home and away

‘I used to work in the garment trade before leaving Mongolia. For years!’ Urnaa told me. ‘The garment job in Budapest wasn’t my first job in this trade. I was already very experienced and good in my work when I started there.’

Gunje was different. She used to work in a candy and bakery company in Ulaanbaatar. Her first job in Hungary was in a Chinese restaurant. ‘They knew I hadn’t done catering work before. So they had me cheap and gave me loads of work to do.’

Urnaa said she’s leaving for Hungary again soon. She had no choice to but continue working abroad. ‘Work is little (scarce) in Mongolia,’ she said. ‘Too many people have no jobs. If you have rich relatives, maybe you’ll be OK…We have no one rich to rely on and we must be independent and make our own living. In fact, we work abroad and help our families at home.’

Unemployment in Mongolia is now between 30%-40%. Urnaa isn’t in an unique situation at all. In fact, there are at least 120,000 Mongolians working abroad (over 8% of the country’s workforce), according to the Consular Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although informal estimates are as high as 300,000. Official sources also say that the largest number of Mongolians are residing in South Korea (35,000), USA (22,000), the Czech Republic (11,000), UK (9,000), and Kazakhstan (9,000). Their earnings are an important source of revenue for their home country.

‘Those Mongolian people in South Korea and the Czech Republic mostly work in assembly factories…in industrial jobs, especially in Czech Republic,’ Urnaa told, ‘Those like us in Hungary are mostly in manufacturing jobs or in kitchens.’

As a rule, migrants are subject to harsh working conditions. ‘It’s normal to work more than eight hours or ten hours a day. It’s not only in Budapest, but everywhere, in other countries…Mongolians in South Korea and the Czech Republic, and the USA, always work too much…’ said Urnaa. ‘Many Mongolians in Czech Republic and Hungary have good skills and… qualifications… Most of them have the right papers. But they cannot get the right jobs. Their jobs are no good and sometimes dangerous.’

The hardship of working abroad has turned some back home. This was one thing that Gunje told me again and again when we were sharing the cabin on the train from Moscow. ‘I am not going back to Hungary with my sister. No way,’ Gunje told me. ‘I’ve done enough hard work there. I’d spent all my youth there. Now I’m middle-aged - I want to think for myself.’

‘You’re absolutely right to think for yourself! So you’re definitely settling back in Mongolia?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I want to find a nice Mongolian man and get married! and I want to have many children!’ she said, laughing loudly. ‘I have to work hard for that!’

‘What about you, Urnaa? It must be difficult for you to be parted from your husband?’ I asked.

‘I’m divorced,’ Urnaa told me for the first time.