Interviewed by Nomin Dashnyam. Photographed by Suniko

Get to know Adiyasuren (Adiya) Jamiyandagva (Class of 2008, at Hobby: 2003 - 2008), a Project Manager at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Learn about his research on Mongolian security issues and what creates the Mongolian identity. Adiya’s passion includes security studies, popularizing science and City Pop in Mongolia, and generally living life to the fullest while spreading the teachings of Tolkien to humankind.

Quadrilingual in Mongolian, English, German, and Japanese, Adiya studied International Relations at the National University of Mongolia (NUM).

• Full name: Adiyasuren Jamiyandagva

• Hobby Alumni: Class of 2008 (2003-2008)

• Higher Education: B.A. in International Relations, National University of Mongolia

• Languages: Mongolian, English, German, Japanese (basic)

• Sector(s): Civil society, Security studies

• Current Workplace: Konrad Adenauer Foundation 

• Past Workplaces: Institute for Strategic Studies, Academy of Political Foundation

• Frequented Website: Google

• Current phone: Iphone 11 Pro

• Three Favorite Restaurants or Coffee shops in U.B.: Sakura Bakery, Kamiya Gyudon, and “Mandah” Gourmet Guanz

• Three Books to Recommend: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan, Тунгалаг тамир by Ch.Lodoidamba

• Three Movies or TV Shows to Recommend: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes (anime), Rome (HBO) 

• Three Songs You Are Listening to Most Right Now: Stardust by Jadoes, How to Forgive by Tennis, Сэхүүн салхи by Зууны манлай дуучин, поп дива Saraa

• Three Apps to Recommend: Audible

• Three Podcasts or YouTube Channels to Recommend: Fall of Civilization podcast, on YouTube exurb1a (for that sweet, sweet existential dread), and Sam O’Nella Academy (extremely educational)

EDUCATION

How many years have you studied at Hobby School, and where have you studied before and/or after Hobby?

I was at Hobby from 2003 until I graduated in 2008. Before that, I went to a school in Germany.

What kind of a student were you? What was your favorite class/subject, and who was your favorite teacher?

I think I was a pretty well-behaved and a somewhat serious student.  My favorite class was history and math.  Joe McIntyre and Xander Piper were probably my favorite teachers.

What’s your fondest memory at Hobby?

There were some pretty cool moments with classmates and teachers, but the fondest memory is probably the many hiking trips we went on.

After high school, why did you pick International Relations for your bachelor’s degree?

I was always interested in history. Towards the end of high school, I participated in a program called USAP.  One of the instructors taught us history, not from a dialectical materialism point of view that we were used to, but instead with a more narrative undertone highlighting the intricacies of events and their consequences.  He mostly used the pre-WW1 to the late Cold war period to illustrate his points. That made me interested in International relations and how it shaped history. 

CAREER

What did you do after your bachelor’s degree?

After my graduation in June, I wasn’t sure what I would do with my new International Relations degree.  A career in foreign services seemed a little uninteresting to me at the time.  While looking into possible career paths, I started working at an Australian law firm called MinterEllison. But because I did not have a law degree, I only worked as a paralegal doing miscellaneous tasks for the real lawyers there.  However, it was not as stimulating as I thought it would be or as TV shows and movies made it out to be.  I quit after a month. 

In December that year, I started working at the Institute for Strategic Studies of the National Security Council.  

Was that your first “real” job?

It was in the sense that it paid my social insurance.  My first paying job was at the National History Museum of Mongolia.  I wanted to learn more about Mongolia history during my summer breaks in college by helping out the museum’s researchers and digging through the archives.  I started as a volunteer but soon realized that they needed tourist guides more than they needed help with the research.  So, I ended up mainly being needed as a tourist guide. 

Going back to your career after college. You said you worked at the Institute for Strategic Studies. What does the institute do? How did it connect with your International Relations degree? 

The ISS is an organization under the National Security Council, the overarching organization in Mongolia responsible for providing guidelines to the organs of the state regarding security matters. The ISS’s main focus is the long-term prospects of Mongolia’s national security—it researches how the regional and global dynamics will affect Mongolia’s standing in the world.  

The ISS was initially established as a military think tank only focused on military issues.  However, by the time I joined the institute, it changed its affiliation from a purely military organization to a military strategic organization, which meant that we would also encompass economic security and political security issues.  

For instance, when I joined the institute, one of the big questions was how the change in leadership and policies in the North-East Asia region would impact Mongolia’s strategy and standing in the world.  In 2012, almost every major player in the region had a change in leadership which also meant a change in policies – we had our election, there was an election in Japan, China changed its leader after a decade, Russia had a somewhat symbolic change in leadership, and America also had an election.  

What did you do while you were at the ISS? 

I joined the institute as a researcher and was assigned to the section responsible for “keeping an eye” on North America and Europe.  In 2012, Mongolia became a participating state of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE).  We also became a so-called “Partner across the globe” of NATO in the same year. 

What does “securities research” mean?  And how does it translate to policy making?

The Government makes the policies.  Organizations such as the ISS give recommendations to the Government by foreseeing events that might occur in the future and anticipating reactions to actions of the Government.  It is a lot of educated guesswork as to what could happen in the future and how Mongolia can benefit or decrease its disadvantages from the outcomes. 

When I was at the ISS, we would write either policy papers or general outlooks.  The general outlooks are based on our research into what would happen in the future. 

If the National Security Council deemed our recommendations of value, they were given to the appropriate ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense for consideration. And if these ministries consider our recommendations to be strategically relevant, then they would get translated into policies. 

What was the most exciting experience while you were at the ISS?

The funny thing is that although we kept the details of the meeting secret, we did not take into account the South Korean reporters stationed in Beijing who report on North Korean diplomats traveling through Beijing.  Therefore, while on the way to Mongolia, the North Korean diplomats were already ‘caught’ by the South Korean press.

The leader of the North Korean delegations was the former Foreign Minister of North Korea.  The American delegations were primarily academics and also representatives of the Obama government.  The main theme of the meeting was nuclear de-proliferation and other regional security issues.  As the “neutral” state in the region, Mongolia had the opportunity to facilitate such discussions.

Is Mongolia a popular destination to organize meetings with North Koreans?

Not really.  North Korean delegates prefer developed countries such as Singapore or Germany (Berlin).  At that time, Mongolia was trying to stay active in its role as the mediator in the region, and we tried our best to organize such meetings in Mongolia. 

What was your biggest takeaway from working at the ISS?

When I was at the ISS, the main question was whether Mongolia was secure. Is Mongolia’s security guaranteed or achieved? It is a difficult question to answer. I do think the answer at the moment is “yes,” but with many caveats.  We were able to achieve security through the efforts of many brilliant people who spent decades thinking about strategic and tactical issues and devising the best options for Mongolia in this labyrinth of conflicting interests.  These researchers succeeded because Mongolia invested heavily in security research in terms of money, time, and effort. 

Maybe it is because these issues appear to have a more significant impact on the day-to-day lives of Mongolians. Because security issues are lower on the priority list, we are no longer getting the best people engaged in security studies.  

There is an idea that because Mongolia is sandwiched between two superpowers, it is relatively secure.  Is that true?

I would agree with that notion.  Some people believe that because Mongolia is sandwiched between two superpowers, we lack security as they could attack us at any moment.  But let’s look at the current developments and dynamics in international politics. I think it is easy to see the benefits of having two neighbors with strong centralized governments and military presence.  One of the benefits is Mongolia’s border security. 

It might be a bit controversial, and I do not want to minimize the efforts of our troops.  Still, I think that if Mongolia had many neighboring countries that were not as centralized or organized or invested as heavily into their military capacities as our current neighbors, trafficking of illicit goods such as drugs would have been a considerable problem for Mongolia. 

But it also has its drawbacks.  We do not have much flexibility in our foreign policy or our voting strategies and how we deal with things because of our two neighbors.

Would you say Mongolia having relatively secure borders is an indication that there is a power balance between Russia and China?

That is an interesting question.  The stability between the Russian and Chinese borders is definitely a good thing.  Although there are places where there are disputes, these are not brought to the forefront because the two nations currently enjoy a fairly good relationship.  The general dynamics in international politics guide these countries toward each other, but we do not know how long it would last.  I guess no border disputes within the proximity of Mongolia is a good sign? 

Why did you decide to leave the ISS?

I worked at the ISS for almost four years.  I think it is an excellent opportunity, and I planned to return to the organization. But when I left, I felt as if I was not contributing enough and was inadequate to conjure policies and strategies that Mongolia needed. I also thought that I needed to broaden my horizons.

My research primarily focused on military and security organizations, and I had a very strong tunnel vision on how my research should go. But in this day and age, the line between politics and military strategy and social development is so blurred that one has to have a strong understanding of all aspects of life in general, including technology, to provide relevant security analysis. At the time, I felt the thing I lacked the most was understanding politics and how politics affected not only domestic policies but also the foreign policies of Mongolia.

And I thought that if I understood the dynamics of Mongolian politics better, I could tailor my work to not only suit the system but also change the system for the better. Very ideological of me at the time.  

After the ISS, what did you do?

First, I had a quarter-life crisis for almost half a year. I didn’t leave my apartment for a couple of months. I spent my time reading, playing computer games, and attempted renovating my apartment on my own, which was a complete disaster. Then, in 2016, I was given the opportunity to become the director of a non-government organization (NGO) called the Academy of Political Education. The Academy of Political Education was established in 1993, and if I recall correctly, the third NGO established in Mongolia since 1990. We had a lot of history in the 90ies and early 2000s, but there wasn’t much left when I inherited the organization.

What did you do while you were at the Academy of Political Education?

What we did could be divided into two main categories. The first was providing political education to young voters and young elected officials. And to be honest, politics, political education, and education, in general, were not my strongest suits, so I needed time to learn.  But since a German political foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), funds the organization, we had a lot of available expertise on organizing political education programs.  We organized programs to engage newly elected young representatives. We also had many projects targeting young and first-time voters. We made a video series on political institutions and why we should vote and political ideologies and political parties. We also actively organized activities targeting young voters living in ger districts. 

The organization’s second main focus was to conduct studies and surveys. During my two-year tenure there, we conducted nationwide studies with sample sizes of over 1,000 people.  We did a few studies on general political behavior. And we also conducted studies on the religious identities of Mongolians.

Then we ask young Mongolian voters to identify themselves through mostly American ideologies.  You hear most people identify themselves as ‘liberals.’ But what does being a “liberal” mean?  Liberalism is an interesting concept and has different meanings in the U.S. and Europe. In Europe, liberalism is mainly associated with the Enlightenment Period and Hegel. 

There is an interesting book by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan about “political cleavages,” and on how political parties and faultlines in societies form.  This led me to the question of “What are the faultlines in Mongolian society?” Are they superficial faultlines between old and young, rural and urban populations, rich and poor?  Or do these faultlines run deeper where people identify themselves through differences in values or how they comprehend societal norms?  Do religion or traditions cause faultlines?  These were the questions that fascinated me.  

I guess at that time, I entertained the idea that religion played the most prominent role in forming the Mongolian identity. That’s why I focused my research on religion and how Mongolians perceived religion. 

A 2008 World Bank study states that approximately 90% of Mongolians identify as Buddhists. But asking a person what his religion is not a good question.

What is then a “good question”?

I don’t know.  But I do know that these types of questions should be presented cleverly.  If someone asked me what my religion was, I might say I am an atheist.  But unbeknownst to me, I might be following Buddhist traditions and have Buddhist values.  If something happens to me, I might explain it through karma.  Or when a loved one dies, I might believe that she would be incarnated. These fundamental Buddhist values are weaved into the fabrics of Mongolian society.  Alternatively, you might identify yourself as a Buddhist, but Buddhist values and teachings might not be reflected in your actions.  That is why it is a difficult question to ask and an even difficult one to answer.  

The University of Chicago conducts a world religion study.  We conducted the survey in Mongolia using a lengthy questionnaire with over 70 questions.  I added some questions tailored for Mongolia.  There is not a single question in the survey that directly asks you what your religion is.  It asks how many times you go to church or temple to pray in a given period.  It indirectly enquires about your values through which it attempts to assess how spiritual you are or the intensity of your beliefs.  I think this is a more productive way of exploring such a complex topic.  

Is it correct to say that you initially focused on religion as a way to understand what creates the Mongolian identity, which in turn helped you identify the voting behaviors of Mongolians?  

Yes, that is how it started.  The end goal I envisioned at the beginning was to gain a better understanding of Mongolian political ideologies, but over time it morphed into a bigger question of “What does it mean to be a Mongolian?”  

It might be off-topic, but you hear a lot of people identify themselves as “Gen Z” or “millennials.”

Mongolia’s socio-economic condition from that period does not align with that of the U.S. Maybe Mongolian “boomers” in terms of values are people born in the 80s.  I don’t know since there has not been a study on the matter.  So, the question of generations is also very interesting.  If we forcefully apply to Mongolia the aspects of identity we adopt from other paradigms, they no longer reflect Mongolian values.  Overall, the question of political ideology and religion developed into question what Mongolians’ identity is and how it changes over time.  

Does your study interplay with political prognosis?  For instance, would you be able to predict how certain people would vote if presented with a specific agenda?

I did want to use all these data to predict how specific groups of voters would vote. But most of my predictions were inaccurate as they were primarily based on my gut feelings, not data.  I would argue that I do not have sufficient data to make good predictions.  

You seem to have a lot of questions.  What are you doing to find answers?

Right now, I am working on designing a study on generations. I have a hypothesis, a very bad one, I must admit, on how Mongolian generations are divided. For example, according to my hypothesis, you and I are from the generation between the mid-80s and mid-90s where society did not want us to be critical thinkers, artists, or academics. Society demanded us to be quick-witted, adaptive, flexible, and “овсгоотой.” That is why people from our generation make good managers, but we don’t have many musicians, artists, or academics. But these values changed drastically for the people born after the mid-1990s.

I designed a questionnaire based on my hypothesis. Once I am done with my study, I might have a clear understanding of the different demographic cohorts of Mongolia and how values change between generations. If we develop it further, we might be able to predict the voting behavior or buying behavior of different generations. For example, according to my hypothesis,

Maybe if we have more data on that, we may be able to predict how voting behavior changes through the generations.  

I will have to conduct my survey after the upcoming presidential election as people might perceive the study as being affiliated with a political party or a politician.  

How do you plan to fund the study? 

At the moment, I am planning to self-fund the first round of surveys. I also do not want the study to be affiliated with a prominent organization. If my study proves to have some merit, I want it to be open to the public and criticism.  

You told me after the Academy of Political Education, you joined KAS. Does what you do at KAS differ from your work at the academy?

I have some input on what these projects try to accomplish. But since the nature of our organization is that we primarily function as a donor, we follow the proposals from our partner organizations. 

FUN QUESTIONS

How do you relax?  What are your hobbies?

My hobbies are how I relax. I listen to my records, read Tolkien, and watch anime.

I know you are a man of many hobbies, and you pursue them to the extent that most people don’t go.  Especially people from our generation seem not to have hobbies as we never seem to find the time for it.  How do you manage to pursue so many of your interests when you have a full-time job and engage in so much research?

I would certainly have been a boring person without my hobbies.  I think everyone should have hobbies as life could get monotonous very easily and you need something to take your mind off things and channel your pent-up energy. 

Could you please take us through your various interests?

My biggest hobby is the writings of Tolkien. I would even go as far as to say to spread the teachings of Tolkien to humankind. I think everyone saw the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy and the Hobbit movies. They had a lasting impression on me, and I got immensely interested in the world Tolkien created. But for the longest time, I only thought these were movies, and I did not know they were based on books. I remember in college, a friend of mine told me about a book called The Silmarillion and how it was about the creation of the world and events that preceded the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy. It just blew my mind, opened my eyes, and made me who I am today.  I was captivated by the world Tolkien calls the “secondary world.” The depth is phenomenal.

Naturally, I was not the only one who was captivated by Tolkien’s writings. I found my peers, and we try to spread the teachings of Tolkien and organize events. 

One of the fun events the members have access to is Oxonmoot, held during the second week of September, around Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthday on September 22nd. I have been trying to organize this event in Mongolia with my Tolkienist friends for some time, and we are dead set on doing so this year if the COVID-19 related restrictions allow. To make the event livelier, we even prepared cosplay.  

We also want to understand better what Tolkien tried to convey through his stories.  That is why we want to celebrate the “Tolkien Reading Day,” which falls on March 25th or the date when the one ring was destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. We got the rights to translate into Mongolian Evan Palmer’s comic based on Ainulindalë, the first chapter of The Silmarillion. We are almost done with the translation and want to publish it in commemoration of the Tolkien Reading Day. But I guess we won’t be able to organize the event this March, so we aim to publish it for the next Tolkien Reading Day. We want to publish one of Tolkien’s writings every three years so that we have more to read in the Mongolian language.

You have an extensive vinyl records collection.  Could you please tell us what got you into vinyl records and what you are doing to pursue this hobby to the next level?

I have a couple of vinyl records.  I wouldn’t say my collection is extensive.

I used to search for limited edition records pressed at specific factories. Then I got particularly interested in Japanese pop songs from the 70ies and 80ies. This movement is called “City Pop,” and it can’t be classified as a music genre as it is primarily an aesthetic movement. Now I focus on collecting City Pop vinyl records.  

Some of my friends and I discussed how cool it would be to have Mongolian singers perform City Pop songs in the past. Then singers Jojo, Khongor, and Tenuun thought it was doable and asked me to co-organize a City Pop event at the Fat Cat Jazz Club last year.  Leading up to the event, I brought my records to Fat Cat to get the patrons there familiar with City Pop.  We planned a three-day event, and we initially thought it would be great to have enough guests to break even. But Fat Cat was fully packed for three days straight. And many people attended the event for all three days even though we played the same set every day.  Tonicana from Kreativcharisma (@kreativcharisma on Instagram) posted a story about the event, which also garnered a lot of attention. I translate City Pop songs’ lyrics as a hobby but never found a use for it until Tonicana used them to enrich the Instagram stories. We had a very successful event and hope to organize it again in the future.

You said another area of your interest is science, and it is such a broad topic.   

I used to read a lot of books.  Well, I still like to think that I read a lot. And one of the authors that fascinated me the most is Carl Sagan.  I think his most significant contribution to humankind is popularizing science. I think everyone knows about Cosmos and the new Cosmos series by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Sagan was the original Cosmos guy – he wrote the book and made it into a TV show which explained complex scientific ideas to the general public. Sagan’s books taught us why it was important to be scientific and employ scientific methods to explain various phenomena.    

When I was in high school, I was terrible at math. Math was the only topic that I really prepared for when I took my high school graduation exam. I obviously did not get a very good score. However, despite being bad at math, I was, and still am, very interested in math, physics, and science in general.

I also found a group of people who are interested in popularizing science.

So, on Carl Sagan’s birthday on 9 November 2019, we organized an event called “Science is Awesome” (Шинжлэх ухааны гайхамшиг) at the Hub Innovation Center.  We initially expected around 60 people to show up and thought 80 people would be awesome.  However, we had more than 100 people attend our event, and we had to turn away people at the door as we did not have enough seats.  We organized exciting panel discussions on climate change, the beauty of science, and the future of Earth and the galaxy.  One of the most remarkable experiences I had during the event was a 10-year-old kid asking a theoretical physicist about the relevance of string theory in relation to the latest findings in quantum mechanics.  We wanted to organize the event in 2020, but Ulaanbaatar got into strict lockdown two days before we were to hold the event.  

In the future, we also want to organize a Spring event on March 14th, Pi Day, during which we would focus more on mathematics. We are planning on holding deciphering competitions during the event.   

If you know English, you have access to virtually everything.  But if you don’t speak English or any other foreign language, then you are highly restricted. The best thing we can do for future generations is to make knowledge accessible in the Mongolian language.  

Where do you see yourself in five years?  Do you have plans for getting your master’s degree?

I think I will do my master’s.  I have been postponing my graduate studies for too long. 

 When you were young, what did you want to be when you grow up?

An inventor.

Who is your role model? 

I don’t think I have any.  There are few security researchers that I deeply respect, and I hope to emulate their successes in the future, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them my role models.

Do you have any mentors?  How did you pick them as mentors?

I do like to think that I have a mentor in O.Mashbat, but I am not confident that he sees me as a mentee.  When I worked at the ISS, he would spend an hour after work telling me about Mongolian history from a security’s perspective. Why and how certain decisions were made.  How general geopolitics dynamics changed Mongolia’s foreign policy over time.  Even to this day, I go to him for guidance.  

If you could compare yourself to another animal, what would it be?

An elephant, maybe?

What’s the best life advice that you’ve received? Who gave this advice?

It was the advice given to me by my former boss O.Mashbat. I once failed to perform a task for various reasons, and when I told him that I failed, he told me never to come to him without an alternative option. 

Another great piece of advice I received in life was from my geography teacher at Hobby.  During his last week in Mongolia, we went hiking, and he told us, “Beer before liquor, you have never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you are in the clear.” 

Personal advice you would like to extend to fellow Hobby Alumni?

Something cliché like try finding something that you are passionate about.  Have hobbies, pursue your dreams, be the change you want to see. 

Personal advice you would like to extend to fellow Hobby students?

Try to learn a musical instrument.

What are your good and bad habits?

My good habit is that I am curious.  Not sure if it is a habit, though.  I also tend to dig deep into stuff. I guess my bad habit would be that I am a bit lazy. 

If you can pass one law globally, what would it be?

The concept of globalism goes against my beliefs, so I do not have an answer for that.

Now, if you can fix one problem in Mongolia, what would it be? 

I guess the best answers are the obvious ones – corruption and liver cancer.  

If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be, and why? Also, what would be your first question?

Name three conspiracy theories you believe in.

Lizardman controls the world.  Michael Jackson is not dead.  

Who would you recommend interviewing next from Hobby Alumni? And why?

I recommend my classmate Erdenedalai Purev (Class of 2008) - aka Eddie. He is a good friend from high school and is usually up to some really cool stuff.