8-8-2008 - Why so Many Eights?

The number eight holds a special place in China as being the luckiest number. This is because the pronunciation of "eight" （八 ba) sounds like "fa" (发) which is short for "facai" （发财）which means to get rich. So phone numbers with lots of eights in them and other things like license plates with lots of eights are valuable commodities.

Ironically 08' doesn't seem to be staying true to this superstition considering all the unlucky events to have happened so far. Below I've translated an interesting letter that's being passed around. Months in China (January, February etc) are denoted by their sequence in the twelve month calendar. Instead of having a name like "January" the first month of the year is translated literally as "1 Month," (一月yi yue) February is "2 month"(二月er yue) etc. So August is "ba yue," month eight, also the lucky number. This is why the Olympics are on August 8, 2008 - a super lucky date.

1月25日,雪灾=天灾
3月14日,藏独=人祸
5月12日,地震=地灾
1+2+5=08
3+1+4=08
5+1+2=08
08年08月08日奥运会
巧合？
天哪 怎么就这么巧合

01, 25, Snow storm = Climate disaster ("climate" and "heaven" are the same in Chinese 天 tian)
03, 14, Tibetan independence = man-made disaster
05, 12, Earthquake = an earth (geological) disaster

1+2+5 = 8
3+1+4 = 8
5+1+2 = 8
08, 08, 08 is the Olympics?
Coincidence?
Heavens, how can there be this much of a coincidence?

Ooooo, scary! The author forgot to mention that May 12, 2008 is exactly 88 days before the Olympics, at least according to an article I saw, I haven't bothered to calculate it.

I'm not superstitous, but I think it's a pretty interesting coincidence.

5-12-08

Today marked the beginning of three days of mourning for the deceased from the earthquake. At 2:28, the precise time of the quake last week, I was sitting in my office and then heard some car horns out side. Nothing unusual, until more and more cars began honking their horns. I went to the balcony and checked and saw cars, buses, bicyclists and pedestrians pause in the street for three minutes. Not all stopped and I'm sure many, like me, didn't get the notice about the mourning. For the next three days all Karaoke, discos and pool halls are closed and a message has gone out urging people to remain solemn for these three days. After I got off work today, I was surprised when I came home to find that all TV programming had stopped except for national news. All Hong Kong channels, Phoenix TV, and Star Channels were blocked or ceased broadcast to honor the dead. Even the some web pages are putting on a dark suit. Pictured is www.sina.com a web portal similar to Yahoo! that is usually littered with colorful headlines, floating banner adds and lots of pop ups. But today Sina has changed all of its web colors to black and gray. Even Google is showing respect, and using there powerful search engine to help out. The Chinese google site (www.google.cn) home page has a link to account numbers people can donate to as well as a site made by Google that lets people search for the names of family members effected by the earthquake.

As for me, I was safe in Guangzhou when the earthquake happened. I found out about half an hour later when someone told my colleague, a native of Sichuan, about it over the internet. When I saw via Facebook that friends as far apart as Kunming and Beijing felt it, I knew it must be pretty bad. However I don't think I was prepared for the actual devastation caused by it: an estimated 50,000 dead and nearly five million left homeless.

The images on TV all the time show the urgency of the rescue efforts, and some remarkable cases of people being saved. One young man was pulled out after 60 hours buried in rubble. He was barely conscious, but then the people crowded around him erupted in joy when he began moving his arms. He spoke softly, and the rescue workers leaned down to listen. "Uncle, uncle...please bring me a Coca cola...a cold one please."

But unfortunately stories like that are outnumbered by far more images of collapsed schools, countless homeless and the grief stricken.

Below the google banner, written in white on a black backdrop, it reads "让我们永远铭记这一刻，原逝者安息，生者坚强" "Let this moment forever be engraved in our minds. May the dead rest in peace, and may the living stand strong and firm."

I can get behind that.

Pictures of Sichuan

Tiaoping 5
Originally uploaded by Carpe David

Last fall I took a hike to Sichuan in Wenchuan, the area that was the epicenter of yeterday's earthquake. We switched buses in the county seat of Wenchuan. In the pics you can see many examples of the Qiang (羌族) ethnic minority. The Qiang are a small group of 200,000 that live in just this area of Sichuan. They are distinct from the Han and Tibetan culturally and linguistically. Our Tibetan guides, even though they lived a couple dozen miles apart, had to use standard Mandarin to communicate with the Qiang people we encountered as opposed to Tibetan or the Sichuan dialect of Mandarin.

I took lots of pictures of the native Qiang architecture. I only hope that much of it was spared by the earthquake.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinadavid/sets/72157602570681182/

2008: Year of Olympics or Disasters?

Seems like China's coming out party '08 is not going so smoothly.
A friend of mine sent me the following poem this morning, I've hastily translated it.

We bring in the new year well, and it's met with a blizzard.
We pass off the torch well, and it's met by Tibetan activists.
We develop the health care in the countryside, and then foot and mouth disease happens.
We buy some stocks, but their prices fall.
Go by train, and it gets derailed.
Stay at home, and there's an earthquake.

好好过个年吧，遇雪灾了，
好好火炬传递，遇藏独了，
发展农村医疗吧，发手足口病了
买点股票吧，大小非减持了
做个火车吧，还出轨了，
在家待着吧，还地震了

Hopefully the earthquake will end the trend, the last thing that's needed is for this poem to be rounded out with a terrorist attack, volcanic eruption or meteor strike.