Soft and Fat

Soft and fat. Descriptors I don't think our most recent visitor was expecting to hear from her fortune teller. Rich and handsome are two adjectives that come to mind as being more classic. But hey, soft and fat her man is supposed to be.

Fortune telling, the spirits, the ancestors around us, and luck are all a part of the traditions and culture of Hong Kong. With a mix of the Chinese traditions, splash of the Western, and unique creations of their own, it seems almost every week brings a new opportunity for exposure. And then there are the stand-bys, fortunetellers and the horoscopes.

I've had my fortune told once now at a local temple -– Man Ho -– by a gentleman that was very kind and used a combination of numerology and other methods I didnÂ’t quite understand to make a prediction that I know already has not come true. I am still holding out hope though that my inability to accurately depict my current situation of living and working explains this failure.

Lara, who stayed with us a few days about a month ago, decided to have her fortune read on what I like to call Fortune Teller Alley. It's an area of the Temple Street Night Market that opens for business about 8pm. The whole market runs for approximately a mile and is a block wide, but on one particular block, all of the fortune tellers have taken up shop. There was little tarot and more hand, face, and numerology readings. If you ask me, they were all pretty shady.



Lara's particular teller was a man in his forties to fifties. He was nice enough but seemed only to know a few key words of English that he kept repeating over and over either to stretch time out or to add emphasis. Perhaps the strangest thing about his booth though, was his oddly purposeless side kick. I assumed he was a passing customer when we first entered, but when Lara came to an agreed upon price and commenced the reading, he stood transfixed to the left of the teller, mouth half open, and just a little too close to me for my comfort. He was nice enough, but strange people that hang around and listen to our futures donÂ’t make me comfortable. I never thought IÂ’d see a cluster of fortune tellers, but weÂ’ve got one here in good old HK.

I get my daily dose of prediction and advice from the South China Morning Post. It carries both western horoscopes and similar Chinese predictions based off of the year you were born. What I just notice for the first time today is that the person that actually supplies the Chinese horoscopes appears to be a Catholic priest. I canÂ’t say for sure, but his picture appeared in the paper right next to them and he was wearing a traditional priestly collar and black outfit.