The Day I First Rode a Horse in Mongolia

The day after we killed the sheep

When morning came, my friend said,

"Let's go for a picnic. Just to my relative's house."

Not by car, but by horse.
It seems he recognizes the Japanese phrase for "going somewhere"
as "picnic."

Apparently, we were to set off with food, water, and simple overnight gear.

I had never ridden a horse before.
When I told him that, my friend laughed and said,
"It's fine. You can do it. Choose any horse you like."

Mongolian-style equestrian training

There were many horses.

I chose a piebald horse that looked as gentle as possible.

My friend saddled the horse for me.

Then the explanation began.

"When you want it to run, say 'Chu'."

"If you want it to run faster, hit its rump with a stick."

"If you want to stop, pull the reins."

That was it.

Explanation over.

In Mongolia, everything is simple.

In Japan, it feels like there would be a manual, a lecture, safety training, and a confirmation test before you could even start.

But Mongolia is different.

Once you get a simple explanation, you just try it.

That was the norm.

Running across the grasslands

I mounted the horse timidly.

I could ride better than I thought.

Walking was no problem at all.

But once it started running, it was a different story.

It was scary.

And my butt hurt.

It hurt terribly.

But the excitement of galloping across the grasslands on horseback for the first time won out.

Running under the blue sky.

Running across the endless grasslands.

Cutting through the wind.

That alone was fun.

I felt as if I had stepped into a world I had only seen in dramas and movies.

The land stretches on forever, and we can go anywhere

If men mount their horses and take up their swords

I am sure they would think they could conquer the world

I was able to feel a fragment of Genghis Khan's dream

A Japanese person being looked down on by a horse

But reality is not so sweet.

My horse would stop from time to time.

It would start eating grass on its own.

Its walking speed would suddenly drop.

No matter how you look at it, it was slacking off.

When I told my friend about this,

he said,

"It's looking down on you."

I thought, 'I see.'

Indeed, when my friend approached, the horse would suddenly become serious.

It would run properly.

It wouldn't eat grass either.

The dogs were the same.

The cows were the same.

The sheep were the same.

The animals in the settlement seemed somewhat tense when they saw my friend.

It's not that he was abusing them.
(He only occasionally hit them on the head with a hammer)

Something was different.

The animals seemed to know that he was the leader of the herd.

I was envious.

He possessed something that worked on both people and animals.

Is it what you call an aura?

Is it what you call dignity?

It is probably not something you can acquire overnight.

A Mongolian picnic

My friend said, "Let's go to my relative's house."

But the sense of "a little bit" was different.

We proceeded while taking breaks along the way.

We ate bread.

We drank water.

We crossed a small stream.

We sat on the grass.

We ran again.

We rested again.

Come to think of it, we had been traveling by horse for about six hours.

In Mongolia, that is normal.

There are no buildings or traffic lights.

There is only the grassland, and occasionally a river or a rock.

Even my sense of time seemed to be changing.

The relative's house

Near evening, we arrived at the relative's house.

They also lived in a ger.

In terms of scale, it was perhaps two-thirds the size of my friend's family home.

When my friend got off his horse, he hugged his relative tightly.

After that, he introduced me.

The man looked at me with wide eyes.

He was saying something.

I didn't understand the language.

But according to my friend,

he was saying, "Are you really Japanese? You look like a Mongolian."

I was a little happy at that moment.



Mongolian snuffAfter that, the man took a small bottle out of his pocket.

Then he put some powder from the bottle onto the back of my hand.

My friend explained.

"It's Mongolian snuff."

Apparently, you inhale the powdered tobacco through your nose.

It's legal.

Probably.

Maybe.

I tried inhaling it timidly.

It was the next moment.

An intense stimulation shot deep into my nose.

A scent like spice.

And a fierce sensation.

I desperately tried to hold back a sneeze.

Everyone around me burst into laughter.

It seems my reaction was exactly as expected.



The traveler who brought the rainThat was when it happened.

It started to rain.

Raindrops fell on the grassland.

Then the man's family started singing all at once,

and eventually they started dancing.

At first, I wondered what was going on.

My friend laughed and told me.

"The traveler brought the rain."

For the Mongolian grasslands, rain is precious.

(In fact, by the next day, the withered grassland had turned lush and green)
So, if it rains on the day a traveler visits, that traveler is welcomed as a bringer of good fortune.

I danced along without even knowing what it meant.

Everyone was smiling.

The children were running around.

They were singing while getting wet in the rain.

They looked truly happy.

I was happy too.

I was truly happy.

But on the other hand, I also had a tinge of anxiety.

Looking back on my Mongolian experience so far,

on the first day I drank fermented mare's milk with flies in it,

I killed a sheep,

and today I rode a horse for six hours.

What will happen next?

I watched the rainy grassland with a mix of anticipation and anxiety.

And later, I think.

The most luxurious part of that trip was not the tourist spots.

There were no huge temples or World Heritage sites.

It was being welcomed by a Mongolian family, eating the same food as them, rejoicing in the same rain, and watching the same starry sky.

I was accepted not as a traveler, but as a human being.
That is why, even now, more than 20 years later,

I cannot forget those days on the grassland.