Home Institution

Colorado College

Publication Date

Fall 2011

Program Name

Mongolia: Geopolitics and the Environment

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to discover and seek answers about Mongolians’ perceptions and feelings toward the Chinese, in particular young, university-aged Mongolians. I set out to discover what young Mongolians say about Chinese, why those attitudes came about to begin with, and if they believe that, through more numerous interactions with China, these attitudes will change.

To uncover answers, I studied previous literature that existed on Mongolians’ general perceptions of Chinese, interviewed 17 students at three universities in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, released surveys to 36 university students, and interviewed professionals with various backgrounds to get finer details about the history and current situation of Mongolian and Chinese relations. What I discovered both surprised me and was what I had expected from the beginning; I had expected students to dislike Chinese, similar to older generations, but I was surprised to find that young Mongolians also had a very pragmatic approach to their relationship with Chinese. While many expressed extreme dislike, even anger at times, they also acknowledged that the Chinese are hard-working and that Mongolia should learn from China’s success and rapid development. These results lead me to believe that even though feelings toward Chinese may not change, as Mongolia gets more and more connected to China, these feelings will be forced deeper into the Mongolian psyche.

Disciplines

Family, Life Course, and Society | Inequality and Stratification | Race and Ethnicity | Social Psychology and Interaction

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