Anyone For Mongolian Ping Pong - Road to the Middle Class

I HAVE SELDOM been so delighted by a movie as “Mongolian Ping Pong.” It’s a delightful story of a Mongolian boy whose father sends him down from the yurt to dip a bucket of water in the river. And what does he spy in the river, but a round white thing floating along. What is it? Grandma thinks that it is the treasure of the water spirits.

This Mongol seven-year-old, descendant of the Great Khan no doubt, is already a fine horseman, and he and his two friends get into a lot of adventure and trouble with their parents as the movie unfolds—as any decent kids with a spark of spirit should do.

There are spectacular shots of the steppe and its endless grasslands, and they are long shots with people riding into them or walking off as the mood takes them.

The grassy steppe, remember, goes right across Asia from Hungary to the Pacific Ocean. That’s why Genghis Khan and his merry men were able to conquer the whole of Asia. So long as they kept to the steppe their horses had grass to eat, and as long as the horses were fed they could keep invading. That is a big deal for an army because horses eat about ten pounds of grass a day while a soldier needs only one pound of food each day.

But what is most poignant about the movie is that these Mongol kids seem to have the whole steppe to ride around in and get up to mischief. What American kid has such freedom?

Of course, all good things must come to an end. At seven the kid has to go off to boarding school in the city.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.