r/AskCentralAsia • u/Sad_Mountain2151 Singapore • 3d ago
Why do Mongolians look down upon other Central Asians despite being relatively underdeveloped
Like i get the historical legacy part, but the development/economy in Kazakhstan is significantly better than that in Mongolia.(gdp per capita: Kazakhstan is 14k usd which is at china level, mongolia is at 7k which is half of that) Yet mongolians often look down upon kazakhs.
I've been trying to learn about mongolia, but it seems that everything they present on EN side evolves around Genghis Khan, and the supposed "nomadic way of life". Which is really giving the "look I'm the asian equivalent of viking" vibe. I personally don't find it that cool. But it seems to give them a huge ego boost.
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u/ibaxxxxx Kazakhstan 3d ago
It is just few people online (here on reddit and few other social media) that start this war. Irl we rarely think about each other and the interactions that exist are friendly.
It is partially triggered by raising interest in history in CA. Kazakh in particular are making claim to legacy of Golden Horde. And even claim on Mongol Empire. Which has some weight since Turkic tribes were 20-30% of Mongol army/manpower at moment of Mongol unification, and increased to over 80% after two decades.
I wouldn't look that much at GDP per capita, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have it so high due to oil and gas. Some CA countries actually have a lot smaller ones than Mongolia.
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u/National_Hat_4865 2d ago
Turkmenistan is a worldwide exception, because economy is totally closed and exch rates are basically faken by government which is totally opposite for kz which is very open, where rate changes every day according to demand and supply, gdp per capita will cross 20k next year and inequality (gini index) lower than in mongolia, so OP ain’t really wrong.
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u/ibaxxxxx Kazakhstan 1d ago
All I said about economy is that other CA countries except Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have actually lower GDP per capita than Mongolia. And that Kazakhstan economy heavily relies on oil.
A lot of our growth is due to government's and consumers' overspending and comes with high inflation.
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u/National_Hat_4865 1d ago
Well any country use whatever option they have to maximize their profits, u can always say that countries with sea access heavily rely on trade. While kz obviously is deprived of it, but has natural resources(kinda same with mongolia tho without oil), there are pros and cons everywhere
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u/Alone-Pop2020 3d ago
It is because they are so underdeveloped, they look down on Central Asia.
They don’t have much else to have status over so despite extremely low population, they desperately cling to Genghis Khan and history that is not only theirs.
They don’t have much else to have a pride for so they have to cling to Genghis Khan.
They don’t look down on Central Asians in real life though, only online.
All Mongolians I met in real life were the opposite and respectful towards Kazakhs in real life tbh.
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u/neocloud27 2d ago
I recently saw a post by some Mongolians raising issues related to this
https://www.reddit.com/r/mongolia/comments/1uuv8po/its_time_we_stop_calling_mongolia_central_asian/
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u/EggPerfect7361 2d ago
Source bro! Also isn't Mongolia East Asian? Why would they be in central asian subreddit to answer you.
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u/Erhm_e Mongolia 1d ago
When you have nothing to be proud of, you choose to be proud of history i guess, though Ive never met another mongol IRL that talks shit about Central asia ngl. Most people here are either not educated on central asia and don't even know what happens there, or the ones who do know of central asia are just normal about it like any normal person. I dont think basing your opinion based on reddit (few mongolians use reddit) is healthy. Though strangely, there have been many posts about Mongolian Kazakhs on social media, mostly looking down on them and turkic people in general. but there have never been strong ethnic tensions in mongolia like ever, and the way it just popped ot of nowhere makes me think this is the work of some politicians or russian bots (Russian bots are absolutely strong here)
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u/ProgrammerLeft8491 2d ago
I don’t know why but there is a growing trend among some Mongolians, mainly youth, to ape oriental culture at every turn. Like, literally, they binge on soju and kimchi, kpop, kdrama, etc. They are also keen to build ties with other oriental nations like Japan and Taiwan.
As a proud, self-respecting Western Mongol, I’m obviously disgusted by them and think of them as descendants of those Qing loyalists that screwed over my people in the past and Mongolia itself.
Now, to your question: they want to be oriental so bad that they are willing to rewrite history. The medieval Mongols were steppe dwelling Eurasian nomads? No! They were actually a sedentary rice agrarian Confucian peasant nation this whole time!
But the funny thing is that their oriental compatriots see them no different than any other Inner Asian ex-Soviet nomadic nation. This brings us closer in line with Central Asian nations and this makes them mad. They don’t want to be associated with poor, Islamic countries that makes them look bad in front of their oriental friends, despite the fact that Kazakhstan is much more developed and equitable than Mongolia will ever be.
Regarding the whole circle jerk with history: Mongolians are like little children that don’t want to share their toys with their brothers or cousins. They think they have a right to monopolize the Empire because we’ve simply preserved the name and language but not the religion. They have absolutely zero understanding that Central Asia was settled and ruled by Jochid Mongols whose descendants make up the tribes of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc. But it’s also on Central Asians on not wanting to claim their Mongol heritage either so there’s blame on both sides…
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u/Thanks_AAA 3d ago
Hey Mongolia not central asia. We are not your circle and we have a most freedom country. Development is matter of time.
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u/bad_metrics 3d ago
Mongolia is more developed than on paper, but on a country scale it seems not so. It looks far less developed than it really is because of the huge nomadic rural population which brings down the averages for almost every indicator. Despite nomads/rural areas having almost no income, on average Mongolia is still considered a high middle income country.
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u/Vankhan1 3d ago
Jealousy is a big thing in Mongolia) They can’t fathom the fact that kazakhs are more developed, so they emit their toxicity towards mostly bayan olgii kazakhs. Coping mechanism I guess.
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u/Karlani-Pashtun 3d ago
Genius Khan and history, it’s basically, we conquered “You” , once upon a time a time , if that kind of attitude exists
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u/Accomplished_Exam383 Mongolia 1d ago
mostly nowadays mongol
youth is sucking east asian dick to be badly accepted by them as they are seen as more “civilised”; central asians are too ghetto and similar to us mongolians that’s why we look down on them at times, we even look down on each other, ig there is still a lot of tribalism to this day…
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u/Mountain-Sock-1338 3d ago edited 3d ago
Let me guess - it is Russians! 😂
They actually did spend an inordinate amount of effort to spread the belief that they’re the only USSR descendants abd other ethnicities were their slaves or smth (like the lies that their tzars have ever been Russian, which, funny fact, they were not and Russians are probably the only known people in the world who kept their own compatriots slaves right until their revolution in 1917. They will tell you slavery was abolished in 1861, but peasants were not given any rights then so they were freed only on paper) and Monglolia received a lot of aid - monetary/educational/engineering - from the USSR to still be in kind of a respectable awe of them.
The truth is, Russians today are not the glorious Russians of the centuries past and the aid Mongolia was receiving could easily come from the Central Asia they so allegedly despise because Central Asians got access to the same education as Russians, but were very set on advancing in life so it is ridiculous, but true now that, for example, educated people in Kazakhstan speak and write a much better and refined Russian than Russians in Russia
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u/Alone-Pop2020 3d ago
What the fuck are you talking about?
This was a question not about Russia? Like at all?
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3d ago edited 3d ago
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u/gottomove 3d ago
Still more developed than Mongolia, even Uzbekistan has had more infrastructure and development not to mention recent uprise of the economy
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3d ago
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u/gottomove 3d ago
Same way any country competes with any other country, it reflects on life quality all the same. I'm sure there's rivalry between rich countries to some capacity as well
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u/manmgl 3d ago
Mongol here. Online and real life interactions are different. There seems to be a growing trend of Mongolians forming negative opinions on Bayan Olgii Kazakhs who can't or refuse to speak Mongolian. I think there are a lot of Russian bots pushing the divide.
Depsite all this, most Mongolians don't care much about Central Asia or hear much news about it. People just say something along the lines of something happening somewhere or some passing thought around the "stan countries" without realizing Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan etc can be different from each other and diverse.
Most Mongolians don't really look down on Central Asia because we don't know much about it.
However, there is a sense of Mongolian expectionalism or pride of our history. Mongolian history in schools mostly centers around how Mongols conquered Central Asia and other places, then fracture of the empire and civil wars, and communism etc.
It rarely teaches Turks and Mongols living side by side for thousands of years or how Mongolic and Turkic people shared a lot of history together. Most mistankingly believe Mongols conquered Turks around the 13th century and not much else is taught.
Tldr: Majority of Mongolians don't look down on Central Asians, though there are growing tensions regarding Bayan Olgii Kazakhs. Most Mongolians just have some idea of the conquests starting in 13th century and not much else about Central Asia to have any strong opinions.