Ep. 3 Shedding the Shell

The Gamey Smell

When you think of Mongolia, the first food that comes to mind is, naturally, lamb.

After endless off-roading, we finally arrived at our first restaurant. Hearts full of anticipation, we waited for our Mongolian lamb dumplings.

Daeho and I prided ourselves on our iron stomachs, bragging about all the lamb skewers we’d put away back in Korea.

'Lamb is supposed to smell like lamb. That’s what makes it good, isn't it?'

The dumplings that hit the table looked like your average oversized steamed buns. I confidently took a bite through the thick dough. It was packed with onions and chunky cuts of lamb the size of my pinky knuckle. Ah! A true lamb country. They really didn’t skimp on the filling!

But the moment I started chewing, instead of the savory aroma of fat, an entirely unexpected smell punched me in the nose. You could tell they had tried their best with salt, pepper, and soy sauce, but it was a lost cause. The gamey stench wasn't masked at all; if anything, it proudly announced its presence.

Uh-oh. This is bad.

Right as that thought crossed my mind, I locked eyes with Daeho. His tightly knit brows told me he knew we were in trouble, while his mouth curled up in a breathy, defeated chuckle.

"Wow, Yungji. We’re in for a rough time, aren’t we?"

Right next to us, the restaurant owner and our guide, Jumbe, were watching us with deep amusement.

Beside us, the girls in our group had put their forks down ages ago.

Desperate to be polite, we threw up a thumbs-up and forced ourselves to swallow the girls' leftovers too, but three dumplings were our absolute limit.

When Jumbe asked if the food wasn't to our taste, we made up a lame excuse—'It’s delicious, we’re just too full'—and quickly bailed out of the restaurant.

Later, when we arrived at our ger, I asked Jumbe what was up with that smell.

"In Korea, you slaughter young lambs for food, which is why there's no smell. The restaurants in downtown Ulaanbaatar probably do the same. But we’re out in the countryside. To nomads, sheep are property. They need them for wool and milk, so they never kill the young ones. They only eat the old ones."

Suddenly, it all made perfect sense.

As soon as we unpacked, the girls took the lead and busily prepped dinner. The menu: instant ramen and some pork belly Jumbe had packed in a cooler.

The second it was ready, everyone let out a collective "Woah—" and started scarfing it down like there was no tomorrow.

Jumbe picked up a single piece of pork belly with his chopsticks, then just nibbled on the side dishes.

'Jumbe, eat up!'

'I'm good.'

'Why? Do you feel bad taking our food because we couldn't eat earlier? It’s totally fine! Eat up!'

'That's part of it, but honestly... I can't eat this because it smells too much like pig... hahaha.'

I couldn't believe it—it was so delicious to us. It hit me that Jumbe was probably feeling exactly the same way we felt at the restaurant earlier.

Nature's Restroom

Do you mind if I jump straight from a food story to something a little messier?

Whenever we pulled the car over during the drive, the guys would line up side by side, facing the wide-open plains to relieve ourselves. Standing there taking a leak, I’d let out a soft chuckle, hardly believing this was my reality.

With my fly unzipped, the scent of Mongolia would wash over me on the gentle breeze. The unfamiliar smell of dirt, grass, horse and sheep manure. Mixed in with the thick exhaust fumes pumping out of the Furgon. Far from being unpleasant, it felt strangely purifying.

Right in front of me was a perfect "sky blue" sky, looking as if watercolor had been spilled across it. An endless horizon. Growing up pissing into a landscape like this every day, no wonder Genghis Khan went on to conquer the world.

I glanced back and saw the women in our group looking visibly panicked. They were sweating as they scrambled to shield each other with blankets, umbrellas, and spare clothes. For a fleeting second, I wondered: is it more humiliating to have everyone watch and listen to you hide, or is it more humiliating to just let it all hang out like we did?

Having tasted the thrill of public urination (?), we stubbornly sought out the tall grass behind our first ger camp, even though it actually had a perfectly decent bathroom.

Shedding the Shell

A completely empty lot with no doors, no partitions, no dug-out pits. Just the crackle of sparks popping from a chimney in the pitch black. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the wide-open steppe and a very low plateau slowly revealed themselves. And nestled between the clouds, stars twinkling as clearly as diamonds.

I unzipped my pants and stood face-to-face with the massive Mongolian night sky. A harsh wind, thick with the scent of earth, blew from all directions. Realizing I had somehow forgotten all the things I was stressing over, a thought came to me.

'Ah. You can pee outside of a designated toilet and the world doesn't end.'

The impatience about my career and future that kept me running on a hamster wheel every night in Seoul. The vague terror that everything would fall apart if I didn't walk a proper, conventional path like everyone else. Stripped of civilization’s protective shell and standing before this immense nature, even those heavy burdens felt like insignificant specks of dust—so small they only deserved a brief, scoffing smirk.

'My problems really weren't a big deal after all.'

Zipping up and walking back to the ger with Daeho, my steps felt incredibly light—as if an invisible wall that had been trapping me had just been blown away by the prairie wind.

(The End.)