The thing I took away, emphasized by a wonderful book I read on the road, Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, is that unlike the Han people of China, Mongolians have always been warriors.

When they conquered China and most of the rest of Asia, reaching all the way to Hungary, they not only circumvented the Great Wall, they were massively outnumbered by the armies of their future subjects, they did it without an industrial base of any kind or even any real cities, and fought using only their small horses (with stirrups) and their swords.

The million or so remaining nomads treat their open range as a true commons, living with few or no restrictions on their lives. The Soviets tried to destroy their culture and history, but fortunately they failed. Some of the gers we saw sported satellite dishes and solar panels, so the modern world is seeping in.

We were in Ulan Bataar on the day when Mongolia won its second gold medal ever. It was for boxing, naturally...