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Tuesday 2004-06-08 - Pāsārgād, Iran
Ancient history and modern science
Today we have a long travel day from Shirāz to Esfahān but we make a little side trip to Pāsārgād (Pasargadae). When we arrive at the Tomb of Cyrus just after the entrance to the site, a surprise awaits us: the field behind the tomb is crowded with people with cameras, parasols, much electronic equipment, even a satellite antenna and there’s a lot of rather nervous activity… what’s going on here?
A friendly bearded man with a NASA t-shirt explains the situation. The t-shirt isn’t fake: he’s actually an Englishman working for NASA in the US, visiting here with a team for a very special occasion: today (in fact, in 5 minutes!) there will be a Venus transit: the planet Venus passing in front of the sun causing a very small eclipse. Everyone is busy calibrating their equipment to be ready for when it really starts in a few minutes; Venus’ trip across the Sun’s surface will take 5 hours. This is indeed a unique event: in astronomical time it happens more often of course but no one alive today has ever experienced this.
The people here are mostly astronomy amateurs but some real science is taking place (astronomy is one branch of science where it’s not unusual for amateurs to cooperate with the pros and make some real contributions): when Venus will be fully in front of the Sun the light as it passes through Venus’ atmosphere will be measured: since the composition of this atmosphere is known, the resulting data will help with interpreting measurements of other distant solar systems with planets as they are observed.
The NASA man tells us that astronomy is quite popular in Iran; last night they were visiting in a town nearby which has the largest astronomy club with 1000 members - in a town with a population of 10,000! The club is building their own observatory and the NASA team made a donation of some equipment; they had a wonderful evening with 500 people turning up for the event!
We get a few special ‘sun glasses’ so we can see with our own eyes the small black dot made by Venus on the face of the Sun.
Then we leave to actually see the rest of the Pāsārgād site. The city was begun under Cyrus the Great (Kouroush) in about 546 BC but was superseded by Persepolis after Cyrus’ death. It’s located at the very center of what is now Iran but also then the Persian empire, in the middle of the fertile plains of the Fars province. Remains of the city are quite scattered and not as well preserved as those at Persepolis; we make a tour along the various ruins with our bus.
On the way here, the fertility of this area was obvious, with endless grain fields interspersed with occasional smaller fields with other crops (such as rice); through the open roof of the bus entered a summery scent of ripening grain.
Wednesday 2006-09-06 - P’yŏngyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
To the hospital
After a delicious lunch and a short visit to the monument to the Founding of the Worker’s Party (more good sculpture but otherwise uninteresting) we’re treated to a tour in the Hospital of Korean Medicine in P’yŏngyang; this small hospital, concentrating on traditional Korean medicine serves several important functions: science, treatment (free), training of doctors, and exchange between the DPRK and the UN security council.
Rather surprisingly, we are shown various treatment and diagnostic techniques. (Some of us wonder whether we’re seeing real patients or actors but it would be a really elaborate setup for a small group of foreign visitors — we see no other tour groups; I just can’t believe this theory.) For diagnosis, the patient is assigned to one of four “body types” (at least that’s how I understand it); one of the intake techniques used is taking the patient’s fingerprints — directly into a computer system, using a touch-sensitive pad and a program that graphically prompts for each of the fingers. Echography is also being used for diagnosis.
Some treatments are surprising for us westerners but we could learn something here - they don’t poison the body with chemicals when not needed; for instance one lady with a gall bladder problem is being treated purely with a course of acupressure and massage; she’s getting 40 massages of 30 minutes, and no medicines at all. The massage seems to be targeted to stimulate the body to “heal itself” and looks very relaxing, too. Treatment of broken legs with acupuncture is somewhat less surprising to me given that in the West bones are often helped to heal with electrical stimulation — but there is no cast. We are shown many more things and treatments, all in all a very interesting visit (and not something you’d expect to see on a visit to a foreign country; they ‘re obviously proud of their medical techniques).
