Gandan and Beyond

Yesterday I went to Gandan, as mentioned in the previous post, with my classmate Alfredo.  I met him at 9:30 at the Narantuul Hotel and then we walked up the hill to the monastic compound.  When we walked through the gate a man in a small booth tried to stop us and make us buy tickets.  We explained to him in Mongolian that we weren't tourists and that we were Mongolian language students studying at one of the colleges.  He let us by without a problem.  We walked around for a bit eventually winding up in a small walled area with a few buildings in it.  One was apparently the library and in the other there was a strange benediction going on.  People were crowded into a room with monks chanting prayers all at the same time.  They always offer prayers in Tibetan, that coupled along with the fact that they all pray at the same time gave it a musical yet eerie sound.  The whole area was very creepy to me.  Shortly we left the room and went on our way.  We were looking for a monk, or laam, who wasn't busy and could answer some questions.  Next we went to the biggest building in the complex.  Upon entering they wanted us to pay, but as before we explained we weren't tourists and that we were Mongolian language students.  They let us in without paying.  Inside was the biggest golden statue I have ever seen.  While I'm not sure exactly how tall it is, I've heard it said that it is over twenty meters tall.  It's name is Janraesig.  Surrounding the center of the room where it was situated is a wall of cylinders on spinners that are supposedly filled with prayers.  Whenever worshipers come into the temple they go around the room and spin the cylinders to offer their prayers.  On the  walls opposite the cylinders are shelves filled with gods.  They are all the same god and Alfredo told me there were ten thousand of them.  Finding no one to talk to in that room we continued on our way.  Checking two other buildings and finding only children and busy people we decided to try to monastery school.  When we entered there we explained for the third that we were students and not tourists and asked if there was a free laam we could talk with.  The man at the door led us through a few halls until we came to a semi-modern looking office with a couple people.  One of them was a laam who was not busy.  We finally had our quarry.  One of the questions on my list from our teacher was whether or not the laams have schedules.  When we got there though I couldn't remember what the word meant.  Dutifully I asked the question and wrote down his answer.  In English it went something like this, "Do you have a schedule? -- I have one."  Of course that didn't really help me much, but after asking I moved on to the next question.  When we had finished our interview with the laam we decided to be on our way.  There wasn't much that we hadn't seen that we still could and I didn't want to stay much longer than I had to.  Tomorrow I will check my home work with my teacher and then the day after that I will present my work to the head of the Mongolian Language Department at our school.

John