Reconciliation in the Land of the Khans

When people hazard a guess at my ethnicity (sometimes after asking something like, “So, where are you really from?”), they usually guess Korean, Chinese, or Japanese, with a few choosing Malaysian, Singaporean, or Filipino. But no one ever says part Mongolian. Statistically, that would make sense. With a population of almost three million, there aren’t many Mongolians even in Mongolia—the least densely populated country in the world.

Ethnically, I am three-quarters Chinese and one-quarter Mongolian, but due to many historical events, my family has not actually set foot in Mongolia for generations. My paternal grandfather speaks Mongolian, but he consciously never taught his children the language. He knew that the best chance for success lay in learning standard Chinese (partially due to the assimilation strategies of the Chinese government) and English, which paved the way for his children to immigrate to the United States. But this conscious divorce from our past during a time of practicality and necessity left me with scant little when I can afford the luxury of sentimentalism.

So with no family that I know of still in Mongolia, I returned for the archetypical soul-search that people my age often embark upon. I was elated, until I discovered that most Mongolians hate the Chinese. My daydream gave way to the fear of being a pariah in the land of my ancestors. Instead of straddling different cultures and consciously transcending the definitions of either, it seemed I would face an absence of choice through rejection by one culture.

The resentment against the Chinese runs deep. Mongolians see China as a historical threat to their autonomy. Although they sustain a multitude of outside influences, most evident in the fact that Mongolian is now written in Cyrillic, they describe themselves as independent, whether residing in Ulaanbaatar (as over 50 percent of the population does) or freely on the steppes in nomadic gers. There are constant reminders of the animosity. Sukhbaatar Square, the center of Ulaanbaatar, commemorates the general who led the Mongolian independence against the Chinese. Children use the term “Chinese” as a taunt, synonymous with sneak and cheater, and I’ve come across numerous cases of anti-Chinese graffiti. I found this image hard to reconcile with the people that I met, who have been nothing but friendly. There’s a certain purity that I greatly respect; random strangers will try to help me, rather than exploit my ignorance.

I discovered early on that I look ambiguously Asian enough to blend into China, South Korea, or Mongolia without raising suspicions that I am not a local. Few Mongolians ask for my full name, but when they do, there is sometimes an almost imperceptible flinch or a heartbeat of silence. Zhang is the second most common Chinese surname, boasting over 100 million people—40 times the population of Mongolia. Ironically, this name was one adopted by my Mongolian ancestors because the nomads traditionally never had family names. If I reveal that I am a quarter Mongolian, the change is instantaneous. Their faces break into a smile of relief, and they happily exclaim, “Yes! I could see it in your cheekbones/eyes/height! You’re unmistakably Mongolian!”

But I’d rather they didn’t just choose to accept one part of me and turn a blind eye to the others. In conversations with Mongolians about my national and ethnic backgrounds, I reaffirm all their positive sentiments about Americans and try to present a different point of view on their southern neighbors by convincing them myself that others with Chinese blood can be good people, as well. There are so many similarities between the two cultures and so many ways in which all three countries and their people can help each other that it cannot be difficult to find common ground.

Maybe I’m too much of an idealist, but as the lines between different ethnicities and nationalities blur, it seems that historic prejudices should be laid to rest—especially in a country rapidly emerging in global prominence—even if only at the rate of one conversation at a time.


Joyce Y. Zhang ’09, a Crimson news editor, is a government concentrator in Leverett House. Even if it’s unoriginal, she likes it when people say they want “world peace.”