I've just come back from a very nice dinner at “The Square”, a very pleasant bar/restaurant in the Central Tower, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I had a table overlooking the Sukhbaatar Square, as the picture below shows.
The square itself is full of Mongolian and other visitors, walking around, taking pictures, cycling, skating and skateboarding, around the statue of Sukhbaatar, a national hero, and under the watchful eye of an even larger statue of Chinggis Khan, a better-known, older national hero. This square appears to be populated like this every day and every evening, I guess more so in summer than during the bitter winters. On this evening there were extra people due to the graduation of many students, with many smartly-dressed young adults in evidence, all sharing the glorious sunset.
After finishing my excellent “Mexicano Burger” accompanied by a draught Chinggis beer (what else!) I was enjoying the view when I suddenly heard the person behind me speaking Afrikaans! A bit unexpected, to say the least… So I spent the next couple of hours chatting to two South Africans (one of which a medical doctor) who are based in Australia, and are here to promote the use of health, safety and environmental software. Probably very interesting for various branches of industry: mining, construction, etc., etc.
Strange (but fun!) to share experiences and points of view between us, all 3 of us born and bred in South Africa, and now we meet in Mongolia, but based from The Netherlands and Ausralia, respectively. All of us (even me) still able to speak Afrikaans properly. They were too polite to comment on my accent, I think.
I think we are recolonising the world, haha. Putting it in a more politically correct way, it is obvious that many of us who were educated in SA are able to make our mark in the wider world.
