Check out this bizarre story from the book, China Wakes*:

“While seismic rumbling and a rise in superstition were sometimes indicators of decline in past dynasties, the latest rumors would have startled the Duke of Zhou. A few of the superstitions underscore the peculiar public mood, which in a few places borders on psychosis. Perhaps the strangest panic occurred in 1993 in Chongqing, a huge riverside metropolis in central China.

A tale spread that an American-made robotic zombie had gone out of control and escaped from the United States to Chongqing. ‘The zombie specialized in eating children wearing red clothes, and it was said to have devoured several kids already,’ reported the Chongqing Legal News, an official newspaper. In the resulting frenzy, many children refused to go to school. Parents protected their ‘little emperors’ by fashioning crosses out of chopsticks and putting cloves of garlic in their book bags. The result was a sudden garlic shortage in Chongqing. The mayor’s office was forced to address the issue and order a new round of ‘ideological work on teachers and students to calm them down and make them at ease about going to school.’

This is the kind of panic that is expected when a dynasty is coming apart. For the last four millenia, the dynastic cycle has been the dominant pattern of Chinese history. Almost every dynasty is founded by a vigorous leader with strong support: a fellow like Mao. The new emperor consolidates his hold on the country and establishes order, and the new administration hums along reasonably efficiently. But then the emperor’s descendants become effete and corrupt, surrounded by a growing bureaucracy of officials and eunuchs. The later emperors, always cosseted in the palaces, become increasingly unpopular, remote, and unaware of what is going on.

In a Western country, the leaders at this point would be voted out of office. But in China, the rascals remain in the Forbidden City. They raise taxes and neglect public works–such as flood control projects–so that they can pay for new extravagances at court. The peasants seethe [...] eventually the dynasty loses its Mandate of Heaven. Then the dynasty topples and the process is started anew.”

My German colleague, Peter, shared this book with me and we chatted about this story.  We’ve asked a few Chongqing natives, but haven’t encountered anyone who remembers this tale.  It was a long time ago and China was very different then too.

A large part of the book is devoted to a rise in superstition that hearkens the end of a dynasty and uses this story as an illustration.  Maybe this helps explain some of the nature of the country. Most people now do not believe in Mao, or in Communism, but nothing has emerged to take their place.  Religion is on the rise however.

* Kristof, Nicholas D. and Wudunn, Sheryl China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, Vintage Books, p 131.

Chongqing from the Yangzi at night: