From the interviews....

From the interview answers from my mom, I can easily define why the adolescence 30 years ago is different from nowadays. Since Mongolia had a different government system than nowadays, it had a big impact on the society life. Not only the government was strict about rules and laws, the society itself was also very ‘close minded’. The teenagers did not have that much of freedom as we do nowadays and they had sever limitation of access to needs, such as clothes, music etc. On the other hand, nowadays we have LOADS of clothes that cannot even fit into one single closet and which a second room is required to stuff all those unnecessary items…

Certain things were not allowed such as going out after 10 o’clock! Haha, but nowadays we can go out as many times as we want to! However, sometimes I think that these kind of strict rules are required because while kids go out and have fun, some inappropriate things happen…

My mom also mentioned about the clothing style, and what was cool at that time. Well, certain hairstyle and fashion were IN due to the fact that Mongolia was not open to other countries besides to Russia. Therefore, when students went to Russia and came back with such ‘cool stuff’ then the remaining teenagers was also crazy about it.

Not taking in account the government system we had in the past, technology also plays an important role. Due to the fact that technology changes rapidly, teenagers are most likely to follow them, which means that they set a trend (e.g. music, clothes etc) For example, in the past there were no iPods or MP3, so nowadays people who have those kind of things are considered to be ‘cool’.

In some countries, medical surgeries such as abortion were not developed well and since the society, culture, tradition didn’t accept this surgery, most girls/ women had to have the baby. Now, in most countries it is legal now. I might sound very ignorant, but the reason why the abortion rates among teenage girls are increasing is because they have more reliable methods to prevent pregnancies…

In my opinion, I would rather be a teenager from this time rather than from the past, because first of all I have so much of freedom so that I can have a chance to experience around, find myself and understand others. I think that I can have a better environment to develop myself; both mentally and physically.

I would also live in this period of time, because I would have more life expectancy than in the past ^^ I would also have a better quality of education, which would help me in the future.

To be honest, I like thinking creatively and if I lived in the past then I would be just “destroying” myself, because people didn’t have the freedom to speak out, do something DIFFERENTLY and think out of the box.

I would say our generation is defined as ‘opportunity’. In my opinion since we have so many chances and opportunities out there, (such as better quality of education, health care etc) we should use them. It is there, available. We only have to grab it and make a better life for ourselves and others.