So I am

So here I sit, it is during the Mongolian Lunar New Year and I am pondering the life choices that has led me here. To be honest, I am happy with my life. I am a father of 2 beautiful girls and I have a wife that many would be jealous of. I have everything that I have wanted in my life minus the accomplishments that translate to money.

Let’s take it back to the beginning. I was born in the second largest city in Mongolia, called Darkhan . My family background is upper middle class. My parents are high school sweethearts and I have grown up as a loved child, the oldest of two kids. This was at a time where people were having fewer kids, which I presume was due to the harsh times during the Soviet occupation of Mongolia. 

I have heard many stories of food rationing and how no one knew anything about the open economy. I was born during the fall of the Soviet Union, a time of economic instability and a time of everyone figuring out a whole new way of living where individuality and personal businesses would dominate. My parents were thrown into a time of Renaissance, they had to reinvent themselves in a whole new economic environment and though the ratio of success to failure was very high at the time, Mongolia had very few individuals that knew the world outside.

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I have been told by my mother that, studying in school during the Soviet Occupation, they were drilled into thinking that the West and the United States, specifically, was the devil. This is interesting as I always thought that to control the masses, they need to eliminate those with education and start anew with a brand new foundation. This is exactly what took place, the Soviet Union along with those in power in Mongolia eliminated most of the academics and monks that were held in high regard. Basically, these people would be known as the bourgeoisie as I found out later on in life and that time may seem to be lost in the past but mind you, my maternal grandfather was a victim of this cutting down. I won’t go into detail about my parents’ lives as I do not know very well myself, also that is a story for another time.

Anyway, my upbringing consists of me growing up along with my sister and my parents also having to figure out a whole new way of earning a living. My parents did very well for themselves and I have to admit that I had a very stable childhood up until moving to America with my mother and sister right after 9/11.