A tiger year has dawned and I am a tiger. Putting one and one together, I would have assumed that all the gods were smiling on me and luck, fortune and the best of life are jostling to break my door down. Surprisingly, if the predictive skills of celebrity fung shui master Peter So Man-fung are to be believed, this is not the case. He recommends that I should take a gap year from existence.
Upfront, a qualifier: I am not religious and have viewed fortune telling with nothing but curiosity. I would not say that I am superstitious, although my upbringing in a Christian-dominant society has made me pause when encountering the number 13. My visits to the Jockey Club for Mark 6 tickets involve not lucky numbers, but computer-generated picks. Suggestions by my mother that changes are in order based on her reading of my zodiac sign are appreciatively accepted, then immediately ignored.
Fung shui is quite another matter. I appreciate and understand it in its basest form: applying its principles to design and landscape architecture to ensure physically and psychologically comfortable spaces. Potted plants, furniture and mirrors strategically placed make all the difference when confronted with the unsightly, annoying or distracting. The buildings I have encountered that have been constructed to its fundamentals have invariably been places of beauty, harmony and peace of mind.
But time, circumstances and location have meant that fung shui has taken on different forms. From Chinese beginnings to being embraced elsewhere in Asia, to its Western variations, all manner of beliefs have been amalgamated to create factions. In Hong Kong, there is a tendency for its merging with fortune telling that places heavy emphasis on money-making. As local in character as it may be, the greed and harm that result means such a version should be rejected, not defended as being traditional.
That said, I couldn't help but wonder what this Lunar New Year had in store for a person such as I, born in a year of the tiger. I turned to one of Hong Kong's highest-profile fung shui experts, Master So, who has become wealthy through expounding his predictions on television, in books and through his website, masterso.com. From his latest fortune-telling tome, I gleaned that this year will be less than pleasant. Not only will I lose direction in life, but my mood will be bad, I will be pessimistic and constantly in the back of my mind will be worries about my job.
Master So recommends that I travel in the coming month to ease my concerns. To lessen the chance of an accident in July, he suggests I donate blood or make an appointment with my dentist to have my teeth cleaned. As I was born in 1962, I shouldn't make any investments. Due to the time of year I was born, my luck should start changing around autumn. All told, though, I should be cautious and optimistic.
