Sharon Stone, Karma and what Chinese are saying

I don’t agree with what Sharon Stone said (here’s some apology news). But a lot of Chinese actually do--it's not just PC for a Westerner to point it out. She is not the only one saying it publicly either. I would dare say that more Chinese people are themselves talking about it than foreigners are even thinking it.Take, for example, my wife’s niece. She is a 22 year old college student in Guangzhou. At a family dinner last weekend she said: “this is supposed to be China’s lucky year (08) and the government said that it’s supposed to be a really good for China because the 0lympics are coming. But it’s been the worst year that I can remember.” I asked her if that was her opinion or if she heard if somewhere else. “Oh, most of the people in Guangzhou are talking about it.”So, that got me thinking are other people saying that too? Sure enough, just mention how this supposed to be a lucky year to just about any Chinese and you’ll certainly get “yea, right” type of response—try it. I’ve talked with neighbors, employees and restaurant and factory workers and all have basically the same response.The most detailed response was from a taxi driver who said that his life is worse now than it was a couple years back. He said that inflation and the number of private cars and the subway have really cut into his business. He said “the big money times” are over. I asked my (Chinese) wife about his comments when I got home that night and she immediately agreed. Someone else did a blog about a paint supplier with the same opinion a few weeks ago—but I don’t remember who or where—sorry for not citing you to whomever beat me to the punch on this topic.While I don’t believe that it’s the end by any means, here’s a quick list of what’s happened so far this year.1. Snow storms strand millions2. Train wreck kills 703. Foot and mouth disease kills children4. T!bet Riots5. Torch fiasco. It was so bad they won’t do it again!6. Sichuan quake—90K dead or missing, 7000+ collapsed schools, umpteen millions if buildings collapsed, 5 million homeless.7. And now more dam(n) problems8. Torrential rains9. Inflation in China at 8.5%.10. Post-quake political intrigue. The PR honeymoon is officially over.11. Food shortagesRemember that China is a very superstitious society—there is tons of weight given to lucky numbers, fortune tellers and fengshuai—my children were named by Chinese fortune tellers (who cost a small fortune!) and my office is organized according to fengshuai and in a building with “good fengshuai.” The Shenzhen government building was designed according to fengshuai principles (good for the government, the people in the buildings directly across from the pointy roof are mad as hell that they get all the bad whatever that shoots out from the corners—their property values dropped!). Historically natural disasters were seen as a sign that a particular dynast was over—don’t discount the impact of this concept in the interpretation of the current cycle of “bad” events.