Reflections | In pre-modern China, typhoons inspired tales of love, now viral video clips spread shock and fear
Powerful winds are nothing new, but the way that we respond to them has changed
Growing up in Singapore, an island ensconced in a region of relatively calm waters, the strongest winds I had experienced before moving to Hong Kong in 1999 were those accompanying the occasional violent rainstorm. Imagine my shock when, a few days after relocating, I witnessed, wide-eyed from my window in the New Territories, the raw and destructive power of Typhoon York. The typhoon signal No 10 was in force for 11 hours that day, making it the longest on record.
Nineteen years to the day since York, the signal No 10 was raised again, for 10 hours. Although I was in Shenzhen this time, the city’s geographical contiguity with Hong Kong meant that Typhoon Mangkhut hit us the same time as it did the SAR.
Mangkhut felt even more terrifyingthan the first typhoon I experienced almost two decades ago, but I am convinced that faster internet and mobile connections and the ubiquity of social media in 2018 were factors in disseminating fears.
The real-time posting of videos and photographs of Mangkhut’s devastation spooked me even as I tried to distract myself with a film on the 18th floor of a building that was swaying ever so slightly. I didn’t want to look at them, but of course I did, and the more I scrolled, the more anxious I got.
There are many records of typhoons battering the extensive eastern and southern coasts of pre-modern China, especially in the late imperial period, by which time the seaboard was heavily populated. Apart from descriptions of death and mayhem, these accounts also contain interesting stories related to the forces of nature.
One of the words used to describe typhoons in these texts is shiyoufeng, literally “the Shi and You winds”, the origins of which lie in a beautiful story.
