A Scrap of Inner Mongolia Culture in Sarajevo

When the burning colours of fireworks gave the Sarajevo night sky a blaze of Chinese culture to the city, cars stopped, pedestrians paused. Everyone stared at the screaming glow, next to the round and yellow moon. A typical lantern festival moon. After around ten minutes of excitement and explosive noise looking up in the sky at the fireworks directly overhead, we were finally invited into the grand National Theatre where people from Inner Mongolia were dressed all in traditional attire, seated with their string instruments and drums, ready to show us their unique talents.

As the performance progressed, not only did we hear the beautiful melody of morin quur (马头琴), we saw the flowing dance moves of the Mongolian dancer with five bowls on top of her head, not to mention the sound of the entire theatre starting to clap along with the folk tune of Horqin (科尔沁). The image of the meadow and Mongolian yurt flashed back again and again at the back of my mind. I could hear the horses canter, weaving paths between the grass houses, reaching their owners that had probably just finished preparing goat milk and were already gathering to dance and sing.

On the way back, I stared at the moon again. I felt as if the car was travelling home.

©️ Written by Michelle Wang 王裕昕. Edited by Suyin Chan 陈素茵