7 Reasons

Tag: Men and Soldiers Day

  • 7 Reasons to Follow @MongolianNavy on Twitter

    7 Reasons to Follow @MongolianNavy on Twitter

    In February we discovered that Benicio Del Toro was on Twitter and brought you the news in 7 Reasons to follow @BenicioDToro on Twitter.  We weren’t sure whether it was him or not, but we thought the Twitter account was interesting anyway, and we had a big reaction to the post.  Firstly, many unhinged people descended on our comments section and began calling each other names (we eventually had to referee this) and secondly, someone stole the piece and reposted it elsewhere without our consent until – after we’d threatened legal action more than once and they’d removed it and re-posted it a few times – their web hosts intervened and shut them down.  In all, it was a whole lot of irritation and hassle. So let’s do it again.

    Great news, 7 Reasons readers!  The Mongolian Navy are on Twitter!  Here are seven reasons to follow them.

    The naval fleet of Mongolia in port
    Swim for your lives! It’s the entire Mongolian Navy! Really.

    1.  They Won’t Swamp Your Twitter-Feed.  I mean, how much news can a navy with one boat, seven sailors (only one of whom can swim) and no sea generate?

    2.  Comparison. Have you ever felt really down?  Have you ever felt pangs of existential angst?  Have you ever questioned what you’re doing with your life?  Have you ever felt that you’re getting nowhere and that you’re just going round in circles?  Well the Mongolian Navy are stuck on the landlocked Lake Hovsgal so they actually are going round in circles.  All day, every day.  Who doesn’t feel better about themselves now?

    3.  War Is Hell.  I watched the Dreamworks mini-series The Pacific recently and a brilliant, absorbing, and appropriately reverential bit of television it was too.  But it was a highly confusing in places because there were many, many characters and they were all dressed identically.  The Mongolian Navy has only seven sailors though, so there should be little of that sort of confusion in their Twitter feed.  In time, you’ll probably get to know and love the entire Mongolian Navy, which is a lot less time than in would take you to get to know and love a larger navy.

    4.  Learn About Mongolia.  How much do you really know about Mongolia?  That’s a question I’ve asked myself on several occasions recently, and in my case, the answer is very little.  I imagine that by following the Mongolian Navy on Twitter I’m going to learn a great deal more about Mongolia.  After all, they’re landlocked, so it’s not like they’re going to be tweeting about anywhere else.

    5.  Because You Love An Underdog.  Yes you do!  You can’t help it.  And surely, in naval terms, a navy with only one vessel (a tug) is the biggest underdog of them all.  Or the littlest underdog, perhaps.  After all, it’s hard to feel any sort of empathy with large modern navies with their state-of-the-art destroyers deploying smart torpedoes and missiles against enemies that don’t stand a hope-in-hell’s chance.  But the Mongolian Navy’s epic quest to tow other boats around and keep their lake free from better navies* is something we can all appreciate and get behind.

    6.  Because They’ll Follow You Back.  I’ve looked at their Twitter page and it seems that they’re following the people who are following them back.  And who wouldn’t want to be followed by the Mongolian Navy (if you’re going to be followed by a navy, the Mongolian one seems like the best option)?  It seems that the Mongolian Navy are as curious about us as we are about them.   Let’s tell them what things are like where we live.  Near the sea.  Or tweet swimming tips, I think they’d like that.

    7.  Show Your Support.  Because no one in Mongolia loves them.  As we pointed in out March, Mongolia has a National Men and Soldiers Day, but not a National Men and Sailors Day.  This seems deeply unfair.  Let’s show them that people out there do care about them.  Let’s show our support for by following @MongolianNavy on Twitter.**

     

    *Which is all navies.  Even Birmingham has a better navy than Mongolia.

    **As this doesn’t seem like too much of a commitment.

     

     

  • 7 Reasons That Mongolia is Wrong to Celebrate Men and Soldiers

    7 Reasons That Mongolia is Wrong to Celebrate Men and Soldiers

    Hello 7 Reasons readers!  It’s Friday here in the world, but in Mongolia it isn’t.  In Mongolia, today is Men and Soldiers Day:  The day when the good folks of Ulaanbaatar (and the parts of Mongolia that we can’t name) celebrate men and soldiers.  Are men and soldiers the right people to be celebrating though, we asked ourselves.  Doesn’t it seem a little unfair and iniquitous to be only celebrating men and soldiers?   We think it is.  We think there are far more deserving groups for modern Mongolia to celebrate.   Here they are.

    1.  Men and Sailors. Now, the more observant of you will point out that Mongolia is a landlocked country and as a result have little need for sailors. While I might agree with you, it doesn’t stop Mongolia having a Navy. Indeed, as recently ago as the 13th Century, Mongolia had the third largest Navy in the world. Sadly, these days it comprises of three boats, two guns and seven sailors. Laughable you may think, but when I tell you that only one of the sailors can swim you will understand the gravity of the situation. Mongolia should be celebrating their sailors before they’ve all gone.

    2.  Men and Roy Chapman Andrews & His Merry Men. A name not familiar to most of you I am sure, but in the early 1920s Roy and co explored Mongolia in a fleet of Dodge cars. He was intending that his trip to Mongolia would help him discover something about the origin of man – why he thought Mongolia was the place he’d find this remains a mystery – he’d have probably had more luck in Lidl. Unsurprisingly he discovered little about man, but did discover a treasure trove of dinosaur bones. Not my words, those of Wikipedia. Then in July 1923, he became the first man to discover dinosaur eggs. All this leads us to believe that Roy Chapman Andrews inspired the creation of Indiana Jones. Given the success of the franchise, I feel it only proper that we should celebrate the real-life Indiana. And when I say ‘we’, I mean Mongolia.

    3.  Men and Weathermen. In summertime the temperatures can reach as high as 40 Celsius in Mongolia and in the winter drop as low as -45 Celsius. That is some extreme weather one has to stand outside holding a thermometer in. No one ever thinks about this though do they? All they care about is whether they need the camel or the bus the next day.

    4.  Men and Trans-Siberian Train Drivers. The Trans-Siberian railway line cuts through Mongolia as it joins Russia and China. A trip from St Petersburg to Beijing – taking in Ulaanbaatar – can take anywhere from between fifteen days to a month and a half. The first reason that Mongolia should be celebrating this dedicated group is that they are bringing in tourists which of course boost the economy. Secondly, do you know how hard it is to stand up for a month and a half? No, neither do I. But that is what these train drivers do. Heroes. The lot of them.

    5.  Men and Yurt Manufacturers.  While Mongolian soldiers might once have blazed a bloody trail across Asia under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Army is no longer the all-conquering behemoth that it once was.  Mongolian yurts, however, unlike Mongolian soldiers, can be found all over the world and are something of a national Mongolian symbol.  You can even order them online.  Can you order a Mongolian soldier online?  Well yes, probably, this is the internet we’re talking about, but a yurt would look better in your garden and would be less terrifying to your womenfolk and neighbours.

    6.  Men and Economists.  The major currency of Mongolia is the tögrög, the tugrik or the tugrug, it depends who you ask.  And if you ask me, it’s the tugrug.  I don’t know how many tögrögs there are to the tugrik or how many tökraks there are to the tugrug (I just made one up myself, being an economist is fun!) but anyone who has invented a currency that has at least three names – one of which sounds like a silent comedic prank – should be celebrated.  And then locked up.

    7.  Men and the Sun-Starved Geeks That Update Wikipedia.  If it weren’t for Wikipedia, how much would we know of modern Mongolia?  Sure we all know about Genghis Khan and the yurts and…the…yaks and things?  But Wikipedia – fortunately – knows everything.  I, for one, was flabbergasted to learn that Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan and that on November 21, 2005, George W. Bush became the first-ever sitting U.S. President to visit Mongolia.  To the rest of the world, Wikipedia is a shop window for Mongolia, spewing-forth fascinating facts and marvellous Mongolian minutiae for our amazement and astonishment.  Mongolia should celebrate the people that update Wikipedia from their bedrooms in their pants.  And so should we.  Wikipedia, we salute you.