We’re here in Mongolia!!! My friend Patience arrived direct from the US a couple of hours after us, so now our traveling team of three is complete. We spent yesterday doing tourist things in Ulaan Baatar – met our guide, Tulga, and his daughter, had our first Mongolian food, went to a show of Mongolian song and dance, and got our bearings in this bustling city.

As we descended over the outskirts of the city, I realized the little white circles on the hillsides were ger (rhymes with “mare”), which we know by their Russian name, yurts.  In the city, skyscrapers stand near yurts and older concrete buildings left from the Soviet era. On the sidewalks we passed fashionably dressed young women, grandpas and grannies wearing beautiful traditional “deel” or coats, and foreigners from all over the world. The city is booming. Construction cranes are everywhere, as they hurry to accomplish as much as they can in the short warm season.

This morning we’re off to the airport again. We fly to the town of Moron, and start out on our jeep and horse expedition through the province of Hovsgol. It’s mountainous and has lots of rivers and lakes. I’m a little anxious about surviving the rugged roads, but I can’t wait to see the countryside. We gave Tulga a short wish list of things we want to see and do on our way to find the shamans he knows there – milk a mare, ride with nomads moving camp, visit a family in their ger, prepare a traditional feast of goat meat, etc. We have almost two weeks in Hovsgol, and our plans are flexible. We’ll enjoy whatever comes our way. It’s time for some final packing, and then we’re off. Hovsgol or bust!

(A male shaman presents the five flags at the port ceremony, 2013.)

Its been a breathless week in Korea, and all of it unplanned. Thanks to old friends, we’ve been busy every minute.

I thought the high point of the week would be a public shaman ritual to bless the old port of Seoul, a wonderful, joyous event that I attended last year.  It was scheduled on our first day in Seoul. But, sadly, it was postponed this year because of the tragic ferry sinking a couple of weeks ago that cost 300 lives, most of them high school students. The country is in mourning, and people are angry with the government for failing to provide better for the safety of the passengers. 

Instead, on our first day we visited Dr. Yang at his amazing Museum of Shamanism.  Dr. Yang got his PhD. in folklore at the University of Indiana, and was trained as a shaman as a young man. For decades he has collected shaman items — paintings of the spirits, costumes, drums and musical instruments, shrine decorations, and more.  The museum is set up like a series of altars, and I was moved when I saw that each altar had a bowl with money in it, because when shamans and their followers come to visit the museum they pray at the altars and leave offerings of money. I have often felt in museums how sad it is to see religious objects encased in plexiglass or framed under glass and stripped of their power, trapped like a tiger in the zoo. Dr. Yang has struck a refreshing balance between education and reverence.

Dr. Yang demonstrated the use of the fortune-telling flags, half-joking, half-serious.  They are a set of five large flags on sticks, one each in red, yellow, blue, black, and white. I’ve done the flags before during shaman rituals: the shaman offers you the flags, but they’re rolled up together, and you choose by grasping the end of one stick. I’ve gotten red or yellow, which are propitious colors, but this time I got blue.  Dr. Yang gave me second chance, but again it was blue.  And a third time, blue.  I could tell it was’t good, so I asked, “What does blue mean?” He replied carefully, “It means you need to negotiate with the spirits.” That’s a nice way to say, “You’ve got a problem.”

Thinking it over, I decided that maybe it wasn’t really such a bad result. After all, don’t we all have problems? In Mongolia, our guide is going to bring us to meet 3 or 4 shamans. I’ve been thinking that if I don’t want a mere tourist show of drumming and chanting, I need to come to each shaman asking for help. Shamans are perceptive people,  and they’ll know if I’m not in earnest. And so, my problems will be my asset. I’ll ask for help and see what happens. The flags just confirmed that this is the right approach: with the shamans’ help, I need to negotiate with the spirits.  Maybe my three blue flags weren’t such a bad thing after all.

We got to the Tano festival after breakfast, and it was in full swing. Korean tourists and school groups arrived by the busload. Old folks strolled by, dressed in traditional summer linen, and lines of children holding hands wove through the crowds. Morley and I were the only foreigners in sight. 

We bought a basket of bundoogie, or silkworm pupae, roasted and salted. My friend Mr. Yoon and I dug into them, and Morley had her first reluctant taste of this old-time Korean favorite. They’re rich and tasty, and are supposed to be full of protein and good for you. But when we got about halfway through them even Mr. Yoon agreed they were awfully oily and sort of mealy, so we threw them away and got a sack of roasted chestnuts instead. 

We followed the sound of big gongs and a woman’s voice singing in the old style, and found the big white tent where the shamans are doing their kut, or rituals — all day, every day, for the duration of the festival. Relieved that our search for shamans in Korea wasn’t in vain, I squeezed in among the mostly old women who were listening so intently. A chubby young drummer led the musicians, engaging in repartee with the shaman and punctuating her words with shouts of encouragement. Seated at the drum, rhythm seemed to flow from him like electricity.

I was surprised that the shaman just stood there at the microphone, singing and waving a fan. I’m used to seeing a lot of motion as shamans dance before the altar, wander through the audience, and leap in the air when spirits come to possess them. But still, it was great to hear her singing in the old “pansori” style, interspersed with spoken narrative and joshing with the drummer. I love pansori when it’s belted out by a strong woman singer.

While the shaman sang, her assistant sat cross-legged on the floor behind her with two candles burning on a small table. People came up one by one to set money on the altar and make three big bows. To make a big bow you press your hands together (like a Buddhist greeting), lower yourself to your knees, press your elbows and forehead to the floor, and then turn your palms up as if catching raindrops. The assistant shaman would then light sheets of paper at a candle. Their ashes floated up into the air and carried the worshiper’s wishes and concerns to the spirits.  

Morley and I couldn’t help giggling as two workers zipped around with vacuum cleaners, sucking up the ashes as they fell on the stage and altar. It felt good to laugh. I had made my own list of difficulties to burn, and was feeling reluctant to take my turn because I’m so obviously a foreigner. But I gathered my courage and stepped up onto the stage to make my three big bows. The shaman did release my wishes to the spirits, but they didn’t travel far. The wind had died down by then, so they got sucked up quickly by the vacuum guys…

Mr. Yoon commented later that he was disappointed that the shamans’ performances were not like a real kut. There was no spirit possession and no dealing with difficulties, private or communal, except for the burning papers. It was kut “lite,” lacking the intensity of the private kuts I’ve seen. This is what happens all over the world with the rise of shaman tourism. I expect we may find this true in Mongolia, too.