Mongolia Girl

by Tim Baker
(England)

Photo by Martha Avery

By the way, In Mongolia half the population live in tents and flat pack furniture thus portrayed might make sense (to Western consumers imaginations at least) if you ever use their "yurts" or "gers" (which are stunning and exotic tents) for a similar but even more exotic small-space publicity shoot! I will be writing something about Mongolian lifestyles in my next posting, on a completely unrelated matter, well, it has something to do with my chromosomes, if that is a clue.

A photoshoot as proposed at Mudeford Sandbank should be a lot cheaper than a Mongolian adventure, but keep Mongolia in mind, the Mongolians can teach us a thing or two about living in a small space with style and efficiency!

They seem to make up for a lack of opportunities for retail therapy with an exceptionally engaging national character. There is a reason for this which surpasses the customs of any beach hut community who tend to stay within their own stable comfort zones..

This character is sculpted by a living in tents in a hostile environment which forges expressions of hospitality and gratitude to everyone they encounter. This is taking the English custom of offering a cup of tea to strangers to new heights, born of the fact that hospitality is necessary for the preservation of life, not just politeness and manners when it is 40 degrees below zero outside.


By the way, should you think with the attractions of IKEA, I have gone head over heels for commodity fetishism or the attractions of female company threatening my Diogenarian simple life, I have learned from a Mongolian the value of a little color or commodity to cheer up our otherwise harsh or seemingly drab lives..

In this picture below, taken on a trip to Mongolia, this drawer from a well who is hundreds of miles from anywhere, or anyone, is wearing bougainvillea-pink lipstick.

Why? What need of hers does that fulfill. Could I provide her with whatever else is her heart’s desire? Will all it take be a glimpse of the IKEA catalog and an invitation to my beach hut or winter retreat.

I have been crawling up the walls of my little hut imagining her here enjoying beach hut life. Her or someone like her. That is the power of an iconic image or powerful idea.

Women from the Gobi desert in Mongolia are famous for their beauty and thanks to the harshness of the climate, are famous for being hospitable, or “saikhan setgel” in Mongolian.

I am usually happy wherever I am, but Mongolia is fast becoming an imagined destination for me to learn how best to live in a small space, and experience the freedom she has without all the extraneous trappings in my life.

For full article go to: http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/Beachhutman/Blog/Entries/2008/6/1_IKEA_STARTED_IN_A_HUT.html