THE TALL, YOUNG woman shivering in a white jacket and high boots opposite the entrance to the Lama Temple in Beijing looks me up and down as I walk towards her. If it wasn't lunchtime and we weren't next to Beijing's biggest Buddhist temple, she might be mistaken for a prostitute. But she isn't selling sex. Instead, she wants to offer me a glimpse into my future.
Like a number of people on the busy road packed with shops selling incense, images of Buddha and religious texts, she's a tout for a fortune teller. She asks me if I'd like a reading, but when I say I'm a journalist and just want to interview her boss, she waves me away.
'It's too dangerous,' she says. 'The police could give me 15 days in prison.'
But despite her fears, stopping the fortune-telling industry on the mainland has proved near impossible for authorities. Fortune tellers, or suanming xiansheng, are increasingly in demand, and with Lunar New Year approaching, they're preparing for their busiest period.
'I'll go to see the same fortune teller I always go to,' says Li Zhuying, a 50-year-old accountant. 'I'll ask about my children's careers, if they'll get married and how much money we'll earn this year.'
Many of the fortune tellers who congregate around the Lama Temple are charlatans who fleece gullible tourists. Thousands of others have gone online or made their services available on mobile phones. A quick search on websites such as sina.com or sohu.com reveals a bewildering array of fortune tellers who offer cut-price rates and instant analysis. They don't have to look far for customers. With 137 million internet users on the mainland, 70 per cent of whom are under 30, twentysomethings are increasingly turning to the Web to find suanming xiansheng.