golden time

Beijing, Feb. 11: When the clock reaches midnight on February 17 and the Chinese New Year begins, so will a baby boom that threatens to overwhelm the country’s overstretched healthcare system.

The following 12 months will be known as the Year of the Pig, during which anyone born is supposed to be easy-going and lucky. But, for the first time in six decades, it will also coincide with the year in which the element of gold passes through the Chinese zodiac — and babies born in the Year of the Golden Pig are twice blessed.

The promising celestial combination has led hundreds of thousands of couples to 2007 as the year to have the sole baby they are permitted under China’s rigid one-child policy, in the hope that their offspring will have double the normal entitlement to riches and a long life. In Beijing alone, 150,000 babies are expected this year, up from the 129,000 born in 2006.

With just 3,800 beds in Beijing’s maternity wards and only 3,000 doctors and nurses available to work in them, the fear is that the capital will be unable to cope with the number of births.

At the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynaecology Hospital, the lobby was jammed with expectant mothers and their anxious husbands. The hospital is seeing 700 women a day, more than twice the usual.

“We started queuing at 7.15 am to get a ticket for an appointment with the doctor in the afternoon,” said Liu Li, whose wife is eight months pregnant. “Of course it’s good for our daughter to be born in the Year of the Pig. I think everyone here is excited about having a gold pig baby.”

Under the Chinese zodiac, one of 12 animals is assigned to each year. People can be a rat, ox, tiger, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, rabbit, dog or pig.