For an officially atheist nation, the Chinese seem to be about the most superstitious folk on the face of the planet. Maybe it’s not the “sorcerers stole our penises” craziness that periodically leads to dozens of lynchings by angry (presumably penis-less – or did they get better?) mobs in Africa, but it’s often damn close. But, whether it’s eating the grossest body parts of endangered species in order to boost their sexual potency or knocking on a hotel door to let the ghosts know you’re entering, the Chinese have a lot of weird superstitions.
One superstition the Chinese share with Westerners, though, is an enduring affinity for astrology. Chinese astrology has an interesting slant on 2020.
2020 is the year of the metal rat. According to one source, this year would be “quite challenging, especially health-wise, but also financially, with obstacles, impediments, and unpredictable situations, which will mainly occur during the first half of the year”. Past metal rat years have been quite…distinctive.
According to the Chinese astrology chart, 2020 is the year of Geng-Zi, or the metal rat, which comes once every 60 years.
It is said that every time the year of the metal rat rolls around a big history-shaking incident takes place.
In 1840, during the Qing dynasty, the Opium War broke out, leading to China’s stagnation for more than a century.
Sixty years later, in 1900, toward the end of the Qing dynasty, forces from an alliance of eight nations — the U.K., U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Austria-Hungary — moved from Tianjin to Beijing, an incident triggered by the Boxer Rebellion, which had started in 1899[…]The metal rat’s next return, in 1960, coincided with a famine caused by the Great Leap Forward led by Mao Zedong.
Not exactly auspicious portents. But, now we pass from superstition to science (of a sort): trying to predict exactly how the pandemic will pan out, especially under the cover of Beijing’s bamboo curtain of lies and cover-ups.
What will this year’s metal rat jinx be like for China?
The peak of China’s coronavirus outbreak has passed. But Zhang Wenhong, the head of a coronavirus clinical expert team whose profile has been on the rise, has said a second round of infections will hit in November or later.
It seems that Beijing is worried about that and is already preparing to tackle it in typical fashion: by lying and shifting blame. A propaganda campaign blaming new infections in China on “foreigners” is already well under way.
Interestingly, the book on Chinese astrology I have to hand warns that the metal rat “is the great persuader, who will stop at nothing to produce the outcome he seeks”.
Now, that doesn’t sound like Beijing at all.
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