Hear in Taiwan

I’m standing in a subterranean tunnel beneath the busy streets of Taipei, not far from the bustling Hsingtien Temple. At first it looks just as any other tunnel, but a few steps forward shows otherwise. Built into the wall are a series of small offices with lines of people in front of them. One might wonder just what kind of business is being conducted underground.  That business is fortune-telling, and in Taiwan, business is thriving.

The Chinese word for fortune teller is “suan-ming” which roughly translates to ‘determine fate.’ I had never visited a fortune teller before. I didn’t even try it in my native home of Long Island, New York, where you will find more than a few such shops. My impression was of crystal balls and billowing purple robes. I was told that in Taiwan, however, fortune telling was a real industry and not just smoke and mirrors.

There are many different kinds of fortune-telling in Taiwan. Of course the more well known varieties include face or palm reading. Ba Zi is perhaps the most popular and well known kind in Taiwan. This method looks at what are called the “four pillars of destiny” – or the hour, day, month and year of your birth, and uses them to predict your fate. Also popular is “Mi Gua” (米卦), or having the client choose from several grains of rice. Some fortune tellers even use the clichéd crystal ball.

I decided that if I wanted to find out more about Taiwan’s fortune tellers, I’d have to meet one face-to-face. So I chose a stall in the underground tunnel and was greeting by a woman I took to be the fortune-teller’s receptionist. She invited me to sit down in front a clean shaven gentleman that looked like a real estate agent – Mr. Li Boxun(李柏勳). He did not exactly fit the stereotype I had of a fortune teller. I don’t know what I was expecting. Perhaps I expected an elderly man with a long beard and seven-inch finger nails. Mr. Li agreed to speak to me about his field.

What I wanted to know most was how someone entered this profession. Were people with a natural talent selected and then apprenticed to a master? Or could anyone go to night school for one year and get a license? It didn’t seem like the kind of job a guidance counselor would recommend. Mr. Li explained me just what kind of a person can become fortune tellers:

“Fortune-telling is not simple,” he said. “It’s not like your everyday office job. To become a fortune-teller, you must meet certain special requirements. In ancient times, for example, you needed to first be blind as well as utterly destitute before you could become a fortune teller. Because such people had no money and no other options, they only had this choice of career. Nowadays we have to find a master and study very hard. Fortune telling may seem easy, but training to become a fortuneteller is actually harder than going to college. We have many different areas we have to study, such as Ba Zi and even some Western texts. You also have to have lots of experience in the field. So you have to study for a long time before you can actually do this work.” 

If fortune-telling was a professional field, then I wanted to know what relationship it had to religion. After all, the offices were set up beneath a temple. Mr. Li spoke about the religious aspects of fortune-telling. 

Many people mix fortune-telling and religion together,” Mr. Li said, “but they’re actually two individual things. Religion is for the people, the masses. It doesn’t matter if it’s Catholicism, Christianity, Buddhism or Taoism. Buddhism and Taoism are two different religions. Though right now, Buddhism is making all the money, while Taoism is on the decline. Taoism helps people to change their luck. Buddhism, meanwhile, uses its religious texts to spread its message. So that’s two different topics altogether.”

 I’ve always been a believer in fate. Though, I also like the idea that I have control over my life. The Taiwanese concept of destiny includes both ideas. The Chinese word for fate ‘ming-yun’ is a combination of two characters. ‘Ming,’ means life, and ‘yun’ means luck or fortune. Mr. Li talked to me about the meaning of these words and the forces involved in destiny. 

 “To Chinese people,” Mr. Li explained, “a person’s destiny is decided from the moment of birth. But that doesn’t mean your luck is already decided. Your destiny is chosen before you are born, but luck is decided after. Luck can rest on different factors such as environment and your own abilities. It’s in your own hands every day. When your luck is very good, things go well for you, like when your business flourishes. When your luck is bad, you might be demoted. Or let’s say I was born into a wealthy family. That would certainly influence my destiny, right?”

 I was curious if fortune-tellers in Taiwan were so well trained that they could guess things about you the minute you walk in the door. Mr. Li said they certainly were.

“Basically,” said Mr. Li, “there are two sides to it. First are the things that most people don’t see. This is the part we have to learn. One of the classes we take during is our training focuses on how to read people the moment they walk through the door. We can see right away if you’re anxious, lonely, depressed or happy. Or if this person seems a bit strange, we can start using our techniques to guess what the problem is. I can’t say we’re ever 100% right, but at least over 60% of the time we are. We have no way of knowing exactly what the problem is. We’re not clairvoyants. We only have our methods. It’s a logical process. The whole world functions on the same basic principles. We just help people to complete their life pictures.”

Fortune-telling was beginning to sound more scientific than spiritual. I didn’t dare ask Mr. Li about my fate. I like to be surprised by all the turns and surprises of life. But seeing a fortune teller is Taiwan is not a mystical experience. In fact, it might be something akin to seeing a therapist in the West.

In next week’s “In Mystical Taiwan,” Jonathan Seidman takes a closer look at Taoism.