The spate of post-earthquake rumors is well underway, but as well as the "there'll be an earthquake in X city" stuff, there's also a lot of radiation ones. My colleagues have had a bunch of calls from friends and family saying "You're a reporter. Is it true that Beijing is radioactive now and the gov't is concealing it?"
Also, the appetite of the public for 2012 bollocks continues apace. It's a nice cultural blend; a Mayan calendar shift gets picked up by Californian bullshitters and ends up being taken to the hearts of the Chinese public.
Unsurprisingly (per Michael Coe, I think[1]), the Mayans appear to have had no particular worry about the end of the Long Count. Something like the Y2K problem, except several hundred years in their future.
[1] His pop-science book on deciphering the Mayan writing system is superb, BTW.
Posted by: Richard J | March 16, 2011 at 09:56 AM
It's a nice cultural blend; a Mayan calendar shift gets picked up by Californian bullshitters and ends up being taken to the hearts of the Chinese public.
This is actually the theme of Tom Friedman's next book, tentatively titled The World Is Fucking Stupid.
Posted by: Brendan | March 16, 2011 at 06:01 PM
Technically speaking, isn't everywhere radioactive?
Posted by: Tom | March 19, 2011 at 05:28 AM