lucky-day.over-blog.de

Prologue.

When I was 13 I discovered mangas and animes, like pretty much everyone at that time. Step by step however, this interest evolved in an interest for the Japanese society and culture. I left the mangas aside and grabed books by famous Japanese authors like Yukio Mishima and Ranpo Edogawa. I stopped listening to anime songs and got fascinated by the foreign and soothing sounds of Japanese classical music.

I tried to learn the language. I spent hours deciphering the complicated signs thanks to a little booklet, until I mastered in writing and reading the two Japanese syllabaries.

My Japanese penfriends introduced me to their life far away.

I was 16 and dreaming of being a French teacher in Japan.

It never happened. Life brought me to different places and everytime I was close to going there, the door closed in front of me, asking me to be more patient.

When I was 25  I began to study Japanese dance: first butoh, the contemporary dance born after Hiroshima. Then I finally found someone to introduce me to Nihon Buyo, the classical Japanese dance.

I knew Japan quite well, but only from books, or only second-hand. I was yearning to go there for real

About 15 years later.

I have just turned 30 in Mongolia. My American roommate is preparing for is 10 day holiday in Japan. And I begin to think. After Mongolia I am to be in Korea. So close to Japan !!

But Japan is expensive, I haven't found any work or place to stay there. Actually I simply can't afford. But I am so close!

I posted an ad on the Internet, asking if someone could host me in Japan. The answer came a day later from a young man in Saitama, suburb of Tokyo. He and his family would host me a week in their home. I couldn't believe how lucky I was ! I decided this was a sign. Let's close the eyes over the bank account.

I booked the flight to Tokyo.

On May 15th, the plane dropped from the heavy clouds over Japan, giving me my first view of the country: the green rice fields glowing under the rain.

1 month in Mongolia!

And what a month! Remember all my visa issues? Remember I was about to extend my stay in Beijing?

It seemed to me on my last day I had never been anywhere else than in Mongolia.

One month before I knew nothing of the country, nothing of the language, nothing of the dance, nothing of the people. Now I can order my food in Mongolian and I can differenciate the different styles of dance.

Last day...

In the morning all my students gathered for a farewell show: they danced my work and I performed my first Mongolian dance on stage, covered me with presents, one of them being a Mongolian dance dress... In one month I earned a new item to my choreographical repertoire.

From the stage, I drove to the countryside with my new friends and I waved Mongolia goodbye from the back of a fire-colour horse, galloping through the immensity of this wild earth

If my stay in Mongolia was a video game then Zavkhan was definitely the last level. The level where everythinng is nearly the same a before, but more difficult.

The College of Arts is a little sovietic building with no charm and a team of teachers completely overwhelmed by the fact that a foreigner was coming to visit them at their place, the first time ever !

Problem: nobody spoke English. Oh yes I did have an interpreter, Oyunga, the College's English teacher. But her English was poor and she ended up teaching me Mongolian.

The teachers jumped on me and wanted to have me teach their students, boys and girls from 10 to 20, about everything I knew.

I had to pull the hand brake quickly. After all, I had come here also to discover Mongolia's countryside and not to start the whole work of UB over again.

Zavkhan gave in and I thought I had finally won and earned my ride through the steppes.

Too bad. People were very caring and there was no way they would bring me on a horse. All the excursions in the countryside were made by car. Which wasn't bad, but still, I was in the country of horses!!!

Fortunately in colleges, there is one thing you can always count on: the children.

Once I was left alone in my room in the evening, I was trying to contact the children of the boarding school ; with my bit of Mongolian and their efforts in English (remember they have a teacher mistaking "yesterday" and "tomorrow"), we managed to share some precious moments.

They took me on the hills next to the college and pointed to an invisible place behind more hills across the river: "My home" whispered the girl.

She must be missing her family very much.

In an other evening, I went up to the dormitories where the children were still practising their instruments. I sat on the ground listening to them and other children joined me, just because they had no way to communicate with me. They just smiled at me and in the end, the practice became a real concert where every student wanted to show me their instrument or sing me a traditional song and even I had to sing a French song.

The way back from Zavkhan was easier: no snow storm, only 23 hours and next to me, a young Mongolian man, a bit younger than me, who spoke a perfect English.

He helped me master the difficult bus journey, allowing me to stretch my legs over his lap and massaging them in the night. In the morning he slept on my shoulder.

And not only this: he promised to bring me one last time to the countryside, on my last day in UB, to finally ride a horse.

Views of Zavkhan

Young boy playing the Morin Khuur, the traditional horse-head fiddle