Kritische bloggers in Volksrepubliek China spreken  over de vloek van de Fuwa; de regering is er snel bij om alles te laten verwijderen, maar gelukkig wordt deze toorts overgenomen door andere internetters:

中国，08年的中国真是多事之秋呀！

从年初到现在，中国一直祸事连连。山东火车相撞、西藏闹事、奥运火炬在传递过程中被抢，现在成都又发生了大地震，死伤过万人！

近来在网上及手机短信中流传着这么一段话：

一个福娃头上是风筝，代表潍坊，于是山东出事了；
一个福娃是藏羚羊，于是西藏出事了；
一个福娃是火炬，于是火炬出事了；
一个福娃是熊猫，于是四川出事了；
现在还剩一条鱼 ….

China, what troubled times 2008 has been for you!

From the beginning of year until now,
it’s been disaster after disaster for China.
The train car collision in Shandong, the unrest in Tibet,
grabbing at the Olympic torch during the relay,
and now Chengdu has had an earthquake,
with tens of thousands dead!

Another blogger wrote:

One Fuwa has a kite on its head, representing Weifang, and then something happened in Shandong;
One Fuwa is a Tibetan antelope, and then something happened in Tibet;
One Fuwa is a torch, and then something happened to the Olympic torch;
One Fuwa is a panda, and then something happened in Sichuan;
Now there’s still the fish left…

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/06/16/china-curse-of-the-olympic-mascots/

The Fuwa (formerly Friendlies,[1] Chinese: ??; pinyin: Fúwá;literally “Good-luck dolls”) are the mascots of the 2008 SummerOlympics in Beijing. They were designed by Han Meilin[2] and announcedby the National Society of Chinese Classic Literature Studies onNovember 11, 2005 at an event marking the 1000th day before the openingof the games.

The Fuwa consists of five members according to thetraditional five elements:
Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, andNini.
Each of the five names is designed to look like a plausible namefor a small child, but when put together, they sound nearly identicalto the phrase “????? B?ij?ng hu?nyíng n?” which means “Beijing welcomesyou”.
Each of the five figures also represents one of the five OlympicRings.
Two of the five mascots represent members of endangered species.
A 100-episodes Olympic-themed cartoon series featuring the Fuwa was released in China on August 8, 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuwa#Superstition

Jingjing, a panda, is the animal most closely associated with Sichuan province where the earthquake struck.
Huanhuan, a cartoon character with flame-red hair, is being linkedby bloggers to the Olympic torch that has been dogged by anti-Chinaprotests on its round-the-world tour.
Yingying, an antelope, is an animal confined to the borders ofTibet, which has been the scene of riots and the cause of internationalprotests against China, the bloggers say.
Nini, represented by a kite, is being viewed as a reference to the“kite city” of Weifang, in Shandong, where there was a deadly traincrash last month.
That leaves only Beibei, represented by a sturgeon fish, whichonline doomsayers suggest could indicate a looming disaster in theYangtze River, the only place where sturgeon is found.