Mongolia Road | The Country I Knew As a Child

Mongolia Road | The Country I Knew As a Child

I knew Mongolia as soon as I was old enough to carry the ID of my uncle or aunt to the video stores and rented Chinese costume dramas. These made-in-Hong Kong films were the primary sources of entertainment for many Vietnamese of my generation. I skipped extra lessons, spent many sleepless nights, endured the wrath of my father to follow the romance and adventure of my favorite characters.

The most popular dramas came from novels writen by Jin Yong, China’s famous wuxia novelist. One of my favorite couple was the Romeo-Juliet duo from “Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber”, Zhang Wuji and Zhao Min. He was a superhero and leader of the Ming cult who gave up the title and the chance to become Chinese emperor as the Ming faction overthrew the Mongols’ Yuan dynasty to run off and live a reclusive life with her, a Mongol princess. Another favorite character was Guo Jing of “The Legend of the Condo Heroes”, a Chinese orphan boy who was taken to Mongolia and adopted by Genghis Khaan. As expected, he became the legendary hero who mastered various martial art techniques and later returned to China and helped defeating the invading Mongols. Mongols in Chinese dramas were often portrayed as the bad guys, brutal, ugly, unruly and of course lost out in the end to the Chinese.

Vietnamese of the past had little contact with Mongols except for the three times we defeated Khubilai Khan’s army, a fact Mongolians would probably deny. They claimed they never heard of it as they were defeated only once in the battle of Jerusalem in the 14th century. Like all who got in contact with Mongol fighters, the frightened Vietnamese saw them as barbarians who behaved unlike other enemies they had seen before. A history book recorded: “Wherever Mongol horses went, grass could not grow. The first Mongol I read about was Genghis Khaan, but it was not about his achievement, strength as a warrior nor skills as the supreme lead of a large empire. Instead, the book, titled “Most Brutal Dictators in World History”, described in sordid details how he tortured his prisoners.

Vietnamese today too have little contact with Mongolia. The word ‘Mongolia’ is ‘Mong Co’ in Vietnamese, meaning ‘Butt Neck”. We have a joke which goes like this: “Who are the shortest people in the world? Mongolians. Why? They have only the butt and the neck.” Mongolia is of no interest to Vietnamese, politically and economically. Vietnamese probably don’t remember that it ever exists let alone fantasize a visit to this country.

Though centuries have passed, still Mongolia remains a remote country somewhere above China where we once knew the people from Jin Yong’s books.