The Naadam Festival is a truly nation-wide event. It has origins that call upon centuries of tradition, with archery, wrestling, and horse riding as the primary events. It brings a majority of the population of the capitol city Ulaanbaatar into the country for a week of festivities, competitions, car camping, and more.
Our experience of Naadam was entirely in Sagsai, where we lived for one month. Our host family’s daughter Nezerke walked with us from our home to the southwest corner of town where the one-day festival was held at the town stadium. Vendors were setup to sell similar products available in the many local shops, with the addition of soft serve ice cream and familiar carnival games. Slowly the stadium filled with members of the local military base, tourists, and locals. There appeared to be far more tourists at the festival than we believe were staying in town, perhaps coming up from Ulgii for the day.
Many of our students greeted us but were keen to find their friends. The mayor spoke, and then a few others. Archery was the first competition, held in a field further down the road. The bows were a relatively soft pull, with arrows whose points were covered in a leather or cloth ball. The goal was to lob the arrow such that it would strike just to the front of a large ball of what appeared to be twine, on the ground, causing it in turn to roll backward past a certainly line, but not too far, if I understood the objective clearly. [I recognize that what I observed contradicts the explanation I have read on-line where mention of stacked cylinders must be knocked down. I will review my video to confirm, then reach out to our host family for their explanation.]
Colleen and I were invited into the fenced area, joining our host who we later learned is an air traffic controller in Ulaanbaatar. With his brother and friends he had been competing for many years, traveling to several Naadam festivals in one week. We were given hot milk-tea, sweet-cheese snacks, and fermented mare’s milk.
We returned to the main festival to watch the wrestling. In its formality, grace, and obvious application of balance and strength it reminded me of Japanese sumo wrestling. Some of the battles were quick to be over, while others found the two men in a single, share posture long enough to have been mistaken for a statue, only to be broken again by one quick, ultimate move. The take-downs were far from brutal. Rather, as English teacher Esther noted, they were gentle. And when the the round was won, there was a demonstration of flight with the motion of arms outstretched and legs prancing. It didn’t feel like the goal-post antics of the NFL players, but a demonstration of respect for the opponent and the sport.
The horse racing was perhaps the most engaging, but Colleen and I needed time to ourselves after an intense three weeks. We opted to just sit on our fold-out bed and drink tea, eat biscuits, and write emails. It was a wonderful way to close a day of observing and learning in Mongolia.
