The Earth Bull turns himself over (Natural disaster)

An earthquake of 6.3 magnitude struck Christchurch, New Zealand on Tuesday, killing at least 65 people. Watching the breaking news on CNN reminded me of the devastating 921 Quake hitting the middle part of Taiwan in 1999.

We call an earthquake 地震(di4 zhen4). Chinese in ancient times believed the cause of it was the tossing and turning of a bull sleeping underground, which was why we have the term 地牛翻身(di4 niu2 fan shen)  The aftershock is 餘震(yu2 zhen4)  Sometimes地震 is used to refer to a drastic change. In my previous writing”東施效顰 & Idioms with directions,” I wrote about the phrase人事大搬風(ren2 shi4 da4 ban feng) to describe a major change of the personnel. We also say人事大地震(ren2 shi4 da4 di4 zhen4) to refer to such a situation.

黄河(huang2 he2) the Yellow River, the origin of the Han culture, was infamous for its shifting of course and floods. in Chinese, we call a flood 水災(shui3 zai) or 洪災(hong2 zai). According to statistics, the Yellow River has flooded 1590 times and had 26 major shift of its course in the past 2 thousand years, with an average of two floods in three years and one course shift per century, claiming millions of lives and making countless people homeless each time. No wonder in Chinese we’ll refer to  horrifying or devastating things or people as 洪水猛獸(hong2 shui3 meng3 she4), floods and violent beasts. For example, these days for the China regime, the Internet is the洪水猛獸

And the opposite of the flood would be 旱災(han4 zai), the draught. The upper part of the word 旱, 日(ri4), the sun, has given an important clue about the word. For a long span of time if you only see the sun and no rain, there would be a drought. Someone in Sung Dynasty once wrote a poem about the “four happiest things” in one’s life, one of which is 久旱逢甘霖(jiu3 han4 feng2 gan lin2), it rains after a long drought. The rain is so precious and welcome that it’s depicted as “sweet,” 甘. 久 means long. 逢 means to encounter, and 霖 refers to the rain.

In Taiwan, every summer we’ll have typhoons颱風(tai2 feng), hitting us. And the intensive rain sometimes caused mudslide, 土石流(tu3 shi2 liu2), which could claim lives in seconds. In the summer of 2009, a mountainous village was practically buried like City of Pompeii, killing more than 300 people. As to the tornado, we use 龍捲風(long2 jian3 fen), where the dragon is involved in terms of the strength of the wind.

All the natural disasters are concluded as 天災(tian zai), which is often put together with 人禍(ren2 huo4), manmade calamities as 天災人禍(tian zai ren2 huo4)  In the times when it was believed that natural disasters were triggered by God to punish humans for doing wrong, sometimes the emperor would issue a 罪己昭(zui4 ji3 zhao) to God, where he put the blame on himself and begged God for his mercy not to punish his people. 罪 usually means the crime, but here it means to blame. 己 means self. 昭 is the emperor's announcement. This practice manifested the core value of Confucianism politics.  For an emperor, he has to put people's welfare as top priority, show empathy and treat his people with 仁(ren2), kindliness.

On the afternoon before the 921 Quake happened, I was teaching at a prestigious senior high school. That afternoon I was informed that I would have some extra classes on the next day, which meant I would have 7 periods of class. Learning this, I told my niece I wished the next day would be a day off. But there wouldn’t be any typhoon. “What about an earthquake?” It slipped out of my tongue. I didn’t mean it but that night, the 7.3-magnitute happened.

When you said something bad jokingly and it really happened, we call it一語成讖(yi4 yu3 cheng2 chen4) Ever since the experience mentioned above, I’ve never said that again.

餘震=余震

東施效顰=东施效颦

人事大搬風=人事大搬风

災=灾

洪水猛獸=洪水猛兽

颱風=台风

龍捲風=龙卷风

天災人禍=天灾人祸

一語成讖=一语成谶