meal out

To thank Ganbaatar and Alta for their hospitality, I took the family out to a Chinese meal on Peace Avenue. I was really pleased that their three daughters and three sons all joined us. I knew this would be an unusual experience for the kids.

I asked each of the children to select a favourite dish. It was an exciting task for them, looking through the elaborate menu with exotic names. Their son Muugii and his younger brother were giggling shyly when discussing their choice of food. It happened that their favourites were close to mine – almost all dishes are of Sichuan cuisine. (This feast for fifteen persons cost only £36.)

When the dishes came, the kids looked more fascinated with the colours and variety than the actual taste of the food. The round, rotating table allowed them to see all the fifteen dishes in front of them. It’s probably an agricultural habit (not that I came from an agricultural background) to believe that the abundance of food is a joyful sensual experience. But when I saw the expressions of excitement and curiosity on the children’s faces, my theory’s confirmed.

But there was one unhappy person in our midst - Ganbaatar and Alta’s eldest daughter has never smiled since I’ve met her. She looked sad and miserable even when breastfeeding her son, Ulaana, in the lounge-bedroom of their house. The only time she did put on a vague grin was in her three-hour-long wedding video that her parents had made me watch. The entire wedding was a big singing session in which all family members took part, one after another, from the five-year-old to the seventy-year-old, through the super-loud amplifier.

That looked like a very happy wedding, but perhaps more so for the family than for the eldest daughter...Since she got married, her husband had gone to work in another part of Mongolia. She had to move back to her parents’ in order to get help with childcare. No one was asking the question of why the husband doesn’t come back to visit.

Muugii, who can speak some English, was sitting next to me. He told me that he might like to go to study in London. This is a migrating family, as I’ve come to know. Ganbaatar’s brother works in the US and hasn’t returned to Mongolia for years. His sister is living in France, although Ganbaatar hasn’t heard from her for some time.

‘And my sister-in-law, Tseegii, works as a domestic helper in London. You can call her and meet her,’ Ganbaatar said to me. I promised to show her all the family pictures.

Half way through the meal, a young couple, both in jeans, walked in and sat down. They didn’t seem to greet anyone at the table.

‘He is my son,’ Ganbaatar introduced the young man with a beard. I suddenly remembered this is the eldest son of whom Ganbaatar is so proud. He and his wife both work in computing. She had gone to work in Tokyo and left their new-born baby daughter, Baika, for Ganbaatar and Alta to look after.

The couple has moved back from Tokyo to live in Ulaanbaatar. But because of their hectic work, they felt they had to let the parents carry on with the childcare. They hadn’t seen their daughter Baika for a few weeks now. But since they arrived at the meal, the couple hardly ever looked at the child.

Baika stayed in Alta’s arms, crying a lot because of all the noises around. She has probably become used to having her grandmother as the mum a long time ago – she didn’t seem to need to go to her mother’s embrace. All throughout the evening, Alta tried to calm the crying granddaughter while her son and his wife enjoyed the dinner. This made me feel guilty for taking the family out and causing this extra stress to Ganbaatar and Alta!