Episode Transcript
Femininity is powerful in all its forms, exceptional women, rare girls must be appreciated in every
way for their perspectives, actions, thoughts and their unique ways of being. Such rare
girls are inspiring. And this is what this podcast is all about. Hello, my name is Aziz
and my guest today is Ganzorik Hulan. Ola is 19 and she lives in the capital city,
Hulan Batar, Mongolia. Recently, she was chosen for Mongolian President's Scholarship 2022,
which is the top number one scholarship in Mongolia. She is currently taking a gap year,
but has already accepted an offer from Budapest University of Technology and Economic. So,
she will start studying for a bachelor degree in civil engineering starting January 2023.
Also in June, she completed her preparatory course, which is required for scholarship
holders. Ola is an artistic person. She cannot imagine her life without writing poems, painting,
singing and playing instruments. She is open to trying everything that immediately attracts her.
She believes that trying and doing something that interests her will always develop her as
a person, even if it fails. Ola is a mistake lover and learner. Ola, how are you today?
Hello, I'm doing pretty good. How are you? I'm feeling lucky. I'm feeling positive and
very curious about you. You described yourself as an artistic person, but if your friends who
notice more about you could describe your personality, what would they say? Okay, I think they would say
like I'm very dramatic and serious person because I always have that risked face and think about
everything seriously, but I consider myself as an artistic, but none of my friends see it as how I
think I am. That's really interesting. So you have a resting poker face or a bitch face even that
makes people think, oh my God, this girl looks like a snob or angry one. In reality, you are not that
way. Is this correct? Yes, definitely. Because I asked them about their impression about me and
they usually say like, I thought you are really got that attitude, like you're having that bitch
face and I think you're really mad or angry. But honestly, I'm not. It's just because of my face
and I'm not really emotional. I understand. And can you tell me about your artistic side? What
emotions does it give you? What inspiration does it add to you? And what does it add to your life?
Okay, as I said, art is part of my life, especially playing guitar or ukulele and singing for me.
And always feel like it's really inspirational. And whenever I'm feeling down and feeling stressed
and depressed, I just grab my guitar and start singing. And that just helped me to realize my
stress and anxiety. And it's just so calm. It just gave me that confidence and also self-love.
I love that. And let's discuss self-love. Do you feel nowadays, maybe even in Mongolia,
the younger generation, because of social media, they compare themselves to some plastic surgery
girls or Photoshop people and they lose their self-love? Or do you think it's not the case
and everybody is more confident and has their self-love for whatever other reasons?
Wow, that's a great question. I think in Mongolia, especially the girls have lost their self-love
and self-esteem and confidence because they believe what they see. And also,
I mean, it's the social media how life works. It's just the way we see. But in real life,
it's different. Because of that, most of the girls in Mongolia just do not love themselves enough.
That's a problem. Thank you. And maybe some people don't know the culture of Mongolia and
the younger generation. How would you describe a Mongolian girl who is your age? Do you feel maybe
you are a mix of Korean because of K-pop, of anime because of Japan, some Chinese culture,
and Hollywood in the US, and a mix of all those at the same time? Or are most young Mongolian girls
typically Mongolian? And therefore, what does that mean? I would say the Mongolian girl has a mixed
culture. Not all of them. But there is a group of girls mixed with the Korean culture. And there is
also a group of girls. Their culture is mixed with Western cultures and European kind of.
But the Mongolian culture is literally mixed and diverse. I think maybe we are losing our culture.
But I don't think it's a bad thing. But also, it's not a good thing. Because if we lose our culture,
then what can we keep? How we keep our features and the kind of things? Thank you. I understand
that fully and completely. And I'm curious also about something else. How did you productively
study to be able to win the presidential scholarship? How did you organize your day?
Did you get some burnout? How did you avoid it? If another girl from Mongolia wishes in the future
to be chosen for that scholarship, how do you recommend she approaches it without burning out?
Scholarship process was not hard for me. But after the process, the preparatory course was
very challenging for me. We were like 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at school. That was hard. And we were
learning English all day. And it's like Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. I said
that the scholarship process wasn't hard because it based on our entrance exam results. So I really
didn't know I was chosen for it at first. Just my friend told me that you're choosing one.
Didn't you see that? And I was like, really? And I saw that my name was there. And I was really
excited because I didn't believe myself. I didn't think that I can do it. But yeah, I was there and
I was really grateful for it. And now I have an opportunity to study in Hungary. That's really
good for me. And if I give advice to the next students who will hold a scholarship, I would say
management is the best habitat to adapt and also learn English as much as you need. Because if you're
bad at English, actually you can't get that scholarship. And you cannot get into that
scholarship preparatory course, which is very challenging. So I would say learn English the
time you have. Yeah, that's all. And don't worry about much. But being productive and learning
new things and also communicating with your teacher, your preparatory course teacher is
the thing. That's so true and interesting. And therefore I'll ask you about English language
learning. What was your method? Do you feel that a lot of younger Mongolian girls have enough
practice of English or focus enough on the English language? And if so, how would you recommend to
them the method to improve and practice English and get similar to you at least or with you and
them always developing even better? I think I learned English in a very wrong method because
if we just see back to 2020, I was in quarantine because of COVID-19 and I was real bad at English,
literally. And I learned English and got an improvement in English in the wrong way,
which is I just read a book. It has really advanced words that I even understand fully.
I also I try to prepare for SAT, which is a kind of entrance exam for USA universities. And I learned
in that way. It was not really suitable for me, but yeah. But if I need to give advice
to the English learner, I would say your base should be good enough. If your base is good enough,
then you can build much more and decorate them as much as you need. But what if we have a
just a bad base, it cannot even lay around. So I also watch movies with subtitles, English upside
less, and also learn and improve my English with song. And the song is literally the best thing
because it has a you can improve your listening and both speaking and also listening in podcast
is best for you. You can improve yourself and your English for sure. Thank you so much for this. And
I'm really curious to discover even more about you as a person. What inspires you? What things in this
world gives you that emotion that you really enjoy feeling? How do you keep your mental health good
and feel good in this world? I know we mentioned artistic things, maybe these days, what kind of
things are you doing? Or in general, what things fulfill you emotionally? Of course, my loved ones
are my big inspiration because in here in the Asian culture, the parents happy when their children
is successful at their life. So I want to be successful in my life and I want to be proud
by my parents, but my siblings. And but also I think it's on my curiosity really inspires me
and gives me motivation. And because I always wanted to be good enough. But if I say good enough,
that's not really good enough for me. Does it make sense? Like I think being good enough is
being the best version of me. So I'm trying to build my best version. So I just give myself
that inspiration and I keep doing it. I love that it seems, you know, you're someone who desires to
develop, who finds that evolution in life rather than being average is very, very important. And
so I will ask you, why civil engineering in Budapest University of Technology and Economic?
Why not something more artistic or something more that can fulfill those emotions? How do you get
that the emotions you need from civil engineering? That's a great question. As you say, you may think
I'm really artistic, but I would say that I'm artistic, both artistic and scientific person.
So my big inspiration to choosing this major civil engineering as my future career
was my dad. My dad is just a builder who builds their own houses and build something,
little house, apartments. He did not finish college or university as regarding civil engineering
or structural engineering, something like that. But he learned it from his life. It's his life
experience. I'm always proud of him so much. And at first, I used to think I will be an architect
in my future. So I want to draw things as I'm artistic. But when it's the time to choose my
major, it was in final grade of high school. I was like, am I really artistic? Actually,
I answered yes, but I wanted to be more creative and I wanted to do things more strategically
and plan it and like Legos. So I just choose to be at civil engineering. Also, it's more like
a feminine or feminist thing. I consider myself as a little feminist. I was like,
okay, most of the civil engineering is men. Why cannot be the woman who is the successful
civil engineering? So that was my inspiration. Actually, this hilarious, but yeah, it was
literally, I think, why cannot be the successful one who is a woman? I love that. And that's a
very important topic. So as a feminist, how do you feel is the situation of feminism in Mongolia?
What is your opinion on it? What is your real experience? Can you share more? Okay, that's
nice. So I would say it's really tough to be a feminist in Mongolia because gender equality
in Mongolia is really bad. I mean, it's not really equal. If you think about the people who is
group of people who is in a higher state, like in politics, then only four or five of them
out of 100 would be a woman. And I don't know if it's a culture thing or not, but always the man
has higher opportunity and more chance. That's not really fair, but that's the way it all goes.
And I don't know if I can change it, but I am grateful that I'm feminist and I will be that
woman as I'm in the future. That's wonderful. And I'm really, really proud of you. Thank you, Ola.
This was my privilege, my honor, such a wonderful way to know about you, about your life and about
Mongolian girls in general. Thank you again for participating and I wish you a great day.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me in your great, great project and your
beautiful podcast. I'm really happy and thank you.
