January 28, 2004

Well, today's the lunar 7th day of the 1st month, termed as 'ren2 ri4'. hehe, lemme give y'all a little lesson on 'ren2 ri4'. According to Chinese traditional folklore, the first 7 days of the lunar month is attributed to a specie each. 1st would be Rooster, 2nd Dog, 3rd Pig, 4th Goat, 5th Ox, 6th Horse, and the 7th would be Human. It was believed that if on the 1st day, the weather is conducive and good, it means the roosters of the house will have a healthy and prosperous year ahead, and so on for the respective days.

So, weather outlook... Earlier this morning, I saw the first of blue sky, a promising interval between all the rainfall we've been getting the past 5 days. Lovely, I thought, we are all gonna do extremely fine! Alas, I look out now to find that the blue has once again been overshadowed by the grey. Then, I remembered it was sunny, warm, fuzzy weather on the 1st day. And, look what's happened and is still happening to the chickens all over the world now!

From the papers...3

We all know it. SARS has not made a comeback (yet); the Bird flu has. Someone must have been praying very hard for the end of the world (hence, end of homo sapiens hegemony).

At the risk of sounding like a loony, I can't help but feel that there's a conspiracy going on between the civet cats and the chickies and birdies. I can almost hear the civet cats say to the chickies n birdies, 'If they kill us, you kill them'. 'Them', of course, being us. And in an ironic way, I'm a bit gleeful about the possibility of my suspicion.

I'm not a fatalistic person, no, far from it. But, I also don't find myself supporting movements of 'self-preservation' at the expense of other species. I support most medical advancement research. At the same time, I'm a believer that virus evolve and adapt to their host faster than we can say 'Please put on your masks'.

Well, not that we were never in the position to step up defence. There are countries that could have been more alert and responsible in the preventive period, but had not.

The poor roosters and chickens. They who probably did not believe a single word in the folklore.

In any case, ren2 ri4 still means human's birth day. So, Happy Birthday, y'all. And may the weather improve soon...

Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 14:48