Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind. – Anthony Bourdain

Stereotypes while traveling continues to be a rather complicated symptom for fellow wanderers abroad.  In this post, I will share a personal experience that I recently encountered during my recent travels abroad in Mongolia.

On a recent sojourn into the Mongolian countryside for two weeks, I resided with a Mongolian herder family. Every day, I would help the family herd their goat and sheep herds (sometimes on horseback), sing to baby goat kids in order to coax them to drink their mother’s milk, and watch sheep give birth to little sticky yellow blobs of lamb upon the steppe. It was an amazing experience and I loved every moment of it. However, during this immersive period of time, I was given ample time to delve deeper into the facets of how stereotypes are still navigated, especially across a rural landscape. Nonetheless, my travels in Mongolia were some of my most favorite memories. Mongolia is a country that I have grown to love and admire the more I travel and learn about the culture.

However, one of the most unforgettable memories observed in the countryside interestingly involved the topic of rape and television…

This unforgettable story began when my little 12-year-old host sister turned on the satellite TV in our ger (yurt) to a rather violent TV show. As a guest in the ger, I felt like it wasn’t my right to turn off the TV set, especially when I did not know how to work their TV since it was all connected with random wires and electrical clips. I also felt it was not my place to judge what my host sister chose to watch and whether her family allowed her to watch it. I was a stranger in a new environment and was still unsure of my place within their comfort. However, during this time, it was only my host sister and me in the ger. By the time my host mother returned from herding sheep, a rape scene from the TV suddenly appeared on the screen. My host mother immediately rushed over to me to shield my eyes from the scene…

I was a bit surprised from this reaction because of how my host mother chose to shield my eyes from the rape scene rather than her 12-year-old daughter who was also watching the television… What did that mean? 

So here are a few of my hypotheses for navigating this intriguing event:

1. Are foreigners in the Mongolian countryside considered naive and unknowing of “worldly” things because of the lack of being familiar with the processes of herding and the daily lifestyles of the steppe? The reason I write this is many times I would find two or three goat kids placed in my arms and not know what I was supposed to do with them… most of the activities I was given was not naturally instinctual for me and I had no clue what I was doing or where I belonged when helping the family out. This could have given my host family the impression of me (and perhaps of Westerners) as being naive and not prepared for the world and therefore, viewed as a younger individual in the family.
2. I am unmarried therefore I must be a virgin and unknowing of sex.
3. They did not want to scare me with the darknesses of the world.
4. The mother felt embarrassed or ashamed about her guest (me) watching that kind of show.
5. She wanted to save face.
6. I am overthinking this situation.
7. It’s a mystery!

Now, concerning why my host sister was allowed to watch the rather exaggerated rape scene on TV still baffles me. This could very well be my own cultural judgment and/or ethnocentrism on parental supervision and parenting. However this experience heightened my curiosity on how the topics of sex and rape are discussed and taught in the rural parts of the country and beyond. I also am intrigued by what age is considered “proper” to talk about sex and losing one’s virginity. What is the usual age for females in the countryside to have sex? Is it usually sex before marriage? Yet, all these questions are not really specific to Mongolia since sex is a taboo topic among many regions and cultures around the world. This curiosity of mine stretches far beyond the Mongolian border.

I think that the mother’s reaction was entirely understandable because the show opened a door into a world of taboo, embarrassment, and discomfort and she wanted to close it immediately in the presence of company and giving a good impression of her family and rural life. It is perfectly normal. I think that I, too, would have done the same in her situation if company was around in order to refrain from any bad impressions.

This situation, anthropologically, was interesting to observe nonetheless for it is something that can be seen throughout the world. The situation I experienced opened up another scope to the questions of how certain taboo topics are taught and discussed around the world and how I, as an outsider, should be mindful of when observing certain scenarios and not judge this as a country specific event for it is not. This experience was only a glimpse of how certain taboo topics are regarded in the world. As an American, sex is also a topic that is not oft openly discussed. I am just curious now as to why and how it got that way since sex is such a natural and instinctual process in human biology.

Thinking of this leads me to a thought experiment of how can one infer that most stereotypes and misunderstandings addressed while traveling abroad are really a mystery blanketed by cultural, religious and even historical observations? Or is it simply just being human and such interactions translate among everyones social norms?

Nevertheless, I am interested in how others think of this situation I brought back from the Mongolian countryside.

How do you perceive this story? Any other hypotheses to add?

Sincerely,

The Wandering Ghost

Banner image taken by me in Mongolian countryside.