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As is always the case for me, what went on before/after/during the movie by real live human beings was at least as fascinating as the movie itself.

Before we went into the theater, my companion W saw a very nice friend of hers from church, who had gotten married recently and is now pregnant. Her little sister was there too, with nice shoes clearly squeezing her little feet so they were swelled dough inside her shoes. Her hair was back with the bright white scrunchy common to schoolgirl outfits. This style is common in Russia, apparently, and few schoolgirls are without it here.


The bathroom was another place to observe the Mongolian Phenomenon of Not Waiting in Lines. The girls in the bathroom waiting at intervals down corridor apparently staking out sections. I waited my turn, or so I though, behind them. One va va voom dressed girl walked past all of us to occupy a spot at the very end and when the next door opened, she took it. This style of things goes on at banks with regularity, and I experienced it my first day here at the cell phone marketplace, when a Tibetan monk cut in front of a whole line of people, including me, to pay his cell phone bill. What gives?

Next to me sat W, who recalled once overhearing "one of those real relationship talks" going on behind her in a movie theater. "It was one of those times where you want their phone number just to ask, Did you ever resolve this? It was obviously one of those real milestone arguments."

I was there also with A, who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia around seven years ago. When she got here, no one had cell phones; now, no one doesn’t have a cell phone. It all happened in the last five years.

A now works with environmental conservancies and had to leave early because she was helping to mind visiting Smithsonian people who’d been off chasing gazelles all day.