Shiremmes
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990042
Name: Shiremmes
Parent's name: Batbayar
Ovog: Malynhan
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1951
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Lün sum, Töv aimag
Lives in: Lün sum (or part of UB), Töv aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
education / cultural production
childhood
work
cultural campaigns
belief
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
childhood
education
Ulaanbaatar
cultural campaigns
telephonist
name giving
To read a full interview with Shiremmes please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 080711A with Shiremmes
Shiremmes was born in Lün sum. She grew up in the country-side helping her parents with livestock breeding. In 1959, when she was eight, Shiremmes was sent to Ulaanbaatar to study in secondary school. After finishing school in 1969, she took up the job of telephonist at the Central Post Office in Ulaanbaatar where she worked for seven years. In 1978, she passed the entrance examinations and was admitted to the Agricultural Institute to study agronomy. Her first job assignment as an agronomist was in Bayan-Delger sum in Töv aimag where she worked for 2 years. Then she moved to Lün sum to work as a manager in a small food factory. At the time of the interview she was running a small vegetable farm and kept few livestock.
She discusses the following topics in detail: her childhood in the country-side, the cultural campaign, and her school years in Ulaanbaatar. The first school she went to was an old wooden building, with oven-heating, on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. Apart from dress (she as a girl from the country-side wore a deel, whereas the city children wore uniforms), there was no much difference between the rural and urban schoolchildren. All rules applied to all children equally. For example, no schoolgirl was allowed to wear ear-rings or to have her hair unbound. In socialist schools, each class had several dargas done by schoolchildren themselves: one darga was in charge of the whole class, one in charge of hygiene, one in charge of each row, etc. The responsibility of dargas was to keep school children quite, ensure that they participate in classroom activities and make them behave properly. Shiremmes herself was the darga in charge of hygiene. Another vivid memory from her childhood is connected with the cultural campaign which was carried out both in rural and urban areas alike. Households everywhere were inspected for cleanliness and hygiene.
Shiremmes thinks of herself as a religious person, for she performs all the required ceremonies during Tsagan sar, gives offerings to Buddha, and so on. Her name Shiremmes which means a ‘knife made of steel’ was given to her by a lama.
