Mongold!… Anhnii altnii medal bayar hurgeye

Uraa! for Mongolia’s newest hero, Naidan Tuvshinbayar.  On Wednesday, he won Mongolia’s first ever gold medal. 100 kg men’s judo.

Here’s a photo of Tuvshinbayar with his gold:

WIsh I had photos of the match, but here’s Tuvshinbayar against a South Korean guy in 2002.

From Ulaanbaatar to Dornod, celebrations erupted. Even the president and prime minister (looking a little rumpled and rather drunk) came out to UB’s main square to party.

Sure, you could sink a ship with the weight of China’s medals. But Asian Gypsy recommends a cool link: the hippie-ass Fair Medal Count. The list corrects for medals per GDP and per capita. In this ranking, Mongolian looks lei tei (very cool). We kick China’s butt, and that’s most important.

Is this merely due to the Law of Large Numbers, as a friend suggests? He argues you’ll see many small countries on top due to randomness and luck.

A lot of those small countries, however, belong to the former Soviet bloc. What about that legacy of crazy intense Iron Curtain sports programs? Along with the generally low population and GDP of ex-Soviet satellites? Seems like that may correlate with medals per capita.

Mongolia’s other medal belongs to Gundegmaa the gunner (above) who won silver. Here’s wishing the best to Mongolia’s boxers — Serdamba, Munkh-Erdene, Badar-Ugan — as they go into the medal rounds tonight.

Just to underline the coolness of Mongolian athletes, 2004 Olympic bronze judochin Tsagaanbaatar flips out:

Za.

Have lived in Mongolia for the last month. Too much to tell, but a few thoughts may trickle in from my tired brain. : )

Za.

The Third Princess of the Stans: Bermet Akayeva of Kyrgyzstan

She’s neither as glamorous nor as wicked as the other Central Asian princesses, but Bermet Akayeva is still formidable.

Gulnara has cash, Dariga has clout; but Bermet has brains. And balls. Bermet’s dad, Askar Akayev, got kicked out during the 2005 “Tulip Revolution.” The whole family fled to Moscow, where Askar settled down to become a humble math professor.

But Bermet doesn’t freak out that easily. She returned to Kyrgyzstan, ran for Parliament, and won. The Central Election Commission invalidated the result due to allegations of irregularity.

Bolotbek Maripov, who lost to Akayeva in [the] disputed parliament seat, said that her return showed courage. ‘I’m glad that there’s at least one man in the Akayev family,’ he added. (Wikipedia)

Bermet’s resume could send a geek into ecstasies:

• 1989: Graduated Frunze School of Physics and Mathematics, Bishkek
• 1989-1992: Studied Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University
• 1994: MBA, Lausanne Business School, Switzerland
• 1994-2000: UN Compensation Commission, Geneva
• Until 2005: Program Coordinator of the well-respected Aga Khan Foundation, Bishkek

Ok, so Bermet may not have the savvy of the other Princesses. But at heart she seems a stubborn, nerdy professor’s daughter, and that’s my kind. : )

En route to the Aral Sea —

this is what one former Uzbek PCV wrote:

“There was no impulse I distrusted or admired more than that of exile. Distrust because of exile’s narcissism, its modal insistence that, above all, location forged the content of one’s conscience. Admired because of exile’s bravery, its intransigence, the embrace hidden in its denunciation.”

— Tom Bissell, Chasing the Sea,

being a narrative of a journey through Uzbekistan, including Descriptions of Life Therein, culminating with an Arrival at the Aral Sea, the World’s Worst Man-Made Ecological Catastrophe.

Who’s the hotter dictator’s daughter?

Dariga Nazarbayeva of Kazakhstan

Or

Gulnara Karimova of Uzbekistan

?

Dariga Facts:

• Business: Former head of state news agency and major media mogul. Convinced Kazakhstan to go easy on Borat.
• Political: Harshest critic of her father’s regime, says the Economist. But is this just a ploy to convince the elites she’s not his puppet?
• Musical: Jury member for Kazakh Idol.

Gulnora:

• Business: Runs red-light district clubs in Tashkent. Allegedly rakes in the soums by smuggling Uzbek prosititutes to Dubai.
• Political: Benefits from the state’s crackdowns on all clubs except her own. In general, privatization has been good to Gulnara.
• Musical: Moonlights as an R&B singer known as Googoosh.

Usually, I’d choose Dariga…. but wait, what’s this, Gulnara used to live in the same tiny 1000-person NJ town as my grandparents! I bet Grandma has talked her ear off while buying lox at Foodtown! Ok, Gulnara wins, and she totally rocks the bling.

Four of the seven seas

Four of the world’s seas are named after colors. White, Black, Red, Yellow. Quick: where are they? And why do they have those vivid names?

White Sea: A freezing inlet on the northwest coast of Russia. Common sense tells us the name refer to the snow-covered surface during the Russian winter. During the summer, though, it looks inky-black. Did you know that gulags built a canal between the White Sea and the Baltic? Unfortunately, the canal runs too shallow — 10 feet — to accommodate most vessels.

Black Sea: The resort-studded inland sea between southeastern Europe and Turkey. On their compasses, the ancients designated North as Black; and South as Red. The name Black comes perhaps from the Persian, and goes all the way back to the 5th century BC. But the sea also has dark water, probably because less salt means more ink-colored algae.

Red Sea: The skinny gulf between East Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Though the sea itself does not look red, scarlet bacteria blooms near its surface. The mountains next to the sea are red. “Red-Faced” Esau is the Biblical figure whose descendants populated the coast. And perhaps “red” means “south” in ancient Asiatic languages.

Yellow Sea: The armpit between China and the Koreas. Sand flows into the Yellow Sea from the Yellow River, giving it a more golden color.

Photos from NASA

Genius

If I were to write a sci-fi/fantasy interracial romance novel set in Central Asia, and if it were to include bellydancers and boa constrictors and magical Kazakh lutes —

it might look like this:

Sultan

Thank you, Asylbek Ensepov.

In other news, I’m medically cleared for the PC. Now for the crazy part?

HAASL (Hindi as a second language)

This podcast makes learning Hindi not a hassle but khoobsarat (beautiful). It’s a great example of a creative way to teach a second language.

Learn Hindi through Bollywood Movies

The instructor plucks the most juicy and melodramatic lines from Bollywood movies. Then he explains these lines in an absurdly deadpan way. You can use the dialogue to better negotiate with your boss or doctor: “The pain is my destiny and I cannot avoid it!” Or you can explain the true nature of Santa Claus: “Like he is not a human being, but rather an omnipresent spirit.”

The point of the podcast is comedy. But it works. You will want to keep listening, even if you can’t fit “I swear on your blood” into polite conversation. (Main bhi tere khoon ki kasam khake kehta hoon.)

The one quibble is that you must take pains to make out the words clearly. I want to write things down, but not surprisingly, my Hindi spelling is atrocious. Lately, the instructor has added transcripts, which really helps.

Pwn your verbal SAT with H.G. Wells

I can’t resist. Here are lessons from my English SAT tutoring gig in college. The PC has signed me up as an English Teacher Trainer, so I’d like to share and review past English lessons that worked.

My tutee started with me after she finished a Princeton Review course. With the Princeton Review, my tutee’s Verbal score was 610. After we worked together, her score popped up to 730.

SAT prep classes tell students to read extensively. That way, students can absorb vocabulary. They can also practice using context to interpret words. But what book should a student read?

You could try made-for SAT books like The Dropanchor Chronicle, by Stephen Ring, with stolid prose like this:

I will be the most uxorious husband ever, polishing the little holograms on her credit cards.

But may I recommend H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. The story is laden with vocab the way a fruitcake is packed with candies. It only runs about 100 pages.

You’ll find tempting suffixed and prefixed Latinate words here: attenuated, luminous, recondite, palpitation. Also, you’ll encounter workhorse Germanic words — such as germ, plain, sound — in counterintuitive contexts.

Here are Vocabulary Guides for each chapter. I’ve chosen key words, and written out definitions for some of them. Some possible activities:

• Context Practice: When I’ve listed several definitions for one word, the student should circle the definition that best matches the word’s meaning in the story.
• Definitions: The student should write down definitions for a dozen words that she does not recognize. Choose from the Key Words list.
• Quizzes and Flashcards: Use flashcards and quizzes based on these words to practice.

Next: Fun with word roots.