China's bad moon rising

Things go from bad to worse for the Chinese in the quake zone. Thousands are now fleeing the prospects of floods caused by landslides having blocked the flow of rivers. It sounds downright apocalyptic. God help them.

I found this bit from a NYT story yesterday about the political implications of the natural disasters in a culture where people believe in omens to be interesting:

Can earthquakes be predicted, their destructive impact forewarned?

Most scientists would say no. But if some insistent Chinese bloggers are to be believed, nature provided enough warning to have saved many of those who perished Monday.

In the days before the deadly earthquake shook much of mountainous Sichuan Province, their stories go, ponds inexplicably drained, cows flung themselves against their enclosures and swarms of toads invaded the streets of a town that was later decimated by the quake. “Why did the government ignore the signs?” asked a writer in one chat room. “Did they not care?”

[snip]

Here in China, the belief in omens and portents, often rooted in ancient cosmology, is widely held, even by the worldly and well educated. This is a culture, after all, that cherishes lucky numbers, eschews sounds that can be misconstrued as the word for death and places great value in feng shui, the practice of arranging furniture and buildings just so, to bring happiness and good health. Some of the traditions are newer than others: It is the rare taxi driver in China who does not keep an image of Chairman Mao dangling from the rear-view mirror as a talisman against danger.

Even the Communist Party, which ostensibly swept away the opiate of the masses with its 1949 revolution, decided to inflect the Beijing Olympics with as many lucky eights as possible: starting them on Aug. 8, or 8-08-2008, with a start time of 8:08 p.m.

While there is no way to know for sure, the current leadership may have one eye on Chinese history, which has long linked political power to the divine, a concept known as the mandate of heaven. Emperors served with the blessing of the heavens, according to such thinking, and those who turned corrupt or insensitive to the needs of the people were drummed out of power after a spate of natural catastrophes. Whether the calamities signaled the end of a government or helped embolden its usurpers is open to interpretation.

More:

It is the story of the invading toads that seems to have gained the most traction, at least on the Internet. It did indeed occur, in some form, in Mianzhu two days before the quake, and many residents reacted with terror, believing it to be a harbinger of bad things. In an interview on Sichuan television just before the quake, the director of Mianzhu’s forestry bureau tried to calm residents by saying the mass migration was a normal part of the toad breeding season. The interview, posted on the Internet, has been provoking a torrent of angry remarks. At least 3,000 people have died in Mianzhu, and officials say another 4,500 are missing.

Amazing. I don't know about these things, but I find it entirely plausible that animals behaved strangely before the quake struck, and for natural, not supernatural, reasons. I assume that some animals are more sensitive to things like earth tremors that escape human detection. Am I wrong?

The more interesting aspect of this is how the populace will interpret the earthquake and all that is following. Will they read it as a sign that Heaven is not pleased with the Red Emperors? And if so, what will they do about it? You might recall my mentioning here a conversation I'd had with a Chinese-American immigrant friend about how the government in Beijing is less stable than people might think. There are perfectly justifiable reasons for Chinese to be outraged with their government over this, not least among them reports that corrupt local officials took bribes to look the other way while contractors cut corners on buildings that fell down during the earthquake, killing hundreds. But should a people come to believe that earthquake is a sign that heaven has withdrawn its mandate from the emperor, what government could stand then?

Interesting times.

By the way, I found this Jim Fallows post from Beijing about the scale of everything in China to be affecting. Fallows writes: "America has never known mass tragedy on this scale -- or even on a pro-rated version of this scale. China has of course known it many times."