Cave of the Yellow Dog

On the stage of the flashy and modern Tengis Movie Theater at the Liberty Square in Ulaanbaatar stands a nomad family. Three children in bright blue dels run around their parents and gaze at the audience in the packed cinema hall. A few minutes later they will see each other in more than life-size on the big white screen. It is the family Batchuluun and they are the stars of the new film of director Byambasuren Davaa: The Cave of the Yellow Dog

Byambasuren's debut, The Story of the Weeping Camel, was a huge worldwide success and even brought her to the Oscar ceremony, although she was still a student of the film school in Germany. In her new film she explores again the relationship between animals and humans in the vast landscape of Mongolia.

Film-Archive Synopsis:

"Nansal (6), the oldest daughter of a Mongolian nomad family finds a small dog one day while out in the fields. When she brings him home, her father is afraid he could bring bad luck and demands that she immediately get rid of him. Despite her father’s orders, she keeps the puppy and tries to hide him from her skeptical father. When the family uproots to move to another camp, the father leaves the puppy behind, tied up to a post. Only when the dog proves himself to the father by protecting the family’s baby boy from a flock of threatening vultures does the father accept him and welcome him into their family.

The Cave of the Yellow Dog tells the story of the age-old bond between man and dog, a bond which experiences a new twist through the eternal cycle of reincarnation in Mongolia."

Not a religion

Many faiths or traditions claim they are not a religion (try google).
Or others claim it is actually not a religion. In the case of Buddhism it is mostly non-Buddhists or maybe neo-Buddhist that consider Buddhism not a religion. But for Mongolia it is obvious Buddhism is a religion. The daily practice consists of many rituals and involves a pantheon of deities.
However, many of the new faiths here claim they are not a religion. Baha'i claims to be metareligious, taking the best from different religious traditions, but not being a religion itself. Evangelical Christian sects claim Christianity is not a religion, but a "relationship with Jesus". Institutionalized and ritualised churches like the Catholics are a religion, but the "pure Christian", in their view, is not religious in the sense that they don't need institutions or rituals.
Being a religion, or not being a religion, has more consequences than just a tag. Like tax. In some places you might get lucrative tax cuts as a religion (See Texas - by the way, is this what they call a redneck?), but in Mongolia, many religious organizations try to pretend they are secular NGO's to avoid the heavy taxes on religious organizations: 20 per cent tax under Mongolia's 2000 tax law, whereas commercial companies pay only ten per cent. This applies not only to the evangelic missionaries , but also the century old Buddhist monasteries.

A Dutch Dig: Lost city awakens

Dutch students help in excavation of an ancient city in Mongolia

the Mongol Messenger:

"It is 6am, an hour before the sun rises above the enclosing hills, and the first shift of Dutch and Mongolians are woken up by the Mongolian camp staff.
Sleepy heads poke from some of the eleven gers for a quick rinse in the freezing water and a meagre breakfast of tea, with stale bread and jam.
By seven o’clock they are sitting in the bus, to be taken one kilometer in distance and back eleven hundred years in time.
They are excavating an extraordinary find, one that will radically change the common perception of Central Asia."

Can't worship Buddha right way

In “The Transformation of Household Rituals in Mongolia: One History of Religions in a Modern Nomadistic Society” by Japanese researcher Katsuhiko TAKIZAWA, I came across an interesting observation:

An informant told me that he gave Buddha’s images, sutras and the other Buddhist tools to Gandan Monastery at the time of his father’s death in 1977, because he didn’t know how to worship Buddha right way. This mentality of “those who can’t worship Buddha right way must not have Buddha’s images” was found in many informants’ talk. This mentality often accompanies the idea of “curse”.

Exhibition on Mongolian Buddhism in Liverpool

There is currently an exhibition on Mongolian Buddhism in the World Museum Liverpool by Ms. Barbara Hind

Stunning images of the everyday life of Mongolian Buddhists are on show in this vivid, colourful exhibition of photographs by Barbara Hind.

This accomplished photographer, originally from Knotty Ash in Liverpool, visited Mongolia 16 times between 1994 and 2001. The resulting collection of pictures is breathtaking.

Rich in colour and texture, the images capture intimate moments in the daily routine – from the call to morning worship to individuals in private conversation. They also touch on formal events such as the ordination of monks and the building of a new temple.

Barbara’s talent is to provide a unique insight into a deeply fascinating way of life, in a natural, respectful and unobtrusive way. The photos perfectly reflect the effortless integration of the spiritual and mundane in the lives of the Mongolian Buddhists.

The exhibition was itself shown at the National Museum of Mongolian History in Ulaanbaatar, 2001, where Barbara became the first westerner to be invited to display her work. This gave local people, whose lives she had documented, the chance to see the pictures for themselves.

Barbara says of her work:

“The Mongolian Buddhist images have grown out of my personal association with the monasteries and nunneries I have visited. Through my photographs I try not only to represent my own experience of seeing other people’s worlds but to also try and evoke the people’s experience in those worlds.”

You can see a selection of the images on this website, but be sure to visit the museum to see the glorious display in full colour.