City Stumblings
Last Friday, my debut article, “Newcomer to Mongolia” was published in the UB Post. I’m extremely excited about that. It’s certainly not the first time that my material has been published, but it was the first time to be published in Mongolia. As a result I’ve been offered my own column to be published in each issue of the UB Post. As the title of my column suggests, my column will be about things, sites, and issues that I stumble upon as I live and have lived in Ulaanbaatar (UB).
With that said, please allow me start off my new column with something that happened this past Sunday. My son and I walked into my favourite watering hole, a new place called Hennessy’s Restbar, acclaimed to be the only authentic Irish Pub in all of UB by the owner.
It was a quiet, lazy Sunday evening. There weren’t many patrons there. There was the owner and his family, which included his son. There was another expat couple with their son.
Of course, I was there with my son. And then, there was a small group of four individual expats. From the time I entered the restaurant/bar until the time that the group of four left, one particular individual of the group could not stop complaining about children being in a bar.
He was pontificating so loudly that everyone in the bar could hear him, and I think that it was on purpose rather than due to the amount of alcohol that he had consumed.
It was quite evident that he wanted to be heard by all.
“When I come to a pub, I come to get drunk and tell dirty stories!” declared the man. “I don’t come to be around children. Children should not be in a pub!”
One of his mates tried to appease the man and arrest his rambunctious ramblings, but he would not be assuaged. “I’m sorry, but this is a serious issue to me,” he went on. “In the U.K., children aren’t allowed to go into a pub. It’s illegal, and that’s the way it should be!”
Had the group not left soon thereafter, I would have been tempted to approach him and say, “You’re not in the U.K. anymore!” This issue of children in a bar or pub is indicative of a much larger syndrome, which for lack of a scientific term I shall label the my-culture-is-better-than-your-culture syndrome.
I have lived and worked in six different countries aside from my own, which in chronological order are: South Korea, China, Poland, Turkey, Vietnam, and Mongolia. In all of those countries,
I have met fellow foreigners, who constantly contrast their home cultures with the host culture, and invariably it is in the tone of complaint. “Why can’t they [the locals] be more like us?” “Why do they [the locals] have to do that?” Or even more condemningly, “What’s wrong with these people?” It is a common syndrome of ignorance, intolerance, immaturity and diabolical disrespect to the host culture.
Getting back to the issue of the children in a pub or bar, well, this is not the U.K., and different rules apply here.
This must be understood and respected. I don’t propose that one should like everything about one’s host culture, but it must be respected. If one doesn’t like it, one has the freedom to leave, and I mean both the bar and the country.
Personally, I like it. As a family man, I want to bring my family with me when I go out, and they want to come with me, instead of staying home and being bored. My motto is a family that pubs together, stays together.
For those like my ‘friend’ above, who do not want to be around children in a bar or pub, I’m sure that there are a plethora of places in town where one can go. It is not necessary to make a spectacle of oneself.
There is an old saying: birds of a feather flock together. Well, find your flock. Obviously, my ‘friend’ above, was in the wrong flock that night. It behooves one to leave the wrong flock and find the right flock. After all, it is a free country, is it not?
Furthermore, out of all the countries that I have lived in, including my home country and the U.K., there are venues that sell alcohol, where children accompanied by parents are welcome, and there are more hard-core venues where no minors are welcome at all. So, my ‘friend’s’ rant about children not being allowed in pubs would seem out of sorts.
I talked to someone about the obnoxious man after he had left and I heard the comment, “Oh, he must have been drunk.”
I don’t accept that as an excuse for obnoxious or antisocial behaviour, for two reasons: (1) a person’s true character seems to be exposed under the influence of alcohol, and (2) I know many people, including myself, who can maintain a degree of civility and composure while intoxicated.
Obviously, the man was expressing his true opinions, because alcohol is like a truth serum.
My dear readers, I would really like to know your opinions on the subject. I would like to invite you to write letters to the editor or email me about this topic of children being in restaurant-bars. Should children be allowed in restaurant-bars?
With that said, please allow me start off my new column with something that happened this past Sunday. My son and I walked into my favourite watering hole, a new place called Hennessy’s Restbar, acclaimed to be the only authentic Irish Pub in all of UB by the owner.
It was a quiet, lazy Sunday evening. There weren’t many patrons there. There was the owner and his family, which included his son. There was another expat couple with their son.
Of course, I was there with my son. And then, there was a small group of four individual expats. From the time I entered the restaurant/bar until the time that the group of four left, one particular individual of the group could not stop complaining about children being in a bar.
He was pontificating so loudly that everyone in the bar could hear him, and I think that it was on purpose rather than due to the amount of alcohol that he had consumed.
It was quite evident that he wanted to be heard by all.
“When I come to a pub, I come to get drunk and tell dirty stories!” declared the man. “I don’t come to be around children. Children should not be in a pub!”
One of his mates tried to appease the man and arrest his rambunctious ramblings, but he would not be assuaged. “I’m sorry, but this is a serious issue to me,” he went on. “In the U.K., children aren’t allowed to go into a pub. It’s illegal, and that’s the way it should be!”
Had the group not left soon thereafter, I would have been tempted to approach him and say, “You’re not in the U.K. anymore!” This issue of children in a bar or pub is indicative of a much larger syndrome, which for lack of a scientific term I shall label the my-culture-is-better-than-your-culture syndrome.
I have lived and worked in six different countries aside from my own, which in chronological order are: South Korea, China, Poland, Turkey, Vietnam, and Mongolia. In all of those countries,
I have met fellow foreigners, who constantly contrast their home cultures with the host culture, and invariably it is in the tone of complaint. “Why can’t they [the locals] be more like us?” “Why do they [the locals] have to do that?” Or even more condemningly, “What’s wrong with these people?” It is a common syndrome of ignorance, intolerance, immaturity and diabolical disrespect to the host culture.
Getting back to the issue of the children in a pub or bar, well, this is not the U.K., and different rules apply here.
This must be understood and respected. I don’t propose that one should like everything about one’s host culture, but it must be respected. If one doesn’t like it, one has the freedom to leave, and I mean both the bar and the country.
Personally, I like it. As a family man, I want to bring my family with me when I go out, and they want to come with me, instead of staying home and being bored. My motto is a family that pubs together, stays together.
For those like my ‘friend’ above, who do not want to be around children in a bar or pub, I’m sure that there are a plethora of places in town where one can go. It is not necessary to make a spectacle of oneself.
There is an old saying: birds of a feather flock together. Well, find your flock. Obviously, my ‘friend’ above, was in the wrong flock that night. It behooves one to leave the wrong flock and find the right flock. After all, it is a free country, is it not?
Furthermore, out of all the countries that I have lived in, including my home country and the U.K., there are venues that sell alcohol, where children accompanied by parents are welcome, and there are more hard-core venues where no minors are welcome at all. So, my ‘friend’s’ rant about children not being allowed in pubs would seem out of sorts.
I talked to someone about the obnoxious man after he had left and I heard the comment, “Oh, he must have been drunk.”
I don’t accept that as an excuse for obnoxious or antisocial behaviour, for two reasons: (1) a person’s true character seems to be exposed under the influence of alcohol, and (2) I know many people, including myself, who can maintain a degree of civility and composure while intoxicated.
Obviously, the man was expressing his true opinions, because alcohol is like a truth serum.
My dear readers, I would really like to know your opinions on the subject. I would like to invite you to write letters to the editor or email me about this topic of children being in restaurant-bars. Should children be allowed in restaurant-bars?
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