Hearing Birds Fly

by Louisa Waugh

HEARING BIRDS FLY is Louisa Waugh's passionately written account of her time in a remote Mongolian village. Frustrated by the increasingly bland character of the capital city of Ulan Bator, she yearned for the real Mongolia and got the chance when she was summoned by the village head to go to Tsengel far away in the west, near the Kazakh border. Her story completely transports the reader to feel the glacial cold and to see the wonders of the Seven Kings as they steadily emerge from the horizon.

Through her we sense their trials as well as their joys, rivalries and even hostilities, many of which the author shared or knew about. Her time in the village was marked by coming to terms with the harshness of climate and also by how she faced up to new feelings towards the treatment of animals, death, solitude and real loneliness, and the constant struggle to censor her reactions as an outsider. Above all, Louisa Waugh involves us with the locals' lives in such a way that we come to know them and care for their fates.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Asia, Memoir, Biography Memoir, China, Autobiography

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Carolyn Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a trip to Mongolia a few years ago, and thought I'd read this book to get a flavour of what to expect. That was extremely naive of me. As if my 2-week trip a few miles away from Ulaanbaatar could in any way compare to Louisa's. She lived for a year in the most remote, forbidding and bleak region of western Mongolia, thousands of miles from the convenience of urbanity, to experience authentic nomadic Mongol life.

Like most people who love to travel, Louisa wanted an insight into the real life and culture of the country, and to do that, she had to go way beyond the beaten track, to a place where you wouldn't have been able to communicate to a single soul unless you spoke Mongolian. Of course, most of us can't, and in any case wouldn't have the strength of mind to live in a village where you can freeze to death in the winter if you don't make your fire properly (there's no electricity or central heating), and where the people don't only not speak your language, but are culturally different, and consistently eye you with suspicion and distrust. Louisa's isolated in this alien world, where phoning home isn't even an option, and you can't help but admire her will and determination to simply survive the day-to-day. Just waking up and making a cup of tea is a struggle.

It's in this way that Louisa takes the romanticism out of travel, and brings your head-in-the-clouds back down to earth with a welcome smack of reality, making you realise that if you truly want to experience what a different culture is, it will take at least a year, and you will spend most of that time lonely, wretched and surviving. You won't be taking reams of photos to put on Facebook, you'll be hungrily scraping together your next meal, and besides, there's no electricity to charge your camera.

Yet, there is beauty within the bleak. In fact, because of the extreme effort Louisa puts in month after month, to slowly get to know these people and her uninviting environment, it rewards her tenfold. There's a poignant moment when in the depths of one of the harshest winters known to humanity, she treks with a group from the village to see a family who live in a cave in the mountains, of which one is sick and needs medical treatment. She steals a moment for herself amidst the strained hope and intimate reminiscences, and goes out of the cave just as dawn is breaking. The way Louisa describes this precious moment in one of the world's most isolated places, is as if she's the explorer of a new planet, privileged to see something hardly any other human has, and you get the feeling all the hardships have been worth it just for that.

So if you want to go to Mongolia, first take your 2-week trip there, then read this book, as it'll enrich your experience and take you deep into one of the world's most fascinating cultures. Alternatively, just read this book on a beach somewhere, and let Louisa be the true traveller.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone left this book at my house and I decided to start reading it for lack of anything better to do. I'm really glad I read it as it captures many similar experiences or at least feelings of what I've experienced in Mongolia. Waugh talks about Mongolia with affection, but does not try to gloss over the fact that things can be difficult here, for both Mongolians and foreigners trying to live here, well at the same time really great. I'd highly recommend it to my friends who want to know what life can be like here. I might live in the city, but I do know what she's talking about.

[Alopexin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the description of life in this most remote village at the Mongolia border. The mix of cultures between Mongolian-Kazakh-Tuvan is complex and fascinating. I also enjoyed the author's musings about how hard life is in such contexts, and especially about solitude, how it is to be an outsider in such a small community. Somehow this is gearing me up to the fact that such an experience would NOT be the great time of your life that you want it to be, but the hardship is worth it because it will contribute to the Experience.
I also think she has the right attitude in learning a culture that's not her own. She's very game about joining everything and doing things the locals' way, is adamant about having a job in the village, to have a 'spot' so to speak, and is conscious about not trying to 'convert' or give unwanted advice to the locals just because she's the "more civilized" one and that's "none of her business".

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about an area of Mongolia that I didn't know anything about. While many of my Mongolian students have spent a good deal of time in the countryside, they claim UB or nearby as home. It was very interesting to learn about the ethnic minorities and diversity that exists in what I thought was a mostly mono-cultural country, differentiated only by which generation grew up in an urban area.

[Woolflower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I've read this book twice. Once when I was dreaming of going to Mongolia. I enjoyed hearing about her personal and realistic view of what it's like to be in the remote areas. The day to day challenges that people face there are huge. The people are amazing and it comes through in her writing. I read it the second time after I'd actually been to Mongolia to see for myself what it's like to be in those remote areas. Glad I read it both times. Loved Mongolia and therefore loved the book.

[Carla Hobart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this much more than I expected! I'm normally a strictly fiction reader but this is well written and engaging and immerses you in the remote Mongolian countryside and village life.

[Nadirah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75

Enjoyed this look into the nomadic culture of the Tuva & Kazakh Mongols. The author had some white-centric views but at least she has enough self-awareness to own up to it in the text itself.

[Josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mongolia, what an extraordinary culture, unbelievable!

[Babs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely, well written books. It charts a year spent in Tsengel, the most westerly village in Mongolia, by British journalist, Louisa Waugh. Having previously spent two years in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, Louisa decided to venture to the wilds of Mongolia and see how the local nomads live.

The Tsengels are split into three distinct ethnic groups - the Mongols, the Tuvans and the Kazakhs. She has to learn to deal with each of these groups individually as well as learning to survive the harshness of nomad life in one of the most remote and inhospitable parts of the world.

The writing is beautiful and the reader really gets a sense of life in the wilderness. In one part she sends a letter to her mother saying -

... the most profound change is in the noise, or rather the silence. The sounds I've been inundated with all my life, you know - TV, the buzz of the fridge, doorbells and telephones - all gone. Like they never even existed. I never hear radio or TV broadcasts, flick switches, run a bath, answer the phone or drive a car. When there are no visitors and it's just me here in the ger, it's so utterly silent that I can hear the wings of a bird flying over the roof.

The book ends with Louisa's preparations for leaving Tsengel at the end of a long hard year. My only disappointment with this book is it didn't have a final chapter to cover how Louisa dealt with and felt about being re-introduced to urban life. But overall it is a great read, and one which I would recommend to anyone who likes reading autobiographies and travel writing.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's description of her year in a remote village in Mongolia is just captivating, well-written, and has my head full of images of the place and people. A colleague, who is organizing my to-be month long journey in Mongolia, leant me the book, saying, about the author, "she's a young woman, like you...adventurous..." I found myself understanding so much of her perspective on a very deep level, but then again, maybe all people who are willing to throw themselves outside their comfort level have much in common anyway.

After reading this and being told some about food plans for my travel, I do worry some about what the diet of the month will do to my stomach, but the rest, harsh as it may be, does not worry me.

[Mike Mercatante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, readable account of a year spent in rural Mongolia. My son leaves for there with the Peace Corps in a couple of months. Wanted an overview of what he might expect. Hope he likes eating sheep's head.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite non-fiction travel memoir of all time. I might have a different opinion of the book if I read it now, but at the time of reading it, it was very influential on me.

[Heloise Jacobs]

A great read. Could not put it down but kept doing it because I did not want the book to end.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I am a city girl at heart. I like good food, noise and distractions. Constant hot water and bright lights. I’ve always hated drudgery and manual work, getting caked in dirt or sweat. I already despised hauling my pails of water every day, and my fingers were sore, constantly ingrained with tiny, evil splinters from the wood Gansukh had taught me to split. But I was already in the thrall of this village and these wild, dark mountains.”

“‘This is Tsengel in four words: ice, dust, dried meat, disco.’” “The most profound change is in the noise, or rather the silence…I never hear radio or TV broadcasts, flick switches, run a bath, answer the phone or drive a car. When there are no visitors and it’s just me here in the ger, it’s so utterly silent that I can hear the wings of a bird flying over the roof.”

Hearing Birds Fly chronicles Louisa Waugh’s thirtieth year in Tsengel–Delight–Mongolia, as she spends twelve months “binding myself into the fibers of Tsengel, carving my niche in and beyond the classroom.” Waugh walks readers through “each of the seasons, from the arid spring, through the lush summer and the flaming autumn…the boreal dark winter” in “the most remarkable time of my life…the most beautiful but occasionally hideous, lonely, intimate and profound.”

“I wanted to see if I could adapt to this other life, manage without the things I’d always been used to, the things I’d taken for granted, and maybe even thrive. The challenge and romance of living in Mongolia’s furthest west village, surrounded by nomad settlements, had both appealed to me…I was forced to acknowledge that relations between people were as complex, tragic and delicate in Tsengel as they are anywhere else.”

“There’s no such thing as a new beginning…You take all your own defects with you wherever you go.” But while you may not be able to run away from your mistakes, traveling teaches you to learn from them and avoid their repetition. “This was what I really loved about Tsengel and what made all the struggling and drudgery worthwhile: that I wasn’t living under my own sky, but in an older starker world, where the elements wielded their chaos like unrestrained deities.”

If you’re looking for an armchair adventure, Hearing Birds Fly is a must read.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waugh writes well and she obviously has a deep love for Mongolia and its peoples. I didn't know much about Mongolia before reading this, so I appreciated being able to gain new knowledge. Waugh is very realistic about the harshness of life for so many people in her village, whilst also appreciating the beauty of the land, the silence (it's quiet enough to hear birds flying overhead, hence the title of the book), the space and the generosity and kindness of the people she lives with. On the one hand, there is the serenity of a life away from the materialism and pollution of a big city, but on the other hand, there is the constant, gruelling physical labour in a harsh and sometimes dangerous environment.

She does come across as arrogant sometimes, but she is also horrified at one point when she realises that she has been telling someone else how to live their life. I appreciated that she owns up to some of her mistakes and doesn't present herself as always getting it right. She did seem a little naïve with her assumption that she could be regarded as a genuine villager and treated no differently from the rest of the village - all this while insisting on having her own way regardless of what the village thought! - but I did feel really sorry for her when she was preparing to leave and realised that it was "as though my time in their lives ended the day I left Tsengel, and they were comfortable with that." I found the last few pages quite moving, as she evokes that sense of saying goodbye to someone or something that you will miss but that won't miss you.

[Idiosyncratic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked this book for its unvarnished description of the nomadic life. I did wonder, however, what happened after she left. She had worked quite hard to integrate herself into the community and to ingratiate herself to the local people. (I was super-impressed that she spoke Mongolian and learned a fair bit of Kazakh.) It seems that there were people who were genuinely attached to her. How did they feel when she left? I was once told, in a multi-cultural group, that North Americans were seen by other cultures as "nosy and superficial" - that we often wanted people to readily share things that, in other cultures, would take years of closeness to reveal. I realize Louisa Waugh comes from a German/British background (not North American), but were her close friends disappointed by what might have been seen as a somewhat superficial, fly-by-night visit? (Given that the Mongols, Kazakhs and Tuvans would spend the rest of their lives there.) I'm just wondering, not criticizing. I appreciate that the town had had numerous foreign teachers, and that they all left as Louisa did, but she seemed to have made deeper inroads than others night have.

[Alison Grover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a page turner. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves travel writing and cross cultural experiences. It was exactly what I wanted out of a travel memoir. You get a real feel for the place, and the author paces the chapters really well. She sticks to the action, and every chapter is interesting, surprising, and exciting.

One thing I particularly appreciated is hearing about her experience in this remote village as a woman. Usually, you hear about mens' experiences venturing into foreign, rural areas...but because Louisa is a (single) woman, she became immersed in the women's sphere of village life and social circles. Very interesting and heartwarming to see this perspective.

I was surprised that by the end of the book, I still didn't know that much about the author...her upbringing, her family, etc. or anything that happened before her time in Mongolia. But at the same time, I was reading for a glimpse at Mongolia, not necessarily an understanding of Louisa as a person.

[Crispin Reedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as one of the selections for my Peace Corps book club (although I never actually made it to Book Club that week, haha.)

I really enjoyed this book. It is well-written; the scenes in Mongolia drew me into the cold, stark, difficult part of the world. Her social relationships with the villagers reminded me vividly of my own Peace Corps experience, especially the ways in which you sometimes feel close and connected with the community and sometimes feel very distant. The physical hardships of her housing also reminded me of my own experience - although life in a tropical country (my posting) is nothing like life in Mongolia, the lack of Western conveniences and the bare-bones feeling of daily life struck a chord with me.

This book will take you into another world that is a fascinating and amazing part of our real world today. It made me want to hop the Trans-Siberian Express tomorrow and go see the stark wind-swept steppes.

[Kathy Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louisa Waugh spent a year in a remote Mongolian village for an entire year - the brutal winter, the wet spring, the glorious summer and the autumn. She spent half the year with a Mongolian family and half with a Kazakh family, two of three major ethnic groups that comprise Mongolia but keep segregated (by their own choice) even when they share a village. She experienced blizzars, sandstorm and glorious mountain views. Had to light a stove every morning with wood she chopped to cook and to heat, carry water from the well and often the river, get used to living with 10 or more people in a yurt as well as milking goats, scything hay, and sharing local meals. She had to participate in the fall animal slaughter along with the summer grazing, the wool gathering and the rituals of village life.
I admire her courage and am sure it is an experience I would not have survived.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book! I found myself captivated every single sentence. I truly had a hard time putting it down - I just wanted to stay up and finish it. Louisa Waugh describes her life in rural Mongolia in such a profound yet accessible way. I was enthralled by the descriptions of a culture and landscape so unlike my own and became attached to the characters Louisa met along the way. She does a great job of relaying their intricacies as people until you realize that these people, a world away from you, are really just like you in many ways.

[CORSAK fan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a tale this book tells. Anyone interested in or fascinated by Mongolia and life in rural areas / villages should give this book a read.

I wrote a full review for this five or six years ago and subtracted either half a star or a full star because throat singing wasn't really mentioned and I'm kind of obsessed with it and hoped it would be in here. But now I'm glad to give it a 5 after my second read.

Waugh details her experiences with isolation and also great connection and joy she gained while living in Tsengel, the west-most village of Mongolia. We follow along with her as she laughs and cries and feels everything in between.

My desire to go to Mongolia is now strengthened.

[Lina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well my trip to Mongolia was shorter and I haven't experienced winter (luckily) but the experience of visiting nomads gave the taste of nomadic Mongolia too. It takes courage to stay in a village so remote surrounded by that beautiful but harsh and unforgiving Mongolian nature.

It is a perfect travel memoir book and a perfect way to grasp the reality of the biggest Mongolia's ethnic minority, the Kazakhs.

[Jane E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an interesting book. The author makes it sound easy to learn multiple languages and to survive the freezing Mongolian winter relying on a wood stove and lots of blankets. Fascinating insights into the daily lives of the local people and the deep divide between the Kazakhs and the Tuvans - and who even knew that there was a big community of Tuvans in Western Mongolia? Definitely worth the read. (Purchased secondhand at Skoob Books, London, UK)

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hearing Birds Fly is the best book I have read this year. The author , Louisa Waugh, was a twenty-something BBC journalist who spent three years living in Mongolia; the first two in Ulan Bator while she learned the language, and the last in Tsergal, a small village on the western border with Kazakhstan, where she wrote a journal which she later turned into this book. Waugh writes beautifully and sensitively about the harsh life and the stark beauty of the landscape.

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a relatively short memoir, this one took me a longer time than I was expecting. I felt she lingered on areas I wanted to know less about(awkward arranged marriage situations, but less about the culture and process) and had brief passages about what I wanted to read more of (eagle hunting, cultural differences, history of region) 2.5 stars

[Szymon Woźniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book describing niche part of the world and the way of living which people cultivated for centuries but which would probably soon disappear. Many unique stories and characters. The most interesting part I found to be description of Kazakh minority history in Mongolia. The writing style is good but not amazing and too engaging (at least for me), thus 4 stars.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me look forward to going to bed to read every night. It was a light, easy read but not a book filled with fluff. It follows the adventure of Louisa's year living in a remote town in Mongolia. She writes about the trials and tribulations of daily life and what she learns along the way. It is an interesting peak into a very different way of life.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book within two days, Louisa brings you in right from the start you feel a part of the year she spent in Mongolia,I've read way too many books about nomadic Mongolia and this is one of the best.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book. I lived in Mongolia in the early 90s so Louisa Waugh's enthralling account of her time there resonated with me. If you have any interest in life in a remote, exotic country, then you will enjoy reading this book. Highly recommended.

[Dorly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone interested in Mongolia, the nomadic lifestyle, or just discovering an amazing culture.