{"id":2838,"date":"2013-11-03T09:19:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T17:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/?p=2838"},"modified":"2017-06-16T19:55:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T02:55:35","slug":"bets-on-visible-manifestations-of-social-change-in-ulaanbaatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/2013\/bets-on-visible-manifestations-of-social-change-in-ulaanbaatar\/","title":{"rendered":"Visible Manifestations of Social Change in Ulaanbaatar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Julian Dierkes<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that social change has accelerated in Mongolia, or at least in Ulaanbaatar, or at least in central Ulaanbaatar in the past two years. I&#8217;ve had the food fortune to have visited Mongolia three times in the last half year. Here, I&#8217;m listing things and behaviours that are manifestations of such changes. Not terribly deep, but telling, I think.<\/p>\n<h3>What has arrived?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">sadly, Louis Vuitton and KFC<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Mini, Bentley<\/li>\n<li>child seats<\/li>\n<li>sidewalks<\/li>\n<li>parks [these are closely linked to Bat-Uul&#8217;s election win in 2012]<\/li>\n<li>farmers&#8217; markets<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What has disappeared, or at least nearly?<\/h3>\n<p>Note that some of these may be due to seasonal changes, as I hadn&#8217;t been in Ulaanbaatar in September before my last winter, really only in summer or winter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">stationary 80s-office-phone-looking old-granny cell phone booth<\/span><\/li>\n<li>for-pay scales<\/li>\n<li>free WiFi on Sukhbaatar, er Chinggis Khaan Square<\/li>\n<li>Sukhbaatar Square<\/li>\n<li>open gullys\/missing manholes<\/li>\n<li>street kids<\/li>\n<li>packs of dogs<\/li>\n<li>smoking<\/li>\n<li>the sixth-floor souvenir shop at the State Department Store (though perhaps seasonal)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What will appear in the future<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">navigation systems<\/span><\/li>\n<li>wheelchair accessibility<\/li>\n<li>bike lanes<\/li>\n<li>city park along the Tuul<\/li>\n<li>new airport (apparently)<\/li>\n<li>subway (really, I wish they had selected light rail instead)<\/li>\n<li>sports cars<\/li>\n<li>Harley-Davidson<\/li>\n<li>urban renewal and historical restorations embracing district north of government house (National University of Mongolia, German embassy, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>road signs in the countryside<\/li>\n<li>street names and signs in the city<\/li>\n<li>network of cross-country riding trails<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What will disappear in the near future<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m going out on a predictive limb here&#8230; 2-3 years is what I mean by &#8220;near future&#8221;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">stray dogs<\/span><\/li>\n<li>stretched-out hand to signal for a car ride<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What will disappear in the medium-term future<\/h3>\n<p>I mean around 5 years or so.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">new (to Mongolia) cars that are right-hand drive<\/span><\/li>\n<li>the neo-classical Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, with its Stalinist (if that&#8217;s an architectural style) spire<\/li>\n<li>deels in the city<\/li>\n<li>some of the downtown university campuses<\/li>\n<li>buildings of 4 floors or less in the urban core.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please feel free to nominate additions to the list via the comments function!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Julian Dierkes It seems to me that social change has accelerated in Mongolia, or at least in Ulaanbaatar, or at least in central Ulaanbaatar in the past two years. I&#8217;ve had the food fortune to have visited Mongolia three &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/2013\/bets-on-visible-manifestations-of-social-change-in-ulaanbaatar\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6444,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1148,307856,98202,307852],"tags":[983090],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change","category-curios","category-social-change","category-ulaanbaatar","tag-julian-dierkes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4976,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/4976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}