Before we went to Mongolia, someone told me that when I returned I would open my bag, and would be knocked over by a warm, greasy wind of gaseous mutton fat.
And experience did prove it to be a pretty counterveganistic culture. Â I learned that there are traditionally two distinct food seasons in Mongolia: winter, the time of mutton in all its glorious variations; and summer, season of hard cheese and fermented mare’s milk.
In addition, we found that there were three types of food shop. One, a shop selling various semi-dried, fatty, meat and blood and gristle sausages and pickles. Two, a shop selling slightly rancid butter and a variety of dairy products heavily based on rancid butter. Three, a shop selling vegetables. The vegetables they sell are mostly limited to cabbage, carrot, and potato. Â Sometimes you got a kind of supermarket with all three shops rolled into one. Â (In fairness, there was a State Department Store with a decent range of stuff, and one OK market, too)
For lunch on our first day, I had a plate of grated carrots, and Kim had two fried eggs. By this point we were starting to feel a bit down about the food.
But then I actually bothered to do some research on the internet, and found a wild claim of FIVE vegetarian restaurants in Ulaan Bataar! And I found a website with them pinpointed on a Google Map, too!
The first we tracked down was the MARS cafe, a slightly grimy old cafe hidden at the back of the third floor of a run-down clothes market.  Everything was written in Mongolian, but I did enough sign language to assure myself it was vegetarian. We ordered a plate of something or other (”looks like little poos” said Kim) by pointing at a photo. I asked them if they minded me watching them cooking it, and it turned out to be a sauce of tomato ketchup and water, thickened with flour, and seasoned with powdery white stuff (I assume sugar and salt). Then a bunch of soya balls were boiled in it, and it was served with salad and rice.  It was hardly amazing but I guess at least it was authentically Mongolian-ish. I was delighted. We ate it while a huge photo of a lady decked out like the Virgin Mary gazed benignly down upon us.
We were puzzled as to how veggie food could appear in such an unlikely location. Later in the day, we visited another vegetarian restaurant (and vegan/vegetarian tour agency) called Luna Blanca (we ordered take-out tofu and satay ‘chicken’.) Â While we waited we chatted to the staff, and it emerged that they are vegetarians and vegans because they are practitioners of what they called “Quinin“. They said it was a form of meditation, but I couldn’t get a clear idea of what it was all about. That is, until I saw some leaflets with a woman decked out in some fancy regalia, entitled ‘The Supreme Master Ching Hai’.
Whom I recognised as the Virgin Mary from the Mars Cafe (there she is, above).
Clearly something strange is afoot in Mongolia. Â A scary-looking person who looks like a slim Imelda Marcos is promoting vegetarianism in the land of meat and milk. Oh, if only we could have a million Supreme Masters to rescue and love all the dogs that abound! We later found out another new age guru and promoter of vegetarianism, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, is also popular here.
In any case, thanks to the Supreme Master and her followers, I managed to have some amazingly delicious Mongolian-style dumplings, which were big and fat and stuffed with fried cabbage and carrot (and some unecessary TVP chunks). I also tried a Mongolian soup (rather bland); doughy noodles (traditional but not really my thing); a stir fry containing potato chips, mushrooms, pepper and TVP which reminded me of Peruvian Lomo Saltado; and a borscht (delicious).
But still, it made me uneasy. Â I don’t want people to be veggie just because The Supreme Master tells them so. However much I like her camp outfits and culty internet TV channel, once people realise she’s a complete fraud, won’t they start to think being veggie might just be a thing for campy, imperious, culty wierdies?
Come to think of it…
Cat | 30-Sep-08 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
Oh, I’m converted! And I want a picture for my wall too
VegForAReason | 15-Feb-09 at 10:35 am | Permalink
The vast majority of vegetarians throughout the World (who mostly live in Asia) become vegetarians not for reasons of budget or ego-centric health concerns, but for reasons of COMPASSION.
The guidance for such compassion is usually taught and given as example by spiritual masters such as the Dalai Lama (and the Buddhas), the Hindu Masters, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, several Catholic Saints, Sai Baba, Supreme Master Ching Hai, many Zen masters and on and on. Without the teachings and guidance of these masters, there wouldn’t be so many vegetarians and vegans and we wouldn’t be sparing the lives of so many hundreds of millions of sentient beings each year. Thus, there really isn’t any reason for you to criticise people’s spiritual practices, but instead I suggest that you applaud, or at the least, tolerate other people’s personal non-violent choices.
By the way…in a city of only 1 million people, Ulaanbaatar City we Mongolians now after only 3 years of momentum has 20 vegetarian restaurants and all of these have been inspired by spiritual masters. To imply that we as Mongolians have been blindly led by these Master’s is really quite unfair. Oh…and by the way ..good work on your blog and I wish you great luck and willpower in inspiring at least as many people to go veg as these Master’s have !!!
bacon | 15-Feb-09 at 9:20 pm | Permalink
Hi VegForAReason. I’m sincerely sorry that I offended you. My post was intended to mock myself also (i.e. I’m weird too). I am sure your beliefs are sincerely held and I respect your opinion.
I am delighted that so many people are vegetarian in Mongolia. I’m also vegan for reasons of compassion, and I’m inspired by the Buddha’s teachings.
Having thought more about it, however, I do feel justified in criticising Ching Hai - and this is not a criticism of her followers. She has certainly saved the lives of many animals and I applaud that.
But what I don’t like is that everything I read and see of her places herself at the centre of what she does. She dresses herself like a pop star and praises herself and talks about herself a lot. To call yourself “God’s Direct Contact” seems proud, even arrogant. And to call yourself “The Supreme Master” makes her sound like someone who should be worshipped.
To me, a spiritual leader should be humble and inspire us by example, not by elevating herself to a godlike position.
I expect her teachings are sound, but they are obscured by a cult of personality that she apparently places around herself. You may say this is not her intention, but given the known dangers of personality-based cults, then I would argue that she should be more careful not to appear this way.
So, to repeat my concern in a more serious manner: I worry that it appears to be a personality cult (even if it is not), and that this sends out mixed signals about vegetarianism/veganism.
It should be about compassion, but when someone’s personality gets in the way, it starts to look like it’s about that person, not about the compassion.
Don | 01-May-09 at 8:59 am | Permalink
People become vegetarian for different reason. Some do it due to commpassion, some do it for health, environmental, or spirtual reason. Most religion was started from a cult, wasn’t Jesus crucified for being a cult and commiting blasphemy against the country’s religion?
Mercy | 15-May-09 at 2:50 am | Permalink
Hello Mr.Bacon! Im so sorry for disagreeing 100% with you. Because I know that person (Ching Hai) more than you! And wanna tell you that your definition of her is all wet!!! I know a lot of her teachings. All of them are really true. She never talks about herself and never tries to be worssiped by others. But she says “You shouldn’t worssip&pray to someone because you are Buddha yourselves!” I really like her teachings.
It seems you don’t know well about supreme master, who is supreme master. Supreme Master is not a person who wants to be worssiped. But Supreme master shows true path of life and teaches how to contact to God. That’s the Supreme Master’s rule, mission. I think she is doing her job very well. I think she is a Great Master
Mr.Bacon, you’ve discovered many things about it, BUT you didn’t explore even a little about her biographies!! Let me show you some of them. Then reanalyse!!
http://www.godsdirectcontact.org/eng/article/chinghai.html
DAVID FRANK | 03-Jun-09 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
MR BACON,
YOU SEEM NOT TO STUDY OF HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM. YOU DID NOT DEFINE THE EXACT MEANING OF VEGETARIAN. ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND THE EXACT MEANING OF ITSELF. I AM SURE THAT YOU WILL BE FOREVER A VEGETARIAN.
IF YOU DO EAT FLESH, YOU WILL PAY THE HEAVY PRICE FOR THE SUFFERING OF ANIMALS. THAT IS NOT A JOKE.
I AM A DEAF VEGETARIAN FOR 36 YEARS. I AM THANKFUL TO THE LORD WHO PUT ME ON THE PATH OF MYSTIC.
WHY NOT YOU LET LIONS EAT YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL. THINK HARD ABOUT THAT. LIONS THINK DIFFERENTLY. THAT IS THE NATURE OF THEIR WAY. WE HUMAN ARE AT THE TOP OF THE CREATION. THE PURPOSE OF HUMAN IS TO FIND GOD INSIDE THRU A LIVING MASTER. HUMAN BEING IS VERY RARE.
for goodness sake | 06-Jun-09 at 9:21 am | Permalink
Why is it that none of the cult nutters on the internet can write coherently or be bothered to use a spellchecker!?!
It is poor education part of the required state of mind to become an adherent?
Why am I reminded of the famous clip from Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’ … “only the true Messiah denies his divinity!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDLoHAXEqC4
Yes, its very convenient that she encourages all those folks to start veggie cafes but I think her fashion sense stinks. If there was to be a “true Messiah” on earth, surely they would chose some cool, mature, understated designer like Ermenegildo Zegna, or go Saville Row, and not end up looking like an bad Imelda Marcos clone or some North Korean dictator’s wife instead?
It would be good if the bottle blonde cult leader published her accounts as it looks pretty obvious that she is ripping her followers off for ridiculous amounts of money for artworks and fashion outfits that at best kitsch.
I mean … what God was sell a 18 carat jewelry collection called “The Hermit”!?!
The Hermit:
Fashioned out of 18-karat gold set with green jade and red coral, this collection consists of a necklace, two rings, two pairs of earrings and a tiepin. Red fruit, ripe and plump, shines with a rosy luster matched by elegantly shaped green leaves. Through superb craftsmanship the fruit and leaves have been arranged in seamless designs that impart a divine, elegant aura, much like that of a hermit who has reaped the harvest of spiritual cultivation after years of silent practice.