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- Mar 2, 2013
- Updated: 9:02pm
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Mayan doomsday 2012
According to the ancient Mayan civilisation, December 21, 2012, represents the end of a cycle in the Mayan long count calendar that begins in the year 3114 BC. It is the completion of 5,200 years counted in 13 baak t’uunes, a unit of time. One baak t’uune is equivalent to 144,000 days, or roughly 400 years. Doomsday believers expect a cataclysmic event to occur that day and end the world.
Improvisational theatre group Sciouspace stages doomsday parties
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While most people expect to live on when the Mayan calendar ends, next Friday's "doomsday" has proved to be an opportunity to ponder the big questions of life - such as who would you least like to spend your last day with.
"The boss" was one answer at a "Doomsday Party" held by improvisation group Sciouspace in Kwai Hing on Thursday as part of the Hong Kong People's Fringe Festival. The audience gave answers to doomsday questions which 10 actors then dramatised off the cuff.
The actors improvised the miserable scenario of an employee stuck in an office with his workaholic boss on doomsday along with an insurance agent - an equally unpopular choice for company on mankind's final day.
The 20 people in the audience were asked if they believed the world would end on December 21, and all said no. But that didn't deter them from answering soul-searching questions like "who is a person you've lost touch with that you most want to see before you die?" One of the answers was an ex-lover.
The actors then dramatised a scenario where a woman goes behind her husband's back to meet an ex-boyfriend by the sea - a popular locale to spend doomsday.
"Local improv theater explores Doomsday" Video by Hedy Bok
The evening developed into an exploration of life decisions, and the ridiculous situations that may occur when rules and manners go out of the window in the face of death. The last Doomsday Party will be tonight.
The apocalyptic claim is linked to an interpretation of the end of a five-millennia cycle in the ancient Mayan calendar that began in 3114BC. Sceptics, many jaded by recent "end of the world" predictions, say it merely signifies the end of an era and the start of another.
The views of the audience echoed a tongue-in-cheek survey released on Wednesday. Conducted by Sony Computer Home Entertainment and online portal HK Golden, it found that 69 per cent of 1,115 respondents did not believe the world was going to end, but nevertheless chose lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung as most likely to rescue mankind from perdition.
Joseph Bosco, professor of anthropology at Chinese University, whose birthday falls on Friday, said: "People are curious about it ... It gives us a chance to consider life and death, and other big questions."
And doomsday has given Bosco a wealth of material for jokes, such as when the university moved payday forward. "They're giving us our paycheck before we die."
"How Hong Kongers interpret Doomsday" Video by Hedy Bok
