Rick Steves documents Iran at personal level on PBS show
Tired of the majority of photographs and TV clips portraying Iranians as only angry people burning U.S. flags or building nuclear reactors?Or maybe you're just curious about this country that's the size of Alaska. Then turn on the hourlong "Rick Steves' Iran" (KCTS, 10 p.m. Tuesday).
Steves' outstanding travelogue shows slices of Iranian culture, religion, environment, and people from 21st-century cities and very old country towns.
The Herald columnist's approach is to mostly stay away from the current politics of the two governments while providing the structure of history and culture.
He says upfront that although the Iranian government required that they travel with a guide (who often took photographs of the crew while filming) and placed restrictions on what he could cover, the restrictions were looser than he expected.
Given some of the conversations that he held with Iranians, those restrictions didn't seem to threaten Steves' ability to interact with people nor to silence the Iranians' opinions. The Iranian people were friendly and fascinated by Americans making a TV show about them.
"I have never traveled to a place where I had such an easy and enjoyable time connecting with people," Steves later wrote.
He packs much into his hour. The majority of Iranians are Persians. Persians are not Arabs and don't speak Arabic, but Farsi. Much of the signage in Tehran is in Farsi and English. Mile-high Tehran is a modern city of 14 million people with notorious traffic and a subway system equal to those in Europe. The country has a mix of chador-covered women and those in modern dress (with head scarves).
We learn that the national museum has fewer than expected exhibits, because most of the treasures were looted in the past for Western museums or destroyed.
The show takes viewers into beautiful mosques, across deserts, by ruined castles, and showcases the splendor of the Persian empires, including elaborate, colorful mosaics and Persian carpets, one of which took a master weaver more than a year to make.
Steves did include some more recent history, including the Western-backed Shah of Iran, fear of American meddling, the Islamic Revolution and restrictive Islamic law. It is not, he points out, a democratic nation.
There are large anti-Israel and anti-American murals on the walls, but at street level, there is curiosity and delight with talking to Americans.
But the Iranians that Steves talked to made it clear that they differentiated between the people of the U.S. and the government. According to Islam, visitors are a gift of God.
"Iran" may help many viewers overcome stereotypes, or at least absorb a broader sense of that country.
And Iran wants more tourists, Steves said. His show, which is being aired nationwide, may motivate some to travel to Iran, even if you have to travel with a guide.
