First year of my university was extraordinary in plenty of ways - I had learned to cook, live alone, ask a girl out, and make friends similar to myself both in goals and personalities. But that’s not exactly the point I want to go at…
Having nothing better to do after the spring semester, I succumbed back into the my dull life where I’d play dota 2, surf internet for no particular reason; but thanks to that, I found a post stating “Looking for volunteers for ASEM meeting” in the NUM (МУИС) group. At the time, it was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity since a volunteer work was especially necessary for my upcoming applications of US universities.
As expected, I had to participate in a friendly meet-up meant for getting to know each other. We were supposed to gather at the National Park at 10:00am; but due to my bad sense of map awareness, I got lost. Therefore, I got there around 12:00am. That’s when I met the woman who was organizing the event – our team’s leader. At first sight she’s not the ideal beautiful girl you’d find in a typical Korean drama; but what I found in her attractive was that she had these energetic, and leadership personalities. She was also pretty fluent in English pronunciation since she talked to me in English out of nowhere as if had initially known I was a fine speaker.
Since it was the first time for me meeting with my 50s members, I tried to look confident and energetic (first impression is indispensible to socializing). Unfortunately, they found me as some pompous, self-conceited guy; thus the cold welcome – On team games, they’d try to keep their distance from me, not approach, and ignore me etc. Breaking the ice seemed impossible until the game called “Human-Gun-Lion” was played among us. You are supposed to be in one of two teams in order to compete with each other just like how you’d play a rock-paper-scissors; though as a team. I started communing with my team members to find out how friendly they actually were – they’d listen, smile, and consider my dumb suggestions. Before the event finished, we formed the word “ASEM” in groups as shown below.
This day was not just memorable, but special day that broadened my social circle; not to mention how fun that day was!
Let’s fast forward a bit. On around 20th of June, the job positions were available for volunteers in “ASEM Villa” and “Mongol town” (Монгол Хотхон). If you work in “ASEM villa” you get to earn yourself money like a normal worker does, though the positions mostly consisted of waitress, housekeeper, butler, doorman, and so on; whereas in Mongol town you can either work as a model (which sounds cool), or as a translator/guide in your assigned ger, but no salaries. As one would expect, I chose to work in Mongol town since what concerned me was not money, but a decent volunteer experience that’d boost my application competitiveness for my dream universities.
I learned that I had to work to my fullest for 3 days in Mongol town from 7:00am-22:00pm (were quite rough days, but fun). While working there, I learned a lot about human mindset, personalities, cultures, and most importantly, language barriers.
One day, a Vietnam person came into our ger and walked round to see various exhibitions our ger presented. I was walking alongside the whole time explaining the exhibits in English; but before going out, the guest asked me to take a picture of him in front of the “gobi bear” (мазаалай) by using SIGNS instead of English! That’s when I realized he didn’t know English even least bit, and I was literally talking to myself! Soon afterwards, an Asian-looking bodyguard came in interested. Just when I started explaining things in English, he’d answer me back “Oh no no, I Mongolia”. I still don’t understand till now why he answered me back in English; not to mention that terrible grammar! Another Asian looking guy came inside in the evening. But he wouldn’t give me any chance to explain; he was actually running away from me! It took less than 30 seconds for him to go around and leave. Boy did I feel pathetic.
Think we were only doing the translating/ guiding the whole time? Nope. We translators also helped in various types of manual labors like in the picture.
Finally after the ASEM meeting has closed, all the international delegates started going back to their lovely countries. We also went to our homes after the 3 days of no-sleep challenge! Just as soon as I was feeling lonely, ASEM organizers announced that there’d be a big bye-bye event arranged at Crocus. Meeting with my friends (50 members) at the event was so much pleasing as I was previously worried about whether I’d have been able to meet them ever again! I feel obliged to state that the foods given at Crocus was by far the best I’ve eaten so far in my life!
‘The workers in “Mongol Town” decided to take a picture as a group with their gifts’
With this learning experience acquired from ASEM, I’ve learned how little I know; though how beautiful living on earth truly is. Thank you.
14-05 Б.Өнөмандах
