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Yesterday Peggy was telling me about some strange things people have noticed about the recent problems in China.

Eights: Some people are getting paranoid and wondering if the Olympics should be cancelled because so many recent tragic events are connected by the number eight, that they are some sort of omen. For example, the riots in Tibet started on March, the 3rd month, 14th day. 3+1+4=8. The dates of the earthquake, 5+1+2 also equal eight. Then there was the train derailment, which is connected to eight in some way too. Today the magnitude of the earthquake was revised up, from 7.8 to 8. When will the Olympics start? 08/08/2008.

People have also noticed something strange about the five fuwas, the little mascots of the Olympics. They each represent something typical one of the regions of China, and in five of those regions, there has been some sort of disaster this year. Nini, the swallow, looks like the kind of kites that Shandong is famous for. There was the train crash in Shandong. The yellow character is a Tibetan antelope, and Jingjing is supposed to be a panda. Sichuan is the panda’s natural habitat. Peggy wasn’t sure about the other two, if people have linked disaster with the other two, but the ones left are the characters that represent fish, and the one that represents a flame. Guangdong is well known for its seafood including fish, and they were badly effected by the winter storm, with half a million people stranded. Then about the flame, there were all the problems related to the torch relay, although of course they were deadly or disastrous.

Of course it’s not that I BELIEVE these things, and it’s all looking for co-incidences after the fact, but it is still very strange and a bit creepy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 10:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.