MONGOLIAN CULTURE SHIFT

Mongolia is a country undergoing change. It currently has the fastest-growing economy in the world, and Ulaanbaatar, its largest city, is growing along with the economy. New buildings are going up every day and the city is home to more than one million people. However, despite the economic upswing, poverty is still a very real part of Mongolia. In 1990, Mongolia abandoned its 70-year-old Soviet backing and communist regime, triggering widespread poverty and unemployment. Presently, one in three Mongolians are impoverished and about half the nation’s poor live in rural areas, where the majority of these people make a living as cattle, yak or sheep herders. These herders roam the countryside, following their animals and building, packing and rebuilding their homes, which are typically nothing more than tent-like structures called gers. The number of livestock owned by most families is also well below the subsistence level. For a family to…