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China’s Disasters by the Number

Written by Lei Feng

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Making sense of the recent mayhem has become an on-line sport

The Chinese government declared three days of official mourning beginning Monday for last week’s earthquake. In addition to a lax ban on “public entertainment,” and advertisements, it began with three minutes of national silence at 2.28pm - the time the quake began last week. Drivers were asked to honk their horns at the same time and disaster sirens were also scheduled to wail, which I feared would jar the solemn mood and wouldn't sound too much different from a routine Beijing traffic jam. Nine people in our department stood before two TV sets ticking down the time towards the moment and watching silent footage of the disaster.

Out a window I could see construction workers in blue jump suits and yellow hard hats standing across the street atop office buildings, most with hands folded and heads bowed. The horns began howling; the sirens keened above them and it was as if the entire country was suddenly weeping. Two female coworkers dabbed their eyes and I also began choking up.

Three minutes later it ended. True silence for a second except for sniffles and televisions, then the jackhammers, saws and drills at the construction sites began their barrage again.

"So sad, too sad," one person whispered, a little embarrassed at her tears.

"It's okay." I said. "Everyone is sad."

Like the US post-9/11 and my fellow office workers, many of China's Netizens have been trying to find meaning in what it is being called the worst year in the country's history - though none mention the famines in the late '50s or the Cultural Revolution years.

There were the crippling snowstorms of January, unrest in Tibet followed by what is widely perceived here as international insult and humiliation heaped on the "sacred flame" of the Olympic torch while it made its journey outside the Middle Kingdom. A horrific train crash came next and now the earthquake the Internet is abuzz with material that is familiar in its own way to Americans who have pondered the coincidences of the John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln assassinations ("Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln; both had vice presidents from southern states named Johnson...").

It is also reminiscent of the weird idea that a Nostradamus couplet foretold the attack on the Twin Towers, or that the word "Satan" could be seen in the smoke that rose above the collapsed building on 9/11.

In China, it's about numbers: add up the dates of the snowstorm (1-25), the Tibet riots (3-14) and the earthquake (5-12) individually and you get "8" normally an unusually auspicious number and the reason the Olympics will kick off on 8-8-08 (and why it costs significantly more to get a phone number with multiple 8's).

The five tooth-achingly cute cartoon character Olympic mascots called "Fuwa" – I think of them as exotic, colorful Smurfs are also now seen by some to be harbingers of China's recent miseries. Representing a fish, panda, swallow, Tibetan antelope and the Olympic flame, those seeking coincidence see the panda as an earthquake warning, since the ravaged area is also home to China's endangered giant panda; the Tibetan antelope well, you can figure that out; ditto for the Olympic flame; the swallow is seen as emblematic for the "kite city" of Weifang in Shandong province where China experienced a deadly train crash last month.

The remaining one is a fish symbol, representing water, which online doomsayers suggest could indicate pending horror in the Yangtze River.

Some Taiwanese TV stations are also blaming the feng shui of Beijing's massive new "Bird Nest" Olympic stadium, saying it has "interrupted the pulse" of a giant dragon said to lie beneath the country.

Then there are sincere, if syrupy, efforts to offer some online comfort, like this anonymous poem, which is jerking tears throughout the country. There is now talk of turning it into an earthquake memorial song.

For the children of Wenchuan who have died in the earthquake

Hurry child, grab mommy's hands
Child, tightly grab mommy's hand
The way to heaven is too dark and mommy's afraid you'll hit your head
Hurry, tightly grab mommy's hands, let mom go with you
Mommy, I'm scared that the road to heaven is too dark
I can't see your hands since the fallen walls stole the sunshine away
I will never again see your loving gaze
Child, you can go to the road ahead
You will have no sadness, no endless homework, or your father's scolding
You must remember daddy's face and mine
In the next life we will walk together again

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Numbers, numbers, numbers...
written by Greg, May 21, 2008

The mascot representing water, could also already have represented/predicted the winter snowstorm (snow = water). But, comparing ancient Chinese symbolism with the modern Western calendar, it's like astrology ("reading stars" is based on Ptolemy’s geocentric universe, which we all know is not true). If you would do similar math based on the traditional Chinese calendar - no problem with the number eight anymore...

But, for the skeptics:
name of the leader of the CCP = 8 letters
name of the prime minister = 9 letters
8 9 = 17 => 1 7 = 8

All the Best!

Chinese Olympics, Earthquake and the Luck Superstition
written by Sagaladool, May 21, 2008

Read the website above. It seems that the Chinese likes to blame it on Superstition and all sorts of absurdities when disasters happen. Why didn't they research whether China has been alerted of this earlier? Earthquake is common this year. It is only a matter of time before it hits any nation. Use commonsense, not nonsense to justify the situation.

Superstition
written by Bushwhacker, May 21, 2008

After the problems are surmounted by our heroic PLA and Sichuan residents, the triple 8 will represent the triple prosperities for the people of China, Asia and the world.

...
written by Arthur Borges, May 21, 2008

Chinese astronomy had a heliocentric model of the solar system 3,200 years ago. One record of this is in the tomb of a princess whose embalmed mummy features at the Hunan Provincial Museum in Changsha.

Call the rest superstition if you like. Jung called it synchronicity, the notion that everything in the universe synchronizes. Indeed, such practices serve to remind us of nature's rhythms and cycles.

Call it superstition if you like but if you're a sincere scientist, then you remain always aware that you operate inside the realm of what you can measure, that there is much more out there that remains to be measured, and that, faced with the interplay of numbers, science can't or won't measure its validity. To condemn it is to condemn something you have not studied and are therefore ignorant of.

Speaking in general but actually aiming at me (I was young at the time) an excellent friend of mine once defined a fool as somebody with an opinion about everything.

The calculation must be consistent
written by Sagaladoola, May 21, 2008

If such random calculation in this case as prescribed in this article is a form of science, then perhaps, the person called Arthur here should illustrate why the formula should be formed as such and not other ways.

Secondly, using the formula that was mentioned , nothing happened on 7/1, 6/2, 5/3, 4/4, 3/5, 13/4 , 15/2, 16/1, 22/4, 23/3, 24/2. Comparatively only 3 dates were mentioned: 25/1, 12/5 and 14/3 ...

The dates above can be broken up into single digits and added to derive 8.

Counting the number of dates above, no bad incidents happened on 11 out of 14 date. Only 3 out of 14 dates disaster struck. Even if disaster really struck China on 11/6 and 10/7, that would make the equation 11 out of 16 greater than 5 out of 16

So, there is no such thing called Black (Unlucky) 8. Even, if the 11 is greater than 3 (or 5) logic is taken into consideration, it would not be a wise thing to equate China as being lucky. I would prefer to conclude this as people being pessimistic and absurd.

There.. that is the scientific way.. Indeed, your excellent friend defined it right "a fool as somebody with an opinion about everything". It is true that sometimes some people's opinion does not run around the constraint of logic, and that is what we call a superstitious opinion.

Coincident?
written by 8888, May 22, 2008

Olympics will kick off on 08-08-08.
and 08 x 08 x 08 x 08 = 512 = May 12

the time the earth quake strikes is at 2:28:08 ( 2 o'clock 28 minutes and 08 second)
if you convert the time to seconds,
(2 x 60 x 60) (28x60) 8 = 8888 seconds

Sheer Concidence or fated?
written by Yeahwho, May 24, 2008

The tragedic numbers game really added up to the auspicious date of the 2008 Beijing Olimpics opening ceremony.What a coincidence!Hope everything will be fine during the Beijing Olimpics.

No \"Coincident\" but simply plucking numbers out of the air
written by Sagaladoola, May 26, 2008

1) This superstitious "Coincident" guy seems to pick up the wrong data on the time of the event as 2:28 .. 08 seconds and claimed it adds up to 8888. Maybe he/she should show it to us where he derive the 8 seconds from ....

The exact time according to USGS, occurred at 14:28:01.42 CST (06:28:01.42 UTC)

01.42 second .... not 08 second .... Therefore the number 8888 would not be able to be derived.
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2) This "Coincident" guy then multipled 8 three times from the Olympics date 08-08-08 . It baffles me why he doesn't use the real date 08-08-2008 (8x8x2008 = 128512).

This is not even mere coincidence. This is a cook-up story of the highest degree.
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That is what happens when people plucking numbers out of the air. Absurdity is the order of the day.