The Other Side of . . . Mongolia

Thanks to Elder and Sister Lasson, we had an opportunity last Wednesday evening to do something we had always wanted to do but never could get around to it - - or even figure out how, for that matter.

You see, there is a well known wrestling palace just to the south of the Mission Office building and only about a block away. Wrestling is a big deal here and people
take much pride in the champion quality wrestlers who compete from here. So, the Wrestling Palace is something of a landmark.

But they also hold a wide variety of other events in that building. Such things as concerts, rally's, meetings,etc. are common. And we've always wanted to attend one of the concerts (no, we did not attend a wrestling match!).

A week or two ago, someone the Lasson's had worked with in their capacity as Humanitarian Directors knocked on their door, wanting to know if they were interested in attending a concert at the Wrestling Palace. So, they asked the rest of the seniors (at least the ones who were still around) and we all decided to go -- all three couples, minus the Mission President who was unfortunately busy.

We didn't know exactly what the concert would be, but it sounded like it might be interesting. We were actually thinking it would be Mongolian music and theme.

Not quite!!

We learned after the fact that the concert actually had a dual purpose. It seems that a very well known entertainer here (Tomorbaatar - the guy in the brown suit pictured above is NOT him. You can see Tomorbaatar in the video below) had reached his 60th birthday and his wife was having a difficult time with an illness. So, the concert was to celebrate his birthday and to raise funds for his wife to obtain medical treatment.

The concert itself was something of an 'oldies' concert, so to speak. Tomorbaatar had been very popular a few years back and most people we asked knew him and would say, "Oh, he was popular when I was a kid!" Ahhh, just our kind of concert! And while he was not the only performer, he certainly was the 'headliner'.

But this was not to be what we would refer to as 'typical Mongolian music' though there were a few really beautiful traditional Mongolian songs performed. The theme, however, might best be loosely described as older generation international big band type music.

Here's a video sample of Tomorbaatar. We call this "Mongolia, Italian style!" As you can see, he is quite an entertainer. We're sorry for the poor quality video, but upload speeds here are a bit of a problem and we had to make the file as small as we could. If you look closely, you will be able to see some of his moves and antics. He was like that the whole show.

We really quite enjoyed the evening. And we got to see the inside of the Wrestling Palace in the bargain!
.