We bring you the first "MONGOLIA through the eyes of foriegners" interview series. Through this section, we will share the impressions of people from other countries who are traveling to Mongolia, working or living and studying in here. Surendra Kumar, the chef of Namaste Indian Restaurant, was invited as our first guest to share his impressions of Mongolia and Mongolians.
Citizenship: Indian
Living duration in Mongolia: Since June 2002 (20 years)
Current occupation: Executive Chef 👨🍳
- What do you enjoy most about living in Mongolia?
- I like the peaceful lifestyle and simplicity of Mongolia and its people. I am personally not a big fan of megacities where life gets too busy and one struggles to balance work and life. And Mongolian people owning to the nomadic roots are very easy to interact and make friends with, these aspects of living in Mongolia are very close to my heart.
- In your opinion, what are Mongolia's bad things/service, attitudes etc/ and how to improve that?
- I haven’t seen much of Mongolia, because, I haven’t traveled much to the other provinces, therefore it will be unfair to say something about the whole country, but I can certainly say about Ulaanbaatar city. I Believe our city Ulaanbaatar is facing public infrastructure issues such as traffic jams, air pollution in winter, etc. Due to these issues, people face several productivity and health-related challenges. I am quite positive that the government must be implementing short and long-term measures to deal effectively with these issues.
- What services and cultures in your country do you want to implement here?
- Every country has something to learn from, similarly, if there is something I miss about India is the services that you get online access to, be it a domestic service or professional you get all types of high standard services available online at a very pocket-friendly price. So, there are certainly good Mongolian Tech startups that can think of introducing something of the same sort to the local market.
- What is your favorite Mongolian holiday? Why?
- I like the Naadam festival the most among all other festivals because the weather is very beautiful and people can really enjoy outdoor life with family and friends. I like Tsagaan Sar as well but I personally feel sorry to see all the ladies of the family work so hard all through the festival and hardly get time to join the visiting guests, which makes me feel sorry for the women.
- What were the good and bad things that happened to you while you were in Mongolia?
- I am here for almost 20 years now, therefore, staying in a country for such a long time means there are many more good things that happened to me than the bad ones. I am grateful to all Mongolians for your hospitality and big hearts. I have more friends in Mongolia than in India because most of my young age I have lived in Mongolia with my friends and family. So, all these years that I spent in this beautiful country in itself is the great thing that happened to me. I am lucky and blessed to say that I don’t have any memorable bad things which happened to me here.
We bring you the first "MONGOLIA through the eyes of foriegners" interview series. Through this section, we will share the impressions of people from other countries who are traveling to Mongolia, working or living and studying in here. Surendra Kumar, the chef of Namaste Indian Restaurant, was invited as our first guest to share his impressions of Mongolia and Mongolians.
Citizenship: Indian
Living duration in Mongolia: Since June 2002 (20 years)
Current occupation: Executive Chef 👨🍳
- What do you enjoy most about living in Mongolia?
- I like the peaceful lifestyle and simplicity of Mongolia and its people. I am personally not a big fan of megacities where life gets too busy and one struggles to balance work and life. And Mongolian people owning to the nomadic roots are very easy to interact and make friends with, these aspects of living in Mongolia are very close to my heart.
- In your opinion, what are Mongolia's bad things/service, attitudes etc/ and how to improve that?
- I haven’t seen much of Mongolia, because, I haven’t traveled much to the other provinces, therefore it will be unfair to say something about the whole country, but I can certainly say about Ulaanbaatar city. I Believe our city Ulaanbaatar is facing public infrastructure issues such as traffic jams, air pollution in winter, etc. Due to these issues, people face several productivity and health-related challenges. I am quite positive that the government must be implementing short and long-term measures to deal effectively with these issues.
- What services and cultures in your country do you want to implement here?
- Every country has something to learn from, similarly, if there is something I miss about India is the services that you get online access to, be it a domestic service or professional you get all types of high standard services available online at a very pocket-friendly price. So, there are certainly good Mongolian Tech startups that can think of introducing something of the same sort to the local market.
- What is your favorite Mongolian holiday? Why?
- I like the Naadam festival the most among all other festivals because the weather is very beautiful and people can really enjoy outdoor life with family and friends. I like Tsagaan Sar as well but I personally feel sorry to see all the ladies of the family work so hard all through the festival and hardly get time to join the visiting guests, which makes me feel sorry for the women.
- What were the good and bad things that happened to you while you were in Mongolia?
- I am here for almost 20 years now, therefore, staying in a country for such a long time means there are many more good things that happened to me than the bad ones. I am grateful to all Mongolians for your hospitality and big hearts. I have more friends in Mongolia than in India because most of my young age I have lived in Mongolia with my friends and family. So, all these years that I spent in this beautiful country in itself is the great thing that happened to me. I am lucky and blessed to say that I don’t have any memorable bad things which happened to me here.