An Inner Mongolian Fourth of July

I've spent a total of four 4th of Julys in China. In the Peace Corps, they were nothing special, but maybe some red, white and blue cupcakes (which were actually a great treat). The consulate in Chengdu had parties but the volunteers were never invited. Last summer, I along with all of the NSF fellows I was in Beijing with, were invited to the US Embassy's party in a big hotel. It was quite an event with an American football theme and lots of American food. Each of these holidays have been an excuse for Americans to get together. Surprisingly, in the land of fireworks, I have never celebrated a Fourth of July in China with fireworks.

This year, my language program arranged a trip to Inner Mongolia for us. We took an overnight train on Thursday and arrived in Hailaer on Friday morning. We then got on a bus and drove through amazing green scenery tainted with hills, horses, and sheep, just as one would expect to find in Mongolia. We went to a park where we could climb one of the hills (maybe a mountain if you're not used to living in Colorado). It was amazing scenery.

I love wildflowers. I especially love wildflowers in China, where they are rare.
What I really love is wildflowers on top of mountains in China I get to climb myself.



By the time we got back to the bottom, we found a whole picnic waiting for us. Eating outside on tables is certainly not uncommon in China but eating outside picnic-style certainly is. When they began to cut up the watermelon, I realized they had done this for the Fourth of July.

Setting up for the picnic.


That afternoon we drove further until we got to a 'traditional' Mongolian village set up for tourists. They village had yurts where we slept, horses to ride, traditional musicians and singers. Although we were warned against horseback-riding here, my classmate Candice and I just had to do it. We both felt we've ridden enough horses to feel comfortable and assure people we were not scared. t turns out Mongolian horses are much more li hai (hard core) than American horses. When we first started galloping off down the hill towards the lake, it was scary. But we told the guides to take us off to the grasslands and be slower, and enjoyed the rest of the ride.

That evening we had a bonfire and were scheduled to watch a performance. Turned out that the performance was interactive and we were all encouraged to dance around the bonfire with the dancers. It rained but no one cared. Afterwords, someone in our group set off a couple small fireworks. A Mongolian version of the fourth of July, minus the red, white, and blue.

The next day we took the bus to Manzhouli, near the Russian border. As foreigners, we could not go anywhere near the border, but we got to go to a Russian restaurant for lunch (does that count for something?). I walked around the town for the rest of the afternoon. It was fun because for once, people would not speak to me in English, but in Russian and I could honestly tell them I could not understand them.

That night we got on a train back to Harbin. Now I have lots of studying to do.