The current situation contrasts in significant ways with the situation in pre-revolutionary Mongolia. Traditionally, Mongolia was a society placing little onus on female virginity and relatively tolerant of extramarital sexual relations — as long as these were carried out with discretion. This predisposition was compounded on the one hand by a very high number of Buddhist lamas, estimated at around 50 per cent of the total male population, and the presence of many single Chinese men on the other. These itinerant Chinese merchants and artisans typically lived a few years in Mongolia before returning home, and many of them had temporary arrangements with local women. This situation did not appear to elicit any resentment on the part of Mongolian men. Burdukov (1969: 38—39) writes that both Russians and Chinese had ‘established contact’ (vstupali v svyaz) with Mongolian women and that local Mongolian men joked good-naturedly about it.
This connection between local women and foreign men endures in post-socialist Mongolia. For various socio-economic reasons, such as alcoholism, domestic violence or the fact that many Mongolian men work abroad, it is often difficult for Mongolian women to find a suitable partner in Mongolia. Many women are also highly educated and career-oriented and often find that men with a similar education to theirs prefer a younger spouse, privileging physical rather than educational qualities.
Aware of the difficulties faced by Mongolian women in finding a ‘good’, hard-working and financially secure husband, several introduction agencies have been established in Ulaanbaatar in recent years to cater specially for women seeking international partners. The largest one, Hos bagana (‘The two supporting beams’ [in a traditional Mongolian dwelling tent, or ‘get’]), with several hundred women on its registers, facilitates contacts between Mongolian women and men from Japan, Korea, western Europe and America; two other ones, Atiun hair (‘Pure love’) and Monhiin zaluu hair (‘Eternally youthful love’), focus specifically on introductions to Korean men. In the case of the latter two, the geographical focus represents less a cultural preference than available opportunities. As South Korea is a principal destination for Mongolian workers, numerous ties and connections exist between the two countries, and the managers of the latter two agencies both have personal contacts there. These two agencies differ in significant ways from Hos bagana but the greatest difference is perhaps the kind of women that are found on their registers. The clients of the latter two are mostly women in their early twenties, sometimes even younger, fresh out of high school, or first and second-year students at university. On their registration forms they predominantly state that they are looking for a better life elsewhere. By contrast, the women on the Hos bagana’s registers tend to be educated, professional women in their late thirties (Interview with owner, 26 June 2007).
Some families actively encourage their daughters to study foreign languages in the hope that they will marry a rich foreigner, but such practices remain subject to social opprobrium and often lead to permanent emigration. A close female friend of mine tells me that for her family, the nationality of her future husband is irrelevant. ‘As long as he’s a good guy and treats me right, they’re fine with it. Actually my mother believes Chinese men can make good husbands. Unlike Mongolian men, they don’t beat their wives, they’re not alcoholics, and they help around the house. They’re more supportive’.
Not all parents are equally accommodating, but initial antipathies can sometimes be smoothed over as they become acquainted with their daughter’s partner. I met Damdinsuren (a pseudonym) during an interview carried out at a Chinese hospital. He works there as a translator and has previously worked in Darhan, in northern Mongolia, after moving from Inner Mongolia several years ago. He had met his wife a year previously while she was on a training period at the hospital. Later, she took him home for the celebration of the Mongolian New Year (Tsa — gaan Sat). ‘Because for Tsagaan Sar people never say a bad thing about anyone, things went smoothly. But when we went back later and she formally introduced me to her family, they threw us out’. Though an ethnic Mongol, the fact that he was from China made him ‘a Chinese’ in the eyes of his in-laws — and in fact in the eyes of most Mongols (Bulag 1998). However after she became pregnant, her parents gradually resumed contact and they now consider him to be a good, reliable husband. As he explained, they now all live in the same enclosure (hot ail), in the get district.
In stark contrast to the vociferous anti-Chinese rhetoric voiced through the media, Sino — Mongolian encounters do not appear to be perceived in the same negative light by everyone. Far more unions between the two groups take place than might be imagined from the media. I interviewed several Chinese families living in the Hailaast district of Ulaanbaatar. These Chinese families, who came to Mongolia in the 1950s in search of work, have settled permanently in the country. Many homes in this northern area of the city are the traditional adobe houses found in northern China and as such differ starkly from the usual get enclosures. The Hailaast district does not, however, constitute a ‘China town’ sealed off from the rest — Mongol dwellings are also found throughout the area. The interviews and informal chats revealed that the Chinese residents were generally accepted and integrated within the Mongolian community.
Tsetsegmaa is one of these second-generation Chinese immigrants. Equally at ease in Chinese and Mongolian, she works as a translator for a Mongolian construction company that imports Chinese labour. Her parents moved to Mongolia in 1957 in search of work. Having come from Sichuan, they were somewhat unusual among Chinese immigrants, who predominantly hail from the northern provinces of Hebei and Shaanxi. Since the death of her husband twenty years ago, Tsetsegmaa’s mother has raised her children on her own. She now lives in the northern district of Chingeltei and spends her days socialising with Chinese friends, playing mah-jong with them or watching Chinese television. Because she does not follow the local media and because her knowledge of Mongolian is limited, she is not fully aware of the current prevalence of anti-Chinese narratives.
Tsetsegmaa, by contrast, as an intermediary between Chinese construction workers and their Mongolian employer, is confronted with anti-Chinese narratives on a daily basis. Her responses are multifaceted and complex. On some level she understands the sensitivity of the issue of Mongolian independence, but she is also aware that xenophobic narratives painting Chinese workers as hooligans and criminals have been actively whipped up by a number of political and economic actors to further their own aims. In her personal life, however, she has experienced no ethnic antagonism. She says that many of the second-generation immigrants in Hailaast have married Mongols and that these unions are largely successful. Her teenage son is even better integrated than she is. He can speak Chinese, and indeed does so with his grandmother, but he goes to a Mongolian school and all his classmates and friends are Mongols.
There is a striking discrepancy between discourse and practice at the level of sexual relations, particularly with regards to sex work. As we have seen, the monetised sexual intimacy of Mongolian girls (huuhnuud) with Chinese men is central to anti-Chinese rhetoric. Chinese men are perceived as both sexual predators and agents of the Chinese state taking advantage of naive and/or impoverished girls, and thus as one of the main dangers facing the Mongolian nation. Interviews with young women working as sex workers in Ulaanbaatar, however, paint a very different picture. Several of them described Chinese customers as gentle (zoolon), courteous (eeldeg) and compassionate (enerengut), very good people inside (dotroo ih goy humuus baidag). Also, contrary to culturally held beliefs, these women often found Chinese customers to be generous and friendly: ‘Mongols are told from a young age that the Chinese are bad, but in reality they’re good people (sain humuus), gentle (zoolon). If the girl says it hurts, they will stop. This is not the case with the Russians, for instance’.
These personal accounts are remarkable insofar as they show China (and the Chinese) in a very different light from the mainstream media in Mongolia. In the media Chinese men are portrayed as aggressors, requiring Mongolian men to defend and come to the rescue of Mongolian women. These sex workers, however, see Mongolian nationalists as the main threat, while the Chinese customers are said to be friendly, gentle and generous. In their refusal to heed the patriots’ rallying calls against Chinese aggression, and in their non-participation in the national narratives of resistance, these women are, in a sense, dissidents. Many of these women have therefore sought refuge abroad. Some families accept Chinese in-laws, but far from all do. Given the current social climate where ‘erring’ women are threatened with public head-shaving, very few Sino-Mongolian couples have chosen to settle permanently in Mongolia. For women in relationships with Chinese partners, the relentless anti-Chinese narratives that permeate Mongolian society are often irreconcilable with the reality of their emotional lives, thereby leading to considerable cognitive dissonance and, ultimately, outmigration.
Conclusion
I met Anuder, a Mongolian transgender woman, in 2006, in a cafe in central London. After a discussion about gender norms and social expectations in Mongolia, when she recounted the difficulties she had encountered as a younger, ‘non-traditional’ boy, we talked about Sino — Mongolian unions. ‘I understand that a Mongolian woman might fall in love with a Chinese man’ she told me, ‘and she may decide to follow her heart and marry him. But she will always be sad over the fact that she’s produced Chinese children. That’s something she will have to learn to deal with’.
Such comments highlight the inherent dangers in equating one particular community or group with the position of ‘victim’ or to interpret their actions as political acts. Indeed, a woman may decide to marry or date a Chinese man for a host of reasons, only some of which may be politically motivated. At times, the actions of ‘sexual dissidents’ may be purely pragmatic: in the hope of emigrating abroad, or — for gay men and lesbians — for reasons of anonymity (see Bille 2010). Women may be very vocal about their difficult position with respect to national discourse while at the same time expecting men to ‘act like men’ and participate fully in homophobic discourse. In fact, while many of my female friends and interlocutors bemoaned the violence or alcohol consumption of many Mongolian men, they also readily acknowledged a preference for hyper-masculine men able to handle their liquor (see Haas 2012).
Claims by women that they are in a position of resistance against hegemonic discourse have been problematised by black feminists such as bell hooks (2000) who contend that by arguing on behalf of ‘women’, white feminists have participated in racist ideologies and in silencing ‘racially other’ women. Angela Zito has argued along similar lines that ‘the oppression of “women” is not (and has not historically been) based solely on sex gender difference from men, nor is it solely perpetrated by men’ (Zito 2006: 35).
If women as a group are presented by nationalists as the guarantors of the nation’s survival, not all women are actually targeted by the nationalists. Those who have been attacked or threatened with violence have predominantly been young females or sex workers, not women in social strata closely associated with political and economic power (see Nazpary 2002). Conversely, the most vociferous actors in nationalist groups are not necessarily in a dominant social position. A large proportion of the individuals filling the ranks of these groups are young men, many of whom are unemployed. So while the violence — symbolic and actual — employed by nationalist groups seeks to reinforce traditional norms, it may also be symptomatic of a lack of power. Anthropologists such as Benwell (2006: 133) and Bamana (2008: 62) have in fact argued that it is precisely the feminisation of education and the decreasing role played by men that has led some young men to emphasise and reinforce masculine ideals. For these men, who often are school dropouts or social outcasts, the self-appointed role of protector of the nation may be, first and foremost, a way to regain a sense of power and self-worth. In this sense, anti-Chinese narratives may not be about the Chinese at all, but simply a vector enabling these men to become patriotic heroes — a role which women, in spite of the acts of violence committed against them, at times unwittingly support.