2012 in Chinese encoding means 'boat'

Hi. Just found out about this little fun fact: GB2312 character set is used to encode thousands of Chinese characters so that they can be represented by numbers. One of the numbers, "2012", represents the character "boat" ("船").

This is a encoding table in question for reference. Press Ctrl+F to help locate the numbers.
GB2312 table

Interestingly "2008" is "川", which is the name of the province (SiChuan) which was hit hard by the 2008 SiChuan Earthquake.

Other than the two, other numbers for recent years don't make much sense. So this is just a little coincidence and I'm not implying otherwise. But you are free to interpret it as you will.


[edit on 21-12-2009 by nighinfinite]

Maybe that means there will be a huge flood, as told of in the ancient texts and scriptures. With the economy on the upswing, now is a perfect time to make an investment in a yacht

Well, what are the symbols for the equivalent chinese year for 2012? Remember they are an older civilization and have tracked time on a longer calendar unrelated to the western calendar system, much like the hebrew calendar which would be the year 5772 in 2012.

The chinese year in 2012 will be 4709.

2012 will also be the year of the Dragon, which is very interesting in itself.