Travel to Mongolia -6- People who want to go outside and people who want to stay inside

3 min readOct 3, 2022

People who want to go outside and people who want to stay inside

If only I could cross the mountain.

I might think so if I was born here.
Riding horse, going through the extended flat land and crossing that mountain, even if it takes days. Then see the new land. There may be crops that are not grown here. There may be water. There may be people who have never seen here. There must be a new world.

I left Ulaanbaatar and moved to Harhorin (Хархорин). You may remember this name which you learned in class. It is a cosmopolitan city built by Genghis Khan’s son, Ogotei. There were Buddhist temples, Christian churches, and Islamic mosques. Once it was the center of the big empire, but now, the place is far from glorious. A small city. While looking at the diorama and thinking about how it used to be, I listened vaguely to someone’s question.

-What is the current population?
- About 12,000 people.
Ulaanbaatar has about 1.5 million people. Half of Mongolia’s total population must have lived there.

―How many people lived there at that time?
- Well, about 12,000 people.

I look twice at the Harhorin Museum’s curator who was explaining it to me. What···? Is it the same population with the Empire? It was surprised for me. I thought it would live 10 times than now.

However, if you go outside the museum and look around the plateau, you will understand why. They are not permanent residents. People who want to go outside rather than living in the city. They continued to expand their empire by going outside and searching unseen lands. That was why the Mongol empire could be so giant.
We, Japanese are different.
For example, I feel one of our purpose of traveling is to feel “I return my home”, this familiar place. To feel these joy. “Ah, my futon (Japanese style bed) is comfortable.” “My home is the best place in the world.”
Maybe this is because we are an island nation mentality, and it can be said that we are blessed with water and land. Individually we didn’t feel we have to go to new lands. Basically we are people who want to stay inside.

In last post, I wrote that since we are the same person, our worries will be similar. Still, if the climate is different, the feeling might be changed.

In the book “Introduction to Philosophy of Music” (by Theodore Graisick), there was an argument that are bird songs “songs”? In conclusion, bird songs certainly sound like “songs,” but they are not “songs.” This is because “songs” express and respond to each cultural tradition. Whether it’s inheritance or resistance, we inherit culture consciously or unconsciously.
Yes, in our bodies, we already contain our culture. No matter how far we go, we cannot remain unrelated to our past history and culture.

In each person, there are the acquired memories and the acquired culture. And it will be acquired further and passed to the next generation. If we, the “same” human beings, can understand each other and respect our “differences,” something interesting will happen.