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Subscribe to RSSBEIJING — Much like in the rest of the world, the coming "doomsday" supposedly preordained by the Mayans to strike earth Friday at the end of a 5,125-year calendar has been something of a running joke in China.
The subject this week has been easily a top-10 trending topic on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, with users sharing hundreds of thousands of jokes, cartoons and other comments about the end of days.
One popular doomsday cartoon shared by Taiwanese alternative rock singer Ashin, showing a mock weather report predicting fire and brimstone for Friday, was forwarded more than 109,000 times and drew almost 25,000 comments.
Not everybody thinks the end of the world is funny, though. A poll conducted by Ipsos-Reuters in 21 countries earlier this year claimed that as much as 20 percent of China’s population believed that the Mayan calendar correctly predicted this month as the end of the world. That percentage was markedly higher than in the second country on the list, Turkey (at 13 percent), or in the United States (12 percent).
A farmer in China has created survival capsules equipped with power generators and food supplies. NBCNews.com's Jay Gray reports.
The government is taking one aspect of the doomsday talk seriously; it has reportedly rounded-up members of a religious group calling for the toppling of the Communist Party.
The group, known as the “Almighty God,” has called for a "decisive battle" to slay the "big red dragon," a reference to the Book of Revelation and the organization’s name for the Chinese Communist Party.
Nearly 1,000 members of the sect have been arrested, The New York Times reported. NBC News could not independently verify the number of detentions, but Chinese state media also reported that authorities had detained around 1,000 members over some seven provinces, Reuters reported.
This is not the first time that China has dealt with a fast-moving Christian cult it deems a risk to party rule. In fact, according to the newspaper, “Almighty God” has its roots in a sect that claimed it had 300,000 adherents called "Lightning from the East," according to Time Magazine in 2001.
Lightning from the East propagated the belief that Jesus had returned to earth in the form of a 30-year old Chinese woman who had written a third testament of the Bible and promised salvation from the coming apocalypse for all who joined her.
AFP - Getty Images, file
Lu Zhenghai of Xinjiang said he wasn't necessarily worried about "doomsday," but he thought "something" bad would happen today. So he built this ark.
Money from fear
Many Chinese, meanwhile, have seen opportunities to cash in on the apocalyptic mania.
After watching the Hollywood disaster film "2012," in which China leads the way in building arks to save the rest of the world, Liu Qiyuan, a former furniture maker living just outside Beijing, began conceptualizing scaled-down arks that could be marketed to consumers equally concerned about the end of days.
With the help of 10 workers, Liu designed and built metal spheres covered in fiberglass and fitted with an on-board engine. Supposedly strong enough to handle a battering from a catastrophic tsunami or earthquake, the capsules are designed to house 14 survivors and enough food and water for five months at sea.
The cost of such peace of mind is $50,000 each. Even if the end of the world does not come Friday, Liu is optimistic that he will recoup his reported $288,000 investment by marketing his life capsules to China’s navy.
One man who has gone all-in on his disaster convictions is Lu Zhenghai from China’s far western province of Xinjiang. For the past two years, Lu has been working to build an ark measuring 65 feet and weighing around 80 tons that could comfortably hold 50 people and a two-year stock of food and medicine.
"I don’t believe in the doomsday, but I do believe something is going to happen on December 21st," Lu told NBC News, "I don’t know what could happen and where, but I want to be ready just in case."
Having left his job, cashed-in his savings and sold his apartment to help pay for this family refuge, Lu has been living at his parents’ home with his wife and daughter as he makes final preparations on the ark. The vessel has already cost over $240,000 to build.
Though Lu talks happily about progress on the ship, he seems far more excited to talk about the media attention and visitors his ark has been attracting.
"Hundreds of people have come to see my ark," Lu said, adding that a Hong Kong television station was planning to film the ark, presumably mere moments before disaster strikes the earth.
NBC News’ Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.
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We had Y2K and nothing happened, we have Mayan Doomsday(even the real Mayans don't but it), and now we can wait for ..... did you hear something?
A civilization that couldn't foresee their own extinction can predict the end of the world? Amazing.
Exactly! If the Maya were so f*****g smart, why did their civilization collapse? And why didn't they kill all the Europeans ASAP!?
The Chinese churches had so focused on the last book of Bible, Revelation, and some of them have created the scenario of tribulation to fit in the events of the last book of Holy Scripture, Revelation.
However, there are serious misunderstanding of the Holy Scripture, for the events are not man-made. And Lord Jesus Christ has said that God is the God of Isaac, God is the God of Jacob, God is the God of Abraham . . .God is the God of 21st century, in which we do have the wisdom and gifts that God has given to us, not to destroying each other but saving lives.
For all the preparations are from God, and we should engage the time, knowledge, education, and experience which we can fully anticipate the issues.
There is no god/gods you fool. Who cares about anything quoted in the bible
No matter what interpretation of the Bible, it also says that nobody know the time of the end, and that we need to be charitable towards others in the meantime. I also hope that people calm down and try to make this a better world with more tolerance for each other. Instead of the end of the world, how about world peace?
Glad to see someone is making money off all these credulous morons. They deserve to be fleeced by anyone smart enough to take advantage of these idiots!
Please everyone, we need to understand what prompts too many people to grasp onto these rather self limiting and frightful points of view. We live in a world where so many have experienced so much loss, and unfortunately, not as a result of their own doing.
Hope, and a sense of security are not fixed guarantees. When people look around and see their worlds disintegrating, they are vulnerable. Some become much more spiritual and forge their way forward. They pull their family resources together and in that , are able to survive, or at least get through.
Not all have families, true friends or even a significant other. Fear, confusion, and a sense of loss of control is fertile ground for most of these "Doomsday" theories to be set in motion. Ridicule does not belong with those that suffer, but with those that capitalize on these fears and help perpetuate them. Judgement of character belongs with them. The sun will rise on 12/22/12, but so too will new end-of-the-world theories. We need to make people aware of this, and just because it does matter, try to be helpful, a bit kinder, and an element of change for the better.. One person at a time.
I hope that it is more than one person at a time, but many people who try to change the world for the better. We are running out of resources, and there is global warming, etc. I see a spiritual emptiness of terrible magnitude, and I'm not talking about people who do not attend one or another religion, but people in or out of a religious life who just feel despair. This is no way to prevent war. It will take a major effort on everybody's parts to make a better place.
Instead of laughing at 12/21/12, it might be better to say that we can start doing something.
The apocalypse is doing a good job at pointing out all the stupid people in the world. Funny how all of them are religious.
Nothing can save us from dying when our time comes. Knowing the time will just make it worse for most people. Knowing the exact time will be like being on death row or getting a terminal illness with just a few days weeks or months to live. It is much better to realize that it could be any time and just live in a way that it won't matter when we all have to suddenly go.
I don't know why you're all so worried: you're not even Mayan. What scares the doom into me is that 12% of Americans actually believe this prediction. Maybe our education system really is deficient...
When in doubt, build an ark.
Well it is 8pm Friday evening here in Australia and we are still here....not even a 'sniff' of the end of the world....Enjoyyour day in the States....
Superstition, stone age beliefs, ignorance, and complete wackos are everywhere.
The little bird on the cuckoo clock is going nuts today.
Wait...WHAT?? You mean still another mass hysteria Pagan Prophecy has not come true? Again?
How sad.
Yer Pal Always,
Thee Ox
Tooo bad you bunch of morons....... ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! What a bunch of mentals to think that some culture that went belly-up about a thousand years ago could predict anything but their own demise. ANYONE believing in this bag-o-crapola has GOT to be unstable and totally paranoid. Our weather sources can't predict the weather more than about a month ahead of time, and there are people out there that think our Earthly population can be predicted to end hundreds of years in advance???? OMG ! ! A bunch of "Chicken littles" running around in a panic, thinking some doom and gloom occurance will befall humanity???? That is totally 3rd world thinking. NO, its 4th or 5th world thinking. IROTFLMAO AT YOU LOSERS !!! And then there are those "Doomsday Preppers" on the TV. This is a bunch of room temperature IQ's if ever I saw some. But the retail people love them. McDonalds, not so much. Now that they have tens of thousands of dollars worth of preserved food, they get to EAT IT ! ! ! Now I'm really LMAO. I can't stand it any more, I gotta pee...........
Damn, I fell asleep. Did I miss anything, am I the only one left? Did all those christian whacos' turn to dust? Please, please tell me Pat Robertson did himself in!
Interesting 12% of America thought the world would end. I thought we had more liberals than that in this country.