The Three Hills of Misfortune 3

This is my last post with a picture of the Three Hills of Misfortune.  Again, I thought it was a beautiful ballet.  The costumes reminded me a bit of Ukrainian dance (particularly the men's costumes).  This is my favourite photo from Three Hills of Misfortune.  I couldn't get a non-blurry photo because I had to turn off my flash and the dancers wouldn't stand still for long enough for me to get a good shot.  I think the blurriness kind of adds to, rather than detracts from, this photo, though.  :)

In other news, I had a rather unfortunate and unsettling incident on the bus yesterday.  I started off this week on top of the world.  I didn't tell you before, but at the ballet on Sunday night, I met a boy.  I really like him.  He's cute and smart and really, really nice.  We made plans to go to the opera together this coming Saturday.  And we might bake a pumpkin pie together for American Thanksgiving (even though it's not Thanksgiving for me).  I was so excited about meeting this awesome guy, I felt nothing could ruin my good spirits this week.  Nothing whatsoever.  I was wrong.  Yesterday, I was assaulted on the bus.  For doing nothing at all.  I was sitting there, just minding my own business, when this crazy rabid bitch (a person, not a dog) attacked me.  She punched me in the face (she had a wimpy punch, though, so it didn't hurt), kicked me in the legs (again, she had a rather wimpy kick, so it was ok), and then she grabbed handfuls of my hair and pulled as hard as she could (that /did/ hurt).  Then, she starts bashing my head against the wall in the bus.  She had my head down and she was pulling my hair, so it was hard for me to put my head up to see, but I tried to hit her back anyway (I mean, I had to protect myself).  Finally, at last, I managed to grab on to a handful of her hair, and I think I was actually just about to get the upper hand when two people got in between us.  Funny how when she was kicking the shit out of me, none of the Mongolians on the bus got up to help, but when I started to fight back, there were immediately two guys in between us.  She is a lucky bitch.  At the risk of making myself sound like a crazy bitch, I wanted to pummel her.  I wanted to pummel her face over and over and over again.  I wanted to beat that bitch black and blue.  I wanted to knock her down and kick her senseless.  I did muay thai for three years, and I believe I would have been capable of this.  Never in my life have I ever wanted to beat someone up as badly as I wanted to beat her up (I have actually never ever until yesterday even remotely had the desire to even slap a stranger, but when you're attacked out of nowhere for nothing, it makes you want to fight back).  She is extremly lucky I didn't fight back (much).  She's lucky that the only fighting back I did was in the interest of defending myself.  She's lucky that I did not fight back in the interest of defending myself and of hurting her.  She's just incredibly lucky, that's all I can say.  I don't know how I held myself back (I could have gotten past those two guys in between us), but I did, and I guess that makes me a better person.

As I'm typing this, I'm reminded about the incident a few summers ago on the Greyhound bus in Canada.  I guess I'm lucky the crazy bitch didn't have any knives or guns on her, or else things might have been much, much worse.  As it is, my hair is considerably thinner today than it was yesterday (yesterday, after the incident, as I ran my fingers through my hair, I was also pulling out handfuls and handfuls of hair), and my neck and shoulders are killing me, but other than that, I am fine.  I need a hug.  I need someone to hug me while I cry.  But I'll be fine.  It doesn't make me think too much of Mongolians right now.  When I look at my colleagues or my students, I try to remind myself that they are not the same as the girl on the bus, that the bus incident is an isolated incident, that the people who are normally around me are good people.  Still, I can't help feeling that when my contract finishes, I will be out of here so fucking fast, they'll never see me go, and I never plan on looking back.  The only thing that is getting me through this week now is how much I'm looking forward to seeing the boy this weekend.

The Mugging #2

I've been going to bed too late lately, and I'm extremely tired because I think I need more sleep than the average person (I have an autoimmune disease, and quite often, people with autoimmune diseases do need more sleep than normal people), so I decided to go to bed early last night for a change.  Yeahhh!  Wrong.  At 1:30 in the morning, I get a knock on my door.  I ignore it because I'm asleep and it's the middle of the night and I don't want to ruin the first night in a long time that I have decided to treat myself to a good night's sleep.  Then, I hear people in the hallway outside my door having a loud discussion.  This is terrible, because the sound in my building travels ridiculously well, and the hallway echoes, which meant that I could hear everything in my apartment.  And it did disturb my sleep.  So finally, I get up to look outside and think I might ask everyone to be quiet or to take the conversation into someone's apartment and close the door so they don't have to disturb me.  When I look outside, I see that it's my boss and my neighbour.  My neighbour, the same guy who got mugged a few weeks ago.  And he drinks too much.  So I start to put two and two together, and figure he's probably drunk and lost his keys or something.  And I don't want to get involved because in many countries in Asia, you lose face just by involving yourself in a situation.  So I close my door and try to go back to bed.  But they continue being as loud as ever, so finally, I get up and go out of my apartment and I go up to them.  My neighbour is like, "Duuuuuuuuuude," (he is obviously very drunk) "There's nothing.  There's nothing in my apartment."  Whereupon, I assume he means that he has been robbed and there is, in fact, nothing in his apartment, so for just a second I am really concerned for him, but then he continues, "I went to the club and I was going to get some ____________, but it was a lie!  It was a lie!  They didn't have any ______________.  So I was on my way home in the taxi and they took it.  They took everything.  They took... they took like... a hundred dollars!  They took a hundred dollars.  And they took my cigarettes.  And they took my keys. And I can't get in.  I sleep here tonight."  And he sits down on the floor in the hallway.  Which I kind of felt like it was a request for someone to invite him into their apartment for the night.  No fucking way!  I need my sleep, and when he's drunk, he tries to do inappropriate things like tickle my feet and stuff, and I need my sleep, and I don't fancy the guy, and I don't fancy not getting any sleep because he's in my apartment for the night.  So, I just turn around and walk back into mya apartment and hope he doesn't notice me go.  I mean, should I feel bad that I don't feel bad for him at all?  I mean, last time he got mugged, I felt extremely sorry for him.  I went out looking for him with his girlfriend (see my post from October called "The Mugging"), and when we found him, I brought him back home, and I helped him find a way into his apartment (because he had also lost his keys that time, too), and I stayed with him until he calmed down, and I actually even cook for him, but all he did was insult my cooking because he had seen me put a little salt in it, so he decided that it was too salty, so instead of fucking thanking me, he just insults my cooking.  Okay, I had thought, he's drunk and upset, I'll let it slide.  But the next day, once he was sober, the one thing he seems to remember is that he thought my cooking was too salty (which it wasn't-- he was just a drunk idiot and likely doesn't know what good food is).  And that kind of hurt my feelings because I had taken a good four or five hours out of my evening, which I had intended to be a relaxing evening, to help him out.  And that's the kind of thank you I get.  But I did still feel bad for him that he had the awful experience of being mugged.  I mean, it sounded terrible.  But, I figured he had probably learned from that time.  I mean, he had been drunk and alone, and it was getting dangerously close to dark.  I mean, I definitely learned from his mugging experience.  The things I took away from it were in the form of a few rules I made for myself: (1) no public drunkenness, ever, under any circumstances; (2) don't carry anything that will make me look like an appealing target to a mugger (I try not to carry my camera with me too often, I try to bring only what I can fit into my pockets so I won't have to bring a purse, and I carry less than 10,000Tugrug with me at all times); (3) avoid taking the so-called taxis here in Ulaanbaatar; and (4) if I can avoid it, I don't go out after dark.  I just assumed that my neighbour had also learned at least a few of these lessons from his first mugging experience, so now that I find that he in fact learned fuck-all, and he thinks it's okay to disturb my sleep because of it, no, I don't have any pity or sympathy.  I mean, yes, I know that opportunistic crime is rampant here, but that's just the thing-- it's opportunistic.  Just don't give them the fucking opportunity.  This guy insists on going out to clubs, getting wasted, and coming home alone in taxis.  He's begging to get mugged, and he's gotta know it.  So I wasn't sorry for him.

Anyway, about my picture today, I saw this dude with a snorkel fitted onto his SUV.  Traffic was monstrous, so he snaked past me a few times, and finally I decided to get my camera out.  I mean, it's like, 'Dude, you live on the Steppe. WTF do you need a snorkel on your SUV for?'  He must have thought I was crazy for taking his picture because, as you can see, he gave me quite the look when I took a picture of his vehicle.

The Mugging

Puujee sits in my kitchen.  I'm worried about Andy, she says.  He called her at 2:00 drunk, and she hasn't heard from him since.  He's not answering his phone.  It's 5:00 now.  I try to tell her that it's okay.  I tell her that he's probably just passed out at the wedding somewhere.  She looks doubtful.  No, she says, Mongolians are bad guys and they will do something bad to him.  I'm really worried, she says.  Have some tea, I say, and I pour her a mug.  She just sits and looks at it.  Five minutes later, five minutes too late, I realise that this is her way of asking for help.  Would you like me to go with you to look for him if I put some clothes on, I offer (I'm always in my pyjamas when I'm at home).  She nods, yeah.  I tell her to give me five minutes to get dressed, and then we're off.  We decide to look at the hotel where the wedding was held first.  On our way to the hotel, we try to keep our conversation light, but I can tell that Puujee is still worried.  And rightfully so.  Not far from home, we find Andy.  He is on his way home.  He's stumbling and he isn't walking in a straight line.  He's obviously drunk, but he looks very dazed.  His face is red, and I can't tell whether he's been hit or not.  His pants and boxers are torn at the crotch.  Puujee runs across the street without even checking for traffic.  I take my time and make sure no crazed motorists are aiming for me.  When Andy sees Puujee, he flies into a rage.  Fuck you bitch, he says.  He spits at her.  He keeps telling her to fuck off.  He keeps saying that he's alive and that's all that matters, and she doesn't care.  Puujee just stands there looking stunned.  I tell him that Puujee does care, that she was worried sick, that she thought something bad might happen to him, and she made me come with her to look for him.  He just spits at her again.  I tell her that I'll take him home (he's my neighbour, after all) and that maybe it's best, while he's in this state, that she go to her own home.  She nods.  I take Andy home, trying to support him, make sure he doesn't trip or slip.  I try to keep him away from other pedestrians.  They look frightened.  I would be, too.  I can't understand much of what Andy is saying, but he keeps saying that he's alive and he wishes he were like me.  He thinks I probably think he's psychotic, and I tell him no, I actually think when you're sober you're a very intelligent person.  I get him home; he doesn't have his keys.  Or his phone.  Or his wallet.  Shit.  I don't have a phone either.  How will I get him into his apartment.  I tell him to stay in my apartment because I think it's better if nobody sees him like this.  He nods.  I go out looking for someone who might be able to help me get him into his apartment, and I wonder what I'll say to them to get them to open up his door for me.  In the hallway, I see Puujee.  She came back.  Thank god.  She's got a spare set of keys.  I tell her that he's in a very bad state, and I think it's probably best that she not stay.  She nods.  She opens the dorr, and then hides around the corner.  I go into my place and tell Andy that his apartment is open.  I tell him to let me check first to make sure that no one is in the hall, because I think it's best if no one sees him like this.  I bring him to his apartment, and he immediately starts looking for Puujee.  He even checks in drawers.  It would be kind of cute if it wasn't so sad.  Puujee!, he keeps calling.  She steps out from around the corner, but he can't see her.  We gesture to each other.  Should she come in?  In the end, she decides to come in.  Andy gets upset because he thinks I'm uncomfortable.  He tells Puujee to make me comfortable.  We decide that maybe now I should leave.  I tell Puujee that if she needs any help at all, to just knock on my door.  She nods again.  Fifteen minutes later, I decide to go check on them.  I hear raised voices and Puujee saying that something is hurting, so I knock on the door.  She opens it in tears and says that she has to leave.  I'll take care of Andy for the rest of the night.  He immediately forgets about that episode, and he starts asking for Puujee.  I tell him I'm pretty sure that she's gone for the night.  He keeps asking.  I feel sad for him.  I make him some pasta and tell him he should eat.  I sit with him in his apartment.  Finally I ask him if he feels safe and I tell him that I'm going to go back to my own apartment now.  He nods like a little boy.  Like a lost little boy.

The next morning, I see Andy again.  You were mugged yesterday, right?, I ask.  Oh definitely, he says.  I tell him I wasn't quite sure last night.