Living On Purpose: Tsagaan Sar 2014

2014 is the Year of the Horse

The festival of the lunar New Year, Tsagaan Sar, is celebrated in or around February depending on the Mongolian lunar calendar. It generally coincides with other lunar New Year celebrations, like the Chinese. Tsagaan Sar, meaning White Month or Moon, is one the main two big public annual events, next to the Nadaam. It marks the end of Winter and the beginning of spring and the new year´s cycle.

The Celebration
The day before New Years Day is known as Bituun, meaning “to close down”. At the eve of the old year there is a celebration called Bituuleg. There is a big amount of “covered food”, where the meat is covered by for instance a layer of dough. Also the Ul Boov is created: a pile of ceremonial bread (boov) in an odd number of layers. Later traditional games can be played, and oral histories are told. It is said that at Bituun Baldanlham, a local god, is riding her mule during this time. She would be coming by three times so every family puts three pieces of ice on the top of the door of the ger, or on the balcony for people living in an apartment, for the mule to drink.

On the morning of the New Year traditionally the head of the family goes outside and walks in a direction which is prescribed in a book of Buddhist astrology. During New Years day itself the children honour their senior relatives. They start with their parents and then following the rules of genealogical seniority the other relatives, traditionally presenting them an amount of white food or pastry, but nowadays more and more other gifts as well. White and blue scarves, khadag, are presented to the most honoured. The rest of the festival which goes on for several days, is a celebration of present kinship. It is an occasion to publicly define your kin. A Buryat person once said his kin-group is all the people he visits at Tsagaan Sar.

Traditionally the celebration would last for three days, but a period of seven days is currently aloud for visiting people and up to a month for wishes.

I was fortunate to visit my host family for Tsagaan Sar this year. It was an amazing time, and so nice to see them for the first time in almost 2 years. I was able to see my host brother last summer briefly when I was in Selenge, but my host mom and sister were both in Korea. We had a great time catching up, and simply enjoying one another's company.

My site mate Jerome visited his host family as well, so we ended up traveling to Selenge together. Over 1000 km traveled, a russian van packed with 20 people for 19 hours, and a 6 hour train ride later, we arrived in Sukhbaatar, Selenge. I stayed with my host family for 5 days, afterwards I met up with some fellow PCV's who were in town celebrating Tsagaan Sar with their host families. After visiting their host families and my Mongolian language teacher, we departed Selenge for Orkhon soum to facilitate a youth life skills seminar. I've posted some pictures below from our trip. Enjoy!

Check out my post from last year Tsagaan Sar 2013!!!
Orkhon Soum Post Coming Soon!

The Trip to Selenge

Altai Bus Station

Our Meeker (Russian Van)

Rest stop

Lunch Stop

Sunset in Bayanhongor

Yes, there were 20 people crammed into this 12 person meeker…never again!

Thank God! We arrived in one piece safe and sound to UB.

After a day of relaxing and regaining our strength in UB, we departed for Selenge by train.

On the train.

Trees!! We don't have many in the Gobi, so its always a nice site to see.

Sunset over the steppe in Selenge.

This little girl was wrapped so tight in preparation for her stop that she could barely move. So cute! It reminds me of the brother from a Christmas Story.