Why "savannah-yang"? Who's that?

Hey all!

Last time I introduced my reading and writing habits and my purpose of keeping this blog. This time I would like to give more information about me.

My name is Yang Yong in English and 雍扬 in Chinese. The first character is my last name, which is Yong and the second one is my first name, Yang. We put last name first in China. In addition, "Yong" and  "Yang" are Pinyin of “雍” and “扬”, respectively. Seriously speaking, I do not have an English name like "Jenny" or "Katy" but "Yang" is simple and unique; thus, I prefer using this instead of named me another one. It sounds like "young" in English.

I come from northern China. My hometown is a city of Inner Mongolia, Ordos, which is famous for cashmere sweaters and so-called “Modern Ghost Town” named by Time Magazine. I am currently an undergraduate student with my sophomore/junior standing at the UM. I transferred from China Agricultural University almost a year ago. I major in CMB, which is short for Cell and Molecular Biology, and math is my minor.  I declare CMB as my major has something to do with my childhood dream. My dream is to become a biologist devoted conquering cancer because several relatives of mine were diagnosed with cancer and they suffered a lot.

China is a big country which consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly administered municipalities, including Beijing, and two highly autonomous special administrative regions and an island.

Inner Mongolia is one of the autonomous regions. Despite the fact that we 1.3 billion people are all called “Chinese”, there are 56 distinct ethnic groups existed. Most of them are the Han nationality and they speak and write Chinese language, literally Chinese language. The other 55 minority ethnic groups have their own culture and life style and some of them even have their own language, which are not Chinese language. Even though lots of young people of minorities are more familiar with Chinese language instead of their own native ethical language due to lots of reasons, for example, education and employment, Chinese government is committed to protect these intangible heritages of humanity. Thus, a special kind of province, autonomous region appeared. 

Inner Mongolia has a higher population of Mongols and it is a traditional homeland of them as well as some other ethnic groups such as Manchu, Evenks and Oroqen, and is inhabited by considerable numbers of Han people. 

Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation.

Wow! Two Mongolias!! Well, you are right!!!! That’s why my hometown is called “Inner”, which refers to in the boundary of China literally.

Mongols has their own language, which is Mongolian language and it does not look or sound like Chinese language at all. Here is an example:

English: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Chinese: 内蒙古自治区

Pinyin of Chinese: Nèi Měnggǔ Zì Zhì Qū

Mongolian

Mongolian cyrillic: Өвөр Монгол
Japanese：内モンゴル自治区

Russian：Автономный район Внутренняя Монголия

Unlike Beijing, HongKong or Tibet, Inner Mongolia is neither a center of politics or economics, nor “a piece of desired meat” of Western countries. Not only few foreigners have any idea about this region, but also lots of Chinese are not really familiar with it. Inner Mongolia is famous for savannah in China. 

Anytime I tell my friend who do not come from Inner Mongolia that I come from Inner Mongolia, they would ask me if I live in a yurt, ride a horse on grassland….


Ooooo…. Maybe????? Check this linkage~It's a video

Traffic in Inner Mongolia

Awesome!!! Right?

Well, the truth is that this is not the truth.

 In some pasture regions of Inner Mongolia, traditional Mongolians are still live in yurt, ride horse and live on savannah. 
Here are some photos of savannah and traditional Mongolians in their traditional ethical clothes. I'm not good at describe the beauty of nature just like what I said in my last blog, but the real Savannah is one of the most fantastic landscapes that you should not  miss in your life. 

Nevertheless, most areas of Inner Mongolia are normal cities or towns just like others in China. The capital is Hohhot and the largest city is Baotou. However, Ordos should be and definitely is the most famous and amazing one! Here are some pictures of it and I will spend some time on introducing the real Ordos some time in my blog.