Word: ulan
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...Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, "Shoot the Chinese" is spray-painted on a brick wall near a movie theater. A pair of swastikas and the words "Killer Boys ...! Danger!" can be read on a fence in an outlying neighborhood of yurt dwellings. Graffiti like this, which can be found all over the city, is the work of Mongolia's neo-Nazis, an admittedly implausible but often intimidating, and occasionally violent, movement...
...pose some threats, however. In May, a newsletter of the international development charity Voluntary Service Overseas reported allegations that two Peace Corps volunteers were "severely beaten" outside a pub after a confrontation with Dayar Mongol members. (Erdenebileg denies his group's involvement.) One 25-year-old American living in Ulan Bator, who didn't wish to be named, said he was accosted by neo-Nazis at a nightclub for cavorting with a Mongolian woman. "After they showed a swastika, my initial thought was, This isn't going to be a normal fight," he says. "They wanted to send a message...
...Ulan Bator is home to three ultra-nationalist groups claiming a combined membership of several thousand - a not insignificant number in a country of just 3 million people. They have adopted Nazi paraphernalia and dogma, and are vehemently anti-Chinese. One group, Blue Mongolia, has admitted to shaving the heads of local women found sleeping with Chinese men. Its leader was convicted last year of murdering his daughter's Mongolian boyfriend, who had merely studied in China. See pictures of race riots continue in China's far west...
...Dagva Enkhtsetseg, program manager for the Open Society Forum, an Ulan Bator - based organization that promotes public participation in civic life, points out that the neo-Nazis don't enjoy broad support. A graduate in Mongolian nationalism, she argues that hard-line nationalism's allure is subsiding as more young Mongolians are exposed to globalization or study abroad. That was evident during the presidential election in May, when bogus accusations that Democratic Party leader and eventual winner Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj was part Chinese fell on deaf ears. "In the past that would have worked," Enkhtsetseg says...
...this year's celebrations, held on July 11 and 12, are being staged on a much grander scale in commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the founding of Genghis Khan's Mongol empire. Though festivities are organized all over the country, the biggest take place in the capital, Ulan Bator. A thousand horsemen will put on a spectacular equestrian show there on the festival eve, July 10. The next morning, Naadam will begin with a recital by 800 morin huur players (the morin huur, a two-stringed fiddle, is Mongolia's national instrument) and a performance by 800 singers...