Sexton - Live from Mongolia: from Wall Street banker to Mongolian news anchor

LIVE FROM MONGOLIA

FROM WALL STREET BANKER TO
MONGOLIAN NEWS ANCHOR

PATRICIA SEXTON

Copyright 2013 by Patricia Sexton

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sexton, Patricia

Live from Mongolia : from Wall Street banker to Mongolian news anchor / Patricia
Sexton. First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8253-0697-6 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
1. Sexton, Patricia. 2. Women television news anchorsMongoliaUlaanbaatarBiography. 3. AmericansMongoliaUlaanbaatarBiography. 4. Television news anchorsMongoliaUlaanbaatarBiography. 5. Foreign correspondentsMongoliaUlaanbaatarBiography. 6. BankersNew York (StateNew YorkBiography. 7. Career changesCase studies. 8. Sexton, PatriciaTravelMongolia. 9. MongoliaDescription and travel. 10. Ulaanbaatar (MongoliaBiography. I. Title.
PN5449.M662S38 2013
070.43092dc23
[B]
2013024833

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For anyone out there whos got a dream, is following it, or isnt quite following it but might one day follow it

But most especiallyfor Bunkle and our little copilot

Dear Readers,

Ive done my best to sift through incredibly complicated Mongolian history and summarize it. However I am no historian and I hope youll pardon my best efforts! If you do find an error, contact me or Beaufort Books.

Some names have been changed.

LIVE FROM MONGOLIA

The anchor called in sick at the last minute. My boss, Gandima, head of English News, was desperate. The backup presenters were on vacation or not answering their phones; no one else was available. In desperation, she told me to comb my hair and put on some makeup. I was a summer intern for Mongolia National Broadcaster, and Id just been tapped to present the evening broadcast to an audience of more than two million people.

Thered been no time for a rehearsal, so I muttered my lines over and over to myself as I was led into the basement studio. Mongolia National TV has been around since before the fall of Communism, and its the oldest and most respected network in the country. Fully three-quarters of the Mongolian population tunes in to its broadcasts. As I ducked under the studios low doorway, I let my eyes adjust to the bright lights. Once they did, I gasped.

None other than the stations top brass was waiting for me. Gandima was there with her boss, Enkhtuya, the networks news director. On either side of them stood a cavalry of senior producers, editors, and a handful of technicians. All eyes were on me, the summer intern, and nobody was smiling. Never before had this storied station allowed a foreigner to be promoted to anchor so quickly, even just temporarily, and Gandima had reminded me of just that before issuing a chilly command.

Patricia, she said, you will do a good job tonight.

To the crew standing solemnly alongside the networks bosses, I dipped my head in a slight nod, but their silence offered little encouragement.

Come, Gandima said, a bit more softly, breaking the ice. She showed me to my seat in the anchors chair, helped affix a mike to my lapel, and gently smoothed my hair. One by one, the spotlights snapped on. There I sat, frozen in the hot blaze, wondering how on earth Id ended up here, anchoring a national news broadcast. Just a few months earlier, Id been working at a bank in New York, wondering what might happen if I quit my job of nearly ten years to pursue a lifelong dream to become a foreign correspondent. I was about to find out!

Mr. Ng stated that his organizations goal is to assist Mongolian labor organizations. He invited Prime Minister Enkhbold to participate in the deliberations of the Asia-Pacific meeting being held in the Korean city of Busan.

MM Today lead story

Are you deaf or just stupid? a cantankerous senior bond salesman barked at me one morning my first year working on Wall Street. I said peanut butter on well-done toast! This is not well done! he raged, flipping his medium-rare toast into the trashcan beside him.

Fresh out of college, Id been hired by Salomon Brothers as an analyst trainee. Like every other twenty-two-year-old on Wall Street, Id come there for the money. But the big bucks were a long way off; first Id have to pay my dues like everyone else there whod already made it. Wall Streets pecking order works something like a school playground: youre bullied until you become the bully or until you figure out how to outsmart the bully.

And making it was just what I was determined to do. Whatever it tookmaking well-done toast, picking up dry cleaning, fetching dozens of lunch orders, working dawn to duskthis was the price I would willingly pay to make it on Wall Street. It wasnt the allure of opulence and glitzy excess that I was seeking, not then anyway. It was freedom I sought, something that my parents had never been able to afford. If I couldnt make it here in New York, I wouldnt have anywhere to go but home.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, on a salary of $15,000, they had raised four children. That theyd been able to do so at all left me feeling a mixture of awe and fear. I was in awe that they even could. And it was my greatest fear that I, too, would end up trapped.

In fact, my parents could have done better for themselves; they werent simply victims of circumstance. Both of them had pursued something they were passionate about, and both of them had paid a price. My mom taught part-time and spent weekends with the local newspaper spread out in front of her, clipping and stacking coupons. On top of a full-time teaching job, my dad spent weekends and summers cleaning gutters, cutting lawns, and painting houses to make ends meet. And all that was before he got fired.

I was fourteen years old when my dads boss, a nun, insisted he change a students grade. It was a small request but an immoral one, since the student simply didnt deserve the better mark. My dad took a stand and refused to change it. His boss insisted, threatening to fire him for insubordination if he didnt follow her orders. This went on for months, with the nun visiting my dads classroom to remind him that he had to complyor else. Eventually, their disagreement erupted into a screaming match in the middle of the school hallway. That was when it became clear that this sweet little old lady, who belonged to an order of nuns so religious they still wore the traditional black-and-white habit, was holding my dad by the balls.

With three kids in school, a second mortgage on the house, a used car that had just died, and only $10,000 in savings, my dad reluctantly agreed to make the change. And when he did, the nun fired him anyway. Worse still, she refused to give him an official reason, which made it impossible for him to get another teaching job. No one hires a veteran teacher who comes without a recommendation and who has been fired without cause. In the end, my dad had fought for something hed believed in, and hed lost everything.