darkholme

fortune tellers, life plans and local music part 1 of 3

With a title like that, who wouldn't be interested in reading this blog post ;) heh heh.

I'm home and comfortably sitting in an air-conditioned room although I've still got to shower, I must say that I feel productive today. I've recently been tending to just wake up late, mooch around the house and then surf the web rather randomly, in other words, wasting lots of time. This day however, was different.

woke up at various times this morning - 7am, 8am, and finally at 9.20am when I got off my back and went down to have breakfast. afterwhich, morning ablutions and then settled down to some work on Microsoft excel for my financial planner (doing some freelance work for him). Of course, this was interspersed with the occasional distraction of surfing to an interesting website or series of websites. Stopped to have lunch and continued till around 3pm where I headed down to raffles place to meet up with my financial planner.

he was late so I hung around raffles place park (the green area just at the entrances of the raffles place mrt) reading my photography book and referring to my camera manual once in a while. Was starting to understand the intricacies of auto focus lock, auto exposure lock and flash exposure lock when this man, roughly 35-45 years in age comes up to me and speaks in Chinese (mandarin) to me.

** ASIDE: Before we go on, I'd like to mention that I scrapped through Chinese in school and failed Chinese aural/oral at 'AO' level. Hence, I will be translating what I understood into English. The gaps and dots mean that I didn't understand what he meant **

Man says, "Hello, you have a good character/nature but ... your career and school life may be suffering"

I blink and stare at him, trying my best to search in the recesses of my brain for my Chinese knowledge, and say, "Huh?"

Man moves closer and motions to his cheekbones, "I noticed that your facial structure shows that you're a kind person but that is your disadvantage as you put others before yourself and you suffer for it... something something ... career and work life ... something something ... "

"You're character is good but you will not do well in business this year ... something ... also your character also cannot get married cos the ... and it won't turn out well."

As my brain creaks from the lack of use, I manage to say, "oh, erm... I don't quite understand what you're saying".

Man sits down and repeats some of the earlier stuff and then says, "you need to know about yourself, would you like to go somewhere and kan4 xiang4"

kan4 xiang4, from what Daphne has told me, does not mean to see elephants or to see one's facial bone structure, but rather, to read one's fortune.

However, at this time, I don't know what he means and I think he wants me to go somewhere to a temple or something. I quickly manage to say that I'm meeting someone (which is true)

He then says, "It's only a few dollars" but I repeat that I'm meeting someone, so he says that I really should go with him. I decline.

"You must, and find out about your fortune so that you can make some preparations and changes, or else you'll not do well in your studies, the more you study, the less you will know. If you don't want to go, then I have this charm for you ... " and talks about the charm ... describes the charm ... I have not clue as to what he's saying.

finally I decline forcefully and he says, "you really should," then threateningly warns "in one month's time see what happens" and then walks off.

I am a little spooked by this whole episode, because I was totally not expecting it, but also because right now, I'm going through a lot of soul-searching and trying to discover what I want in life, what's my direction and all.

His mentioning of something happening within the month does pull at the paranoid strings of my being and I sit uncomfortably along the green patch of grass trying to get back into reading about photography.

He stands about 5 metres away, glancing back ever so often, then starts moving further away, stopping every 5 metres or so. Eventually, he leaves the area and I manage to get his face out of my mind.

I'm still a bit shaken, when another man, around the same age as the first asks me if I'd like to kan4 xiang4. I decline and he walks away.

A total of 5 different people approach me (am I some sort of fortune teller's magnet or what?) to ask me if I'd like my fortune read (which at this time I think means do I want my face bone structure read)

Anyway, because 5 different people have approached me, I feel a little less perturbed by the first man's threats. I think it's just a bunch of people who hang around raffles place to do this kind of thing.

I talk to B. My financial advisor later and he says that it's all a bunch of rubbish and there are lots of people out there doing that. He jokes, "they always say to me, 'you have very good fortune, come let me read'. When that happens, I say, 'Since I've got good fortune, then don't need to see you'.

It was an interesting interaction that I had with the fortune teller. Just cross fingers that nothing bad happens in a month's time.

To be continued...

posted by kelvin @ 1:30 am