October 13, 2013

"Outside, I watched a farmer plow his field with yaks. The sky was a deep blue and there was a full moon."

"I'm on Mars, I thought for the umpteenth time. But Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World' was wafting over the speakers. No I realized, this was weirder than Mars. I searched for an off button. Surely, we, the four of us inside this small compartment, could agree that Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World' was unacceptable music for a journey over the Tibetan Plateau. I finally found the off button and switched it off, raising my eyebrows, expecting to be praised for this quick communal resolution to an irritation. The man across from me turned it back on. Oh, my friend, I thought. We are going to have issues. And so to the sound of 'Beat It' we rumbled across Tibet."

J. Maarten Troost, "Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation."

5 comments:

Bryan Townsend said...

It is rather dispiriting to realize that the soundtrack for the world is now coming out of a studio in Los Angeles...

rhhardin said...

Tibet, as a commenter says, really needs some new dance moves.

Michael McNeil said...

Sorry, no. A (truly) full moon in a deep blue sky (that is, during daytime) never occurs anywhere on earth — even on the Tibetan plateau. It is possible during twilight, but even then the moon would just be rising over the horizon, not perched at some distinct angle into the sky — plus the sky would be almost dark. Best bet is the moon was perhaps a couple of days short of really being full.

Michael McNeil said...

It's rather the same principle as what the Arabic scholar al-Burundi (Abu Raihan al-Burundi, 973-1030) was talking about when he wrote:

‘Both [kinds of eclipses] do not happen together except at the time of the total collapse of the universe.’

Michael McNeil said...
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