Ashley Dairy -- in Erlianhot

By Ashley Eldridge

Erlianhot is relatively young by Chinese standards, and as such, has a population of right around 100,000. By law, all signs must be printed in Chinese and Mongolian, and as I mentioned in my previous post, the strong Russian influence means most signs include Cyrillic script as well. This makes for crowded signage and much confusion while communicating. Some vendors only speak Mongolian, while others, mistaking me for a Russian because of my fair hair, attempted a few words in that language.

Like any border town, it is something of a melting pot of races, though Mongolian is the unifying link. The city was established as the only train trade route between Inner and Outer Mongolia back in the 1950's, though the area had already been gaining international attention since the 1920's with the discovery of dinosaur fossils in the Erlian Basin.

The day after our arrival, we loaded up the bus for a trip to the Erlian Basin Dinosaur Museum near the archaeological dig site. More than ten dinosaur species have been found in this area alone, and DNA evidence from fossils found here has further proved that birds likely evolved from dinosaurs. The museum itself was just an underfunded provincial museum, but seeing herds of dinosaur statues set against the remote setting (from a distance) was enough for our imaginations to time warp us back to the Mongolia of 65 million years ago. The climate hasn't changed much in that time and the area is still barren, so this did not really take much of a mental leap.

Back in town, we stopped in at the local market, a massive labyrinth of shops owned predominantly by migrants from Yiwu. Most vendors, like those of the Silk Market in Beijing, specialize in one item - say, socks - and the stores are chock full of said specialty. The most notable feature of the market was its emptiness. Aside from the 30-odd CRI delegates wandering around, the only other signs of human life were the vendors themselves and their children playing up and down the halls. Despite the clear lack of business, the vendors lacked the aggression of those at the aforementioned Silk Market, though their financial situations are likely far worse than those of their urban counterparts. A spokesman for the market declined to give specific figures when asked, but from the looks of it, I think it is safe to say that the market is not exactly a booming source of revenue.