SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area Mongolian community celebrated the native land"s 89th independence day Saturday with the traditional Naadam festival.
"This is the same celebration that our people are having everywhere around the world," said Tserendorj Demberel, event organizer of the 13th Mongolian National Day in the Bay Area.
Many people in the Mongolian community came out to the festival held at the Speedway Meadow section of Golden Gate Park in traditional costumes. A variety of Mongolian food and product vendors set up tents around the grounds.
The opening ceremony began with a Mongolian Shaman Dance by the event"s head dancer. Next, the Khuk Tenger dance group and a group of nine children from the Ger Youth Center joined in with a Mongolian folk dance. The children each picked up a stone from the ground in significance of the nine clans in Mongolia. Other children stood near the dancers with buckets of milk as an offering to the sky for well-being.
"Our children learn about traditional folk dances and about the heritage and culture of our country," said Eska Tuizen, Ger Youth Center Board leader. "These dances represent our history. The lifestyle of Mongolia comes out through the dance."
The celebration continued with the rising of the Mongolian flag and Mongolian national anthem. Performances continued by rock band Khuk Mongol, Mongolian opera singer B. Tsetsgee and performers playing the Morin Khuur, a horse-head fiddle.
The festival presented the community"s three traditional games of wrestling, horse racing and an ancient form of archery involving animal ankle bones, known as Shagai. Five teams from the Bay Area and Sacramento competed in the Shagai tournament.
"The game is somewhere from 600 to 800 years old," said participant Frances Boyd, of Berkeley.
The game consists of throwing an arrow-shaped bone off a wooden box to targets across a 6-foot platform. The targets are sheep or goat ankle bones, which gives Shagai its name. Players chant during the games.
"We don"t see the Mongolian community often so it is nice to see everyone and to get news on what is going on in our country," said festival attendee Batchimed Baker, of Walnut Creek.
The day festival concluded with an award ceremony for the games and a dance. The adults continued the celebration into the evening with a disco party at Lake Merritt Dance Center in Oakland.
"Our festival is about unity and identity. It allows us to know who we are," said attendee Eric Sergee, of San Francisco.
The event was hosted by the Oakland-based Bay Area Mongolian Community Association. The group was created six years ago by the growing population of Mongolians in the Bay Area, which numbers about 6,000.