Last Sunday was another usual one, when I met few friends for brunch. We went to this amazing bakery in Tiong Bahru. I got really excited, as I felt for a minute that I was sitting at a cafe in New York around Soho. It turned out it was already a very famous spot, so my excitement of discovering a gem faded as fast as it emerged. Anyhow, don't you dare think I started a post just to tell you that I had brunch last Sunday, it gets juicier...
After brunch me and my friend engaged ourselves with a rather unusual activity... She had heard about this uncle, who happens to be a Feng-Shui expert with an office in Lucky Plaza, Orchard Road. I, a massive fan of any kind fortunetelling experience, had to give it a go. So she had booked us up for 12:00 and we were there right on time.
The place was pretty packed with locals. Given the master himself can't speak a word of English, it is pretty understandable. When we got there they were having lunch, which took forever. One might think, why would you agree to an appointment at your lunch time anyway, but this is how he rolls apparently. Since I didn't want to piss him off right before he read my palm, I sucked it up and sat there quietly. For a person, who hasn't been blessed with the good virtue of patience, I was on the verge of a break down when the guy (his assistant me thinks) waved us to go in.
Me and my friend walked into the room with white walls. The floor was covered with a dark blue carpet. There was a large desk the master was sitting, furnished with a PC screen, which showed the security cameras around the office(?!), an old school telephone and some golden buddha sculptures. I expected anything, but this to be honest. I was hoping to walk into a dimly lit room with candles, some soothing scent and a traditionally dressed fortuneteller... That being said the uncle was not alone in the room. Next to him on the right corner of the room there was a traditionally dressed, completely bald monk! (They evened it out that way I thought). He wasn't talking or anything, people were queuing to get his blessing. I even saw a tall caucasian guy exiting the room (that made two of us!). My friend asked the assistant to find out what that was all about. And he said the dude was an American banker and came to get the blessing from the monk... Then and there I decided to add the blessing to my list of activities for the day.
Anyway, once we got in the uncle handed me a deck of I-ching cards, asked me to shuffle them, cut and return to him. I was supposed to think of my name and my address!!! while doing it... I did exactly what he asked me to and gave the deck back to him once I was done with it. He pulled a card out and started talking about it.
Anyway, I am not going to go into the details of what he told me, but me and uncle really clicked during the session. Towards the end I was flopping my arms like a monkey to be able to communicate with him!!! I was prepared to hear all sorts of bad things like sickness, death etc as my chinese fortune teller expectations were rather dark, but it turned out to be a happy experience... Might have something to do with my very nice translator though, but anyway I chose to believe what I heard...
Then I moved to the monk to get his blessing. The fortuneteller asked me to think of all happy stuff when the monk was blessing me. That was a hell of an experience!!! I kneeled in front of him and he was sitting on a chair. He put some smelly oil on my forehead, my cheeks and my neck. Then started chanting and putting pure gold leaves on those areas. I couldn't help to open my eyes every once in a while out of utter curiosity. He seemed totally in the zone. Then he (through the assistant) asked me to open my mouth and put a gold leaf in my mouth, which I ended up swallowing! Then he started brushing of the gold leaves creating some sort of golden sparkles... Then he put a bushel into the water and used that to drop some water on my hand and I was done.
All in all I don't really believe in fortunetelling, but what I believe is sometimes you need to hear things that will help you keep going forward. The uncle said that I was extremely lucky, smart and competent, yet I could be anywhere and do anything I want as long as I believe in myself. (Well, now you know why I chose to believe what I heard!). I left his office in a very happy mood and came back home to celebrate my experience with a nice glass of red wine...
