Shiin Jil setup

by Mark

It's that time of year again.  Shiin Jil (translation: New Year): a combination of everything Christmas,  New Years, and a bit of 4th of July thrown in.  Though the parties have not yet begun, we here at Mercy Corps in Arkhangai felt like getting into the spirit.  So we "decorated".  This year has been nothing short of spectacular in terms of decorations - it looks like a clown just walked in to our office and shot off the equivalent of a confetti-packed potato gun.  Streamers, balloons, and tinsel are everywhere.  We spent about 3 hours putting together this beautiful chaos, and we now get to smile whenever we see the faces of the people that walk in for the first time!  I hope it does the same for you.

Here's how it all came together:

It started innocently enough with tinsel cut into letters to form the phrase Happy New Year.  I was thinking "how cute".  And then came the swirly balloons.

My director Dashga decided to have some fun with the crazy balloons.  I think he was trying to tell me he's a reindeer.

Next came the tinsel streamers that were each individually hung from a thin piece of scotch tape that was probably 12 feet long.  We made 3 sets of these.

We decided to string the thin tinsel like a chandelier.  Turned out kinda cool actually.

Then we decided it would be cool to make a tree shape on the window.  It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it adds to the impressive overall display.

Getting closer to being finished.  We've got tinsel everywhere, balloons hanging from the ceiling, and we've added the years to the wall.  Can you see the little white puffs of cotton hanging every 8 inches or so?  That's supposed to be snow. Balls of snow the size of golf balls.  We were going for realistic.

This is the view you get immediately upon walking into our office.

And one from the opposite end of the room for good measure.