A Journey in the Dark

Happy Mongolian National Day!

Some history of the national anthem of Mongolia at Wikipedia.

I was going to write about the national anthem, myself, but I noticed that the Wikipedia article covered absolutely every fact that I had been planning on sharing. Sürs. I really recommend you check it out - the lyrics they had under the Soviet reign were fairly interesting. An excerpt:

Connect faith with the Soviet Union
Agree with progressive people
Agree with direction
Bravely follow glorious communism

The lyrics they use now are actually quite beautiful, and so is, of course, the melody. Most countries' national anthems are sickeningly pompous and musically incredibly dull, most likely so that everyone could learn it easily. Nothing wrong with that, I think, as I am definitely as non-patriotic as they get and generally don't support any form of deliberate nationalism. But Mongolia's anthem is both simple and beautiful, amazingly enough. And this I say without as much as a hint of bias.

Now I shall go back to imagining myself sitting in the middle of the great Gobi in mid-day sun. 'Tis not hard right now. Ulaanbaatar is at 23 degrees C currently.