The Year of the Mouse Begins

This is an important year in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. This is the first year of the 60 year cycle (5 cycles of 12 years): the year of the mouse. Mongolia celebrates the Lunar New Year every year with lots of food and visiting and culture. It is Mongolia's biggest holiday, and the entire country takes three days (at least three days sometimes a couple of weeks) to bring in the new year.

We celebrated today with Bernie's language teacher's family. They showed us wonderful hospitality and allowed us to share with their mutton (that's the slab of meat at the center of the table), fermented horse milk (called airag) and steamed meat dumplings (called buutz).

The head of the household shared his snuff bottle with all the guys in the room. Go to Jonathan's web site and ask him his thoughts on the snuff bottle...

Comments

[John Schmidt]

Watch that airag--it'll grow hair on your head!

[bernie]

Ha! If that's true, maybe I need to drink a lot more!