But I think that the main thing that makes homosexuality scary for people is its unfamiliarity. The guide asked in his outburst about gay people, why they didn't want "another half, a partner." I didn't get a chance to say that they do want those things, just in a different form. But I think if more people were exposed to homosexuality they would realize it's simply a relationship composed in a different way.

And with that thought, I'm going to finally go to sleep and end my obscenely long day.

Chinese and Mongolian Pride

I thought, since I posted about Moscow Pride (or rather, the lack thereof in any official sense), that I should post something about Pride in other places as well. For Russia, Moscow and St. Petersburg are the only places large and cosmopolitan enough to be contenders for pride events in a relatively conservative country. Moscow we've already established had Pride planned and then shut down. Googling St. Petersburg Pride gave me lots of results for St. Petersburg, Florida (biggest Pride event in the Southeast, apparently), but none whatsoever for Russia. It's possible that I just didn't look hard enough. But for all intents and purposes, Russian Pride cannot be officially found.

What about Chinese Pride? As I left Beijing I found an article about the first ever set of gay pride events in China being planned in Shanghai. They were largely being organized by expats, and all advertisements for the events were circulated in English. It was thought that if the events were billed as entertainment for foreigners they would attract less government attention. Which was mostly right. When the time came to hold the festivities, some were indeed shut down. But most took place as scheduled. I find it ironic that between Russia and China, the country that's widely considered to have a much more repressive government was the one that allowed gay pride events to take place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/asia/15shanghai.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/15/shanghai-pride-china-gay_n_215785.html

What about Mongolia? Since I've been there recently also I feel I shouldn't leave it out. To the best of my knowledge, Mongolia has no organized pride events, and any gay culture is very, very underground. But there were Mongolian participants at a pride event last January in Thailand. So clearly, some kind of scene exists.

http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/2008/01/30/2000.chiangmais-first-gay-pride-march