CULTURE : Chinese Fear Curse of ‘Double August’ Brings Disaster

On New Year’s Day, the Zhang family plastered red good-luck banners above its doorway, wishing for health, wealth and a good harvest. Now, the rain-smeared characters hover just above the waterline in the family’s flooded village--testament to a run of bad luck. Mrs. Zhang looks at the floodwaters--reportedly the highest this century--and shakes her head. “It’s because of ren ba yue , you know--double August. This is an unlucky year.”

It’s a lunar leap year in China, when an extra month is added to the lunar calendar to make it match the 365-day solar calendar. When the double month falls in August--every 19 years--tradition dictates tragedy will follow.

“Better a leap seventh month than a leap eighth month, for a leap eighth month means death,” proclaims an old Chinese saying.

The last “double August,” in 1976, certainly fulfilled doomsayers’ predictions. An earthquake in Tangshan killed 240,000 people, floods and droughts ravaged the country, a meteorite struck and Chairman Mao Tse-tung died.

This year, the parallels are too ominous to ignore: paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is in poor health, and Communist Party elder Chen Yun just died. Extreme weather has people worried. Fei Lengshui, a rice farmer from Hubei province, is one of 60,000 who have lost homes in the Yangtze River flood. She and her 90-year-old mother wear red ribbons in their gray hair. “The red is for luck,” she says. “We need extra luck this year.”

In Jiangxi province, where the floods have hit hard, red umbrellas and clothes are selling out. Truck drivers have tied red strips of cloth to mirrors or aerials. Families prepare 100 dumplings to symbolically wrap up all the bad luck. Amulet sellers say demand has jumped for old jade, said to deflect evil. “Mostly old people buy it, for themselves and their grandchildren,” says Shu Li Xun, an antique seller.

The government has tried to quell anxiety.

Li Xiaoquan, the director of the State Atmospheric Bureau, has even appeared on television to debunk “double August” fears. He points out that 1954 and 1980 brought disastrous droughts and floods, and “they were not leap years.” But many have more faith in the stars.

“All the signs are the same as in 1976,” says one Beijing businessman. “Natural disaster, then political disaster. We can’t escape fate.”