Hongkongers should expect gossip galore in the Year of the Dragon and be careful to differentiate right from wrong - if the traditional Taoist fortune ceremony is any guide.
Lau Wong-fat, chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk rural body, yesterday drew a fortune stick numbered 29, which is considered 'average' rather than particularly lucky or unlucky, at Che Kung Temple in Tai Wa, Sha Tin.
Its literal meaning is: 'It might be difficult to differentiate a god from an evil ghost, but there will be little danger of the sky and earth not knowing how to make it out eventually.'
A fung shui master said the stick implied Hong Kong would encounter a lot of falsehood and gossip.
Asked if the fortune referred to the chief executive election on March 25, Lau replied: 'It seems so.'
'The public should recognise what is right and wrong, black and white,' Lau said, but he would not be drawn on which candidate - Henry Tang Ying-yen, Leung Chun-ying or Albert Ho Chun-yan - would be a 'god' and which the 'evil ghost'.
Lau took on the task of drawing the stick in 2004, a year after the home affairs chief at the time, Dr Patrick Ho Chi-ping, drew 83, the worst possible number. That year saw economic turmoil and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.