Many Chinese people were busy on Tuesday getting preparing for the longest total solar eclipse visible in Asia in a century.

According to Li Jing, a research fellow with the National Astronomical Observatories (NAO), some astronomy fans even planned to watch the eclipse in their cars. If weather conditions are not favorable, they will change their observation venue.

This was unimaginable to the ancient Chinese people, who viewed the solar eclipse as an apocalyptic act of God.

Superstition and history

In ancient China, people believed that a solar eclipse occurred when a celestial dog swallowed the sun.

One of China's old history Shangshu, the Book of Documents, recorded a story from China's Xia Dynasty (21st-16th century BC).

Once in an autumn, when farmers were working on the fields, they saw a darkness swallow the sun. People ran and knocked on their basins or gongs in an attempt to scare the "celestial dog" away.

The emperor ordered his ministers to kneel and beg the gods to pardon them for their mistakes.

When the eclipse was over, the emperor immediately ordered the governor in charge of astronomy be beheaded.

In the Han Dynasty, the emperors would reflect on their policies in case of solar eclipse. They reduced or exempted the taxes, helped the impoverished and remitted the criminals, said Yan Feng, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science & Vie.

Solar eclipses were also seen as a sign of loss in battles, Yan said.

Ancient astronomers began to understand the cause of solar eclipses in the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD), when they knew that when the moon moved between the sun and the earth, it cast a shadow. Those people in the shadow would see the sun as eclipsed.

Tourism and preparation

The Yangtze delta, one of the best venues of watching the eclipse, attracted tens of thousands of watchers from foreign countries or other parts of China.

According to sources with the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, more than 200,000 foreign tourists entered China via the airport from Thursday to Saturday. On Monday alone, more than 40,000 passengers entered China.

Passenger liner companies launched Solar eclipse tours to bring tourists to the sea to watch the eclipse.

In the southern Guangdong Province, two eclipse-watching tourism lines were opened to astronomy fans. According to local tourism agencies, more than 10,000 people will leave for east and central China to watch it.

The enthusiasm of watchers pushed up prices of equipment for watching the eclipse.

Ji Shisan, 32 and founder of the science club Scientific Squirrel, remembered that when he was young, he brushed ink onto apiece of glass and watched the eclipse with it.

Now glasses used for watching the eclipse have been sold out in many stores.

"It was astonishing," said Yin Jian, a staff with a Tesco Supermarket in Shanghai. "We began to sell the 3.9-yuan glasses since Saturday and by Sunday evening, more than 1,000 were sold."

Unable to buy a pair in the supermarkets, many fans logged online to order the glasses.

On Taobao.com, one of the biggest consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce sites in China, more than 30,000 items valuing1.5 million yuan were sold in a week. Prices of solar-eclipse watching glasses spanned from 2.5 yuan to 165 yuan.

To ensure people's safety on Wednesday when the eclipse occurs, the zoo of Yichang city in central China's Hubei province planned to check the cages in advance so as to prevent the animals being scared by the sudden darkness.

Night mode will be used in the Sanxia Airport, said local sources.

Although Beijing will be able to see a partial eclipse, the city is ready to turn on its 183,000 street lamps if necessary.

Expectation and significance

Ji Haisheng, a research fellow at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that they will try to get some data so as to resolve any issues, such as the influence of solar movement on the radiation of sun, and the search for asteroid within the mercurial orbit.

Li Jing with NAO noted that the solar eclipse provided a chance for the youngsters to know more about astronomy.

The 81-year-old scientist remembered that he was fascinated by sciences when he was a fifth-grader and heard the story of Albert Einstein validating his theories by watching the solar eclipse.

"Young people had a natural eagerness to learn, so long as their curiosity was ignited," he said.

In the Beijing Book Building, books about astrology became bestsellers recently according to a man surnamed Yin who worked in the popular science section of the book store.

"The solar eclipse just lasts several minutes, but many people spent several months to prepare, and it might influence their whole life," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2009)