For those of you that happen to read this, it's becoming clear that I post about as often as I floss.
And for those of you that happen to be Dr. Tom Hathorn DDS, it's becoming clear that I lie about how much I floss about as often as I get my teeth cleaned.
Regardless, the following post is a list of the wonderful experiences I've had while trying to secure the same lifestyle I maintain in America, naively trying to make a system much larger than I can possibly ever fathom conform to the exact specifications of one person.
1) WHERE'S MY SHAVING CREAM?
So as it turns out, Mongolians don't use shaving cream. Go figure. Dry shaving and soap, my friends. I've been all over. Super markets. Gas stations. The State Department store (which specializes in imports). Grocery stores. Barber shops.
The best I've found are tiny Gillette containers that come free with nice razors. For a while, I entertained the notion of buying 14 new razors just for the shaving cream, but the thought of throwing away that many razors bothered me too much, so I held out. Fortunately, my friend Mr. Falt had mailed himself some from America and hooked me up. I immediately shaved off the weird looking thick goatee that had developed (thanks for the genes, Dad), and felt the smooth skin of my face with an appreciation that Tiny Tim must have felt when he discovered he could walk without crutches again.
2) NO SIR, WE DON'T SERVE VANILLA MILKSHAKES.
So check this out: There is no McDonald's here. Word on the street is that McDonald's doesn't think they would have enough locations successful in Mongolia to make hiring management profitable, so they won't franchise out here. HOWEVER, they sell all of their materials from China out to a Mongolian company called Big Burger (yea, I know I can't imagine how long it took their board of directors to come up with such a creative name, right?) which repackages all the food and sells it here in Mongolia.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't usually eat at Big Burger. I usually graciously accept whatever weird nonsense that passes for food here is handed to me and eat it like a champ, with a smile on my face and a look that says, "I appreciate your culture and that you are sharing it with me."
But sometimes, I just can't live the lie any longer, and I need a satisfaction that only fried potatoes and grilled beef can give a man (and yes, by "satisfaction", I do mean "life-shortening effect").
The other day, however, I was deeply saddened to see that the milkshake menu included only two flavor choices, neither of which are industry standard. Banana and Strawberry. Now, let's face it, only the weirdos and your little brother get Strawberry flavored milkshakes, and banana doesn't even enter the picture. Real people get vanilla or chocolate.
So I asked. Where art thou vanilla?
No vanilla. No chocolate. I immediately understood. It must be premixed and come in big bags that are frozen and ejected in streams by the machines. I worked at Sonic long enough in high school to know how that works, so I passed on the milkshake and got a Coke.
BUT I WAS DECEIVED...for while waiting in line for my fries, I noticed another customer order a strawberry shake, and out of boredom watched them make it. They started with scoops of vanilla. Added the strawberry. Added the ice. And mixed it. They also had chocolate syrup on hand for the sundae's, which means they could definitely make either chocolate or vanilla shakes.
"Wait, can you make a vanilla shake?" (This was all translated, btw (recursive parenthesis: btw is "by the way" for all of you people that actually have lives).) <--(Some people forget the second parenthesis when they put one inside another. I never forget. Thank you, Matlab. Nerd joke for all my engineering/compsci friends out there. For the rest of you, I'll get back to the writing now.)
"No, we can't."
"What if I order a strawberry milkshake and you just leave out the strawberry?"
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I want just the vanilla."
"We don't make vanilla."
Conversation clearly becoming cyclical here. I realize I would be better suited to just order a strawberry and stop them from adding it myself. I do that. It results in mass confusion and hysteria, and although I got the vanilla milkshake out of it, the workers seemed like they needed a few therapy sessions to recover from the damage of having to make a strawberry shake without strawberries. Next time, I'm going to go for the big chocolate shake, but I don't want to push people too far in one week. They need time to adjust to this new way of thinking about shakes.
3)WHO PUT THIS CORN ON MY PIZZA?
And the one you've all been waiting for.
Sometimes I get a hankering for food that doesn't exist here. Which is really easy to do, of course, because:
The Mongolian diet is 98% cow. The Mongolians use cow for everything. Food. Toothpaste. Glue. Wallpaper. Etc.
It's like George Washington Carver with his peanuts, but these people have beaten his usage count by about 2 million. (For those of you that just googled G.W Carver and subsequently got lost on his Wikipedia page, I salute you.)
Fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive and hard to find here, because a lot of it has to be imported. As a result, apples actually cost twice as much here as in the states, which is crazy, because the average wage here is about a twentieth of the average in the states. As a result, people have found a lot of different ways to cook beef, and there really aren't very many vegetarians here. (I also wish to note that there are very many Indians here, either, ahha. Eh. Alright, that wasn't very funny.)
Besides the veggie problem, because dockspace is non-existent here, no fresh fish is available, and it has to be shipped in from other locations. As a result, I'm really not exaggerating when I say that beef is what's for dinner.
The other day, it occurred to me that I hadn't had a good pizza in ages, so I stopped by a place called MR. PIZZA. (There is also a MR. CHICKEN and a MR. FISH SET (whatever that means) and also a MR. CHICKEN AND FISH SET, which makes me wonder why there isn't a MR. PIZZA AND CHICKEN, and other permutations, although I suspect pizza and chicken don't compliment each other as well as chicken and fish).
Anyway, I'm repeating this name in my head and looking at the menu images of these big fat New Yorker style pizzas, salivating over the cheesy goodness that will soon be mine.
Of course, my imagination escalates as their oven heats up, and by the time my pizza box rolls around, I look like that furry creature on the Honey Comb commercials. I rip open the box, only to find:
SOMEONE PUT CORN ON MY PEPPERONI PIZZA. And now comes the dirty part, the part that will make your stomach drop out and your legs weak. They didn't put on any tomato sauce. It's just bread and cheese and corn. And rice. That's a New York pizza in Mongolia.
This is a place that calls themselves MR. PIZZA, and they don't have tomato sauce. I even asked for some on the side to dip it in. None.
And yea, you're right. I should have known. I should have known tomatoes were too expensive. I should have known the images were from the internet and pasted carelessly on their menus for decorative purposes. I should have known.
So this is the part of the blog where I lay aside the humor and get down to what this all makes me think about:
There's a reason American culture lends itself to globalization; it was created globally and perfected in an environment where only the most desired elements survived. Fast food is terrible for our health, but it's catchy because we all like it. And sex sells, but all of us are making it sell when we by products marketed that way. We can write books all day about the way technology is changing the world and blah blah blah, but we're all driving that change piece by piece, because we like it, and it helps us stay productive.
In other words, there are a lot of bad parts of American culture, but also a lot of good parts. Sometimes people come to our country looking for the good parts and instead they find only the bad parts, and then they get all confused and drop out of the culture (parents that only want their kids to only marry within their ethnic group, etc.). But the thing is, you gotta accept the good with the bad. American cities are violent, but American cities are free. American culture is irreverent towards old ways of thinking, but American culture is dynamic and ready to accept new ideas. At some point in time, everyone has something to complain about, but for the most part, we are fortunate to live in a country where most of the stuff we complain about is small change compared to the problems in other countries.
One day, our culture will be the world's culture. As communication shrinks the world, and economic interactions drive increased connections, culture merge is going to occur more frequently. Nevermind the language barriers. Computers will translate live for us. Technologies we can't even imagine. And then we will have this strange uni-culture with little resistance pockets that hold on for specific reasons (the future-Amish). And that uni-culture is going to be something like America's, one that takes pieces from every place, selects out the best (or most desired) elements, and throws away the ones that don't work for people. This is probably the closest to peace we will ever come as humans, and I regret that I won't live to see it happen.
(If you don't believe me on this one, you need to fly to another country and ask the locals how things have changed in the last ten years, and then think about what another two thousand will do. It's hard to imagine, but it's already happening and very real.)
And yet, as much as I like American culture and imagining all the benefits future uni-culture will bring...there is still something to be said for under-development. As the Mongolian economy develops, the people will incrementally come to rely on cow significantly less. While in the end I know this is good for their health and lifestyle, I can't help but feel that something is lost in the mix-down, although I can't put my finger on it. ...It's not diversity loss I'm concerned with; variety will be abundant in the uni-culture, too, I'm sure.
It's more of the appreciation that scarcity gives a man.
Like something to do with the way the things we don't have lend meaning to the things we do.
And to be honest with you, my pizza wasn't so bad.
