Summary: In this blog post, I talk about weathering through another round of sickness, an opportunity I had to have lunch with someone from the US embassy, and a guest lecture I gave on "thinking outside the box."
My Body is not Invincible
I've definitely been sick more frequently in Mongolia than I've ever been back home. Normally, I get a bad flu or some bout of sickness, and then I'm good for the rest of the year. But in Mongolia, I've had something each month. I wasn't sure if it was the stomach flu or food poisoning this time, but it didn't really matter. All I know was that I felt like I was dying all week, and I could not retain any food or drink.
I was super thankful for a lifesaver friend who delivered a care package of painkillers, white bread, bananas, crackers, and vitamin water. After not eating food for a day, that first bite into the loaf of white bread was heavenly. Before then, I never knew that plain, tasteless crackers could taste so good.
During those endless hours of lying in bed, I began to think more seriously about health. Before signing the agreement to come here, I was warned about possible health effects caused by air pollution, food safety, the cold, and the general stresses of working abroad. (On the coldest days, the PM2.5 pollution levels can be 27 times higher than the level recommended by the World Health Organization). But of course, I just thought, oh I'm young, I can weather through this. It's during times like these where I question my naivete and realize that maybe my body is not invincible.
Discussing Foreign Affairs over Indian Food
In my little quest to meet more practitioners in international affairs in Mongolia, I got connected to someone who works at the US embassy. He's currently the head of political affairs and also happens to be a member of my church, so we had a really awesome conversation over lunch at Hazara, the best Indian restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. He described the political section as having three hats - to write and send briefs on political developments, lobby American interests at Mongolian meetings, and do event planning for any dignitaries that visit.
The nerd compartment of my brain also enjoyed learning and having conversations about the politics and economy here. Topics ranged from why McDonald's hasn't arrived in Mongolia to how Mongolia may serve as an effective, neutral platform for interstate dialogue in the future. When I brought up how I was helping plan the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security that will be held in June, he talked about how America's greatest yet very slim hope for the dialogue was that it could serve as a communication channel with North Korea. In some years, officials from North Korea have participated in the conference. Because the US and North Korea don't have much communication to begin with, the State Department is hoping that NK sends officials this year. The hope is that in the future, the UBD might be an effective platform because Mongolia seems to be the only country in Asia that maintains amiable relations with Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and America.
Guest Lecture
There's a statistics professor at our university who's from Korea, who my colleagues introduced me to. He's incredibly nice, but I do feel a bit of an imposter syndrome around him at times because he speaks to me in Korean, and my Korean is just so lackluster.
He told me how he would like to motivate his students and asked if I could give a guest lecture about "how big the world is." I don't know why I just say yes to things without giving much thought, but me saying yes led me to panicking the night before wondering what I was supposed to talk about for an hour with a vague prompt. I knew he wanted me to share my perspective with his students, as someone who grew up and was educated in the States. But I was so worried about coming off as a snobby American who comparatively talks about how amazing America is in a culturally insensitive way.
What I ended up lecturing on was "thinking outside the box." There's a video I often think about - the fleas in a jar experiment. If you leave fleas in a closed jar for three days, they won't jump out even if you take the lid off because they've been conditioned to think they can't jump out. I don't mean to stereotype, but as an outsider, I have observed a sense of powerlessness among my students. In our class discussions, my students can be quick to describe the challenges and limitations of their country but not talk about solutions. Don't get me wrong; there are some serious, hard challenges in Mongolia ranging from air pollution, political corruption, to the general difficulties of a low-income country. However, I hope that my bright students find their hope and determination to generate solutions.
In my lecture, I conveyed that sometimes we impose limits on ourselves, but as future leaders of this country, it's their responsibility to think outside the box to challenge the status quo, question the permanence of challenges, and then solve them. I shared how diversity and the encouragement to have different opinions in America have resulted in innovative leaders and companies to think outside the box and achieve greater heights.
A memorable conversation during the lecture was when we talked about limits in the university. Several students mentioned that they wished the university would create communal spaces where students can hang out or just study. I sympathized with them because some of my fondest college memories were made in the study spaces at the library or my dorm's common room. I then asked them, if anyone has tried asking the office for student spaces. None of them had tried. Then, I showed them a picture of Gilman Quad and shared how every week, there are students protesting against the university's investment in fossil fuels and a private police force. The students were shocked and amazed by this because such student activism is just unheard of. Hopefully, I didn't start some sort of revolution, but I challenged them to speak up and question what we think is "unchangeable."
That's it for this blog post. Thanks again for reading, and hope you all have a great week!
I’m inspired