Love Mongolian Style
SUBTITLE: A Traditional Mogolian Wedding
By: Kara Dawne Zemel

Seeing a traditional wedding ceremony of any culture is a very special experience, as many weddings that we attend in this day and age have taken the European traditional wedding as the standard. Our group was lucky to see this traditional ceremony, as often in Mongolia, the weddings have also taken on the European standard.

The Couple

In 1999, Jean-Etienne Poirier, who hails from Quebec, went to Mongolia, while he was there, he met Sarangerel. The rest, you could say, is history. In an interview with Sarangerel, she explained how she had met her husband to be and how their relationship flourished. Sarangerel was working in a French café in the capital city of Ulaan Baatar. Jean-Etienne was often going to this café to eat and they started talking and became friends.

Upon returning to Quebec, Jean-Etienne wrote a book about Mongolia, Cent jours sous le ciel de la Mongolie (One Hundred Days Under the Sky of Mongolia), and it was published in November of 2001. The two had maintained contact and were close friends. Along with his book, Jean-Etienne had also made an exhibit about Mongolia in Quebec City and invited Sarangerel to come for the exhibit. Sarangerel came for the exhibit and it was during this visit that they realized that they were more than just friends; they had fallen in love. Sarangerel stayed in Canada.

She says that it was a very difficult decision to make on her own, to choose to live so far from home, her parents, her relatives. She is the only Mongolian living in Quebec City, but says she has since met five Mongolian women who live in Montreal, and who have all married outside of their culture.

This trip to Mongolia for her wedding is the first time that she has returned to her home country. She likes Canada, but it was not difficult for her to go home. She was very impatient to see her parents and the rest of her family. She was also very excited to show them her one-year-old son, Manuel. She was very happy to be in her homeland, everything was so nice, familiar, and close to her.

Her father, Tserenpil, was also very happy to have her home. It was the first time that he was able to see her since she left for a "visit" to Canada three years before. He said that he was very surprised that she had decided to marry a foreigner, and that she wrote home to tell him of her decision. Her decision to stay in Canada not only surprised him, he also thought, why did she make this decision without asking for his advice?

In the past, Mongolians only married other Mongolians, but times are changing, and people are marrying more foreigners. Tserenpil wishes that his daughter and her family could live closer, but he likes his son-in-law to be and feels that Sarangerel has found a reliable person that will take care of her, and he did not feel hesitant or any worry about the upcoming marriage and he hopes that he can come to visit them in Canada.

Her older brother, Chuluunbat, also feels that his sister is marrying a reliable person and says that he can tell that they love each other very much. He also would like to visit his sister's family in Canada. He also hopes that Sarangerel will pass the Mongolian culture to her son, and says that whenever they come to visit, he will teach him as well.

A Mongolian Wedding

There is a lot of protocol that goes into a Mongolian wedding, before the actual day of the ceremony. As the Mongolian people are predominantly Buddhist, a local lama (which is a Buddhist priest) usually chooses the actual day of the ceremony, and a traditional lunar calendar is consulted. Before the date is set, the parents of the groom are to visit the ger of the bride with gifts. In the past, and to a certain extent in the countryside, the gifts usually consisted of livestock, and usually an odd number. This is also when the parents of the bride really consider the family of the groom. If they find them to be unsuitable for their daughter, they can refuse the gifts and there will be no wedding. If the gifts are accepted, that means that the marriage will take place. At this point, the couple is officially engaged.

The man usually will make a new ger that his wife will move into and the he also is responsible for all of the wooden furniture. The bride is responsible for getting the cooking pots, the stove, and cleaning products. The woman is responsible for the layer of felt that goes on the ceiling, while the man is responsible for the walls.

On the actual day of the wedding, the bride stays in her family ger and the groom and his family arrive there. The groom asks for his bride. At times, the family of the bride may have the door to their ger locked, until they feel ready to give away their daughter, it is more out of convention than actually trying to keep their daughter from the marriage. Once they leave her family ger they go to the new ger that the groom has built.

As for the ceremony itself, there are a number of rounds to the whole event. The first round has the family and the closest friends. These are usually the only people to see the couple exchange their rings. There was not a lama or any official there to do the ceremony; it is simply the joining together of two families. In a Mohawk wedding, the chief is the one that would officiate the wedding and the mothers of the bride and groom vouch for the couple. In the Mongolian wedding, it is the fathers that vouch for the couple, and it is the fathers who sit next to their children.

Each round of the wedding includes toasts by guests and the families, which are done with vodka. The couple also drinks airag, which is fermented mare's milk and is a very important Mongolian drink. The succession of rounds goes outward away from the couple. The following rounds of guests will replace the preceding and be there to say their congratulations to the couple, giving their gifts, and do toasts. The entire wedding, in all rounds, is very jubilant, with food, drink, song, and dance happening throughout.

As was stated above, it was very special for us to see this wedding. Throughout the period of Russian rule within Mongolia, the government tried to make the people get married in a European style wedding. There is a Wedding Palace in Ulaan Baatar in which people can go to have their European style wedding. In the countryside the tradition has been kept, and since democracy has come to Mongolia, many more people are turning their backs on the European standard and returning to their traditional ceremony.

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