{"id":958,"date":"2012-01-30T13:25:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T13:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/?page_id=958"},"modified":"2012-05-01T20:33:03","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T20:33:03","slug":"chris-galvin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/writings\/creative-non-fiction\/chris-galvin","title":{"rendered":"Chris Galvin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linh<\/strong> and the Fortune-Tellers<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Chris Galvin<\/p>\n

My Vietnamese mother-in-law believes there are good days and bad days for everything. The date and time of any undertaking, she insists, have a significant effect on the outcome. When my husband and I first told her we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d decided to get married, she nodded, saying she would consult a th\u00e1\u00ba\u00a7y b\u00c3\u00b3i<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a master fortune-teller \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the next day. It was February, and we wanted to have the wedding before mid-July, when I would return to Canada for a few months. The b\u00c3\u00b3i suggested our birth years might not be the best match, but we could balance this by having the ceremony on a certain day in early May.<\/p>\n

We worried that we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have enough time to prepare, but the auspicious date was the most important factor, as far as my mother-in-law was concerned. My husband told me he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe in fortunetelling, but insisted we had to follow tradition. My in-laws also sought the advice of a b\u00c3\u00b3i before building their house, and before doing anything really important. Diviners determine the best time to marry, to move into a new home, or to bury a family member. Like many others in Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf City, my in-laws take the advice of th\u00e1\u00ba\u00a7y b\u00c3\u00b3i very seriously, even if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not happy with it.<\/p>\n

According to the lunar calendar, everyone is born into one of twelve animal years. Some are incompatible, while others are perfect matches. If a b\u00c3\u00b3i finds that a hopeful couple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthdates clash, he or she will advise against marriage. A bad combination invites disaster. The b\u00c3\u00b3i will also divine the time of day at which various ceremonies should be performed. Traditionally, a wedding could take place on any day of the week, possibly even beginning at dawn or in the evening, according to the b\u00c3\u00b3i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice. These days however, in Vi\u00e1\u00bb\u2021t Nam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bigger cities, b\u00c3\u00b3i often recommend evening or weekend weddings.<\/p>\n

Some fortunetellers specialize in astrology, while others read cards, palms, or the facial structures of fortune-seekers. At the beginning of each lunar year, people flock to b\u00c3\u00b3i, sometimes lining up for hours, to hear predictions of what the year holds in store.<\/p>\n

I first met Linh, a friend and business-woman, in Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf when she was looking for someone to help her improve her already excellent English. A few times per week, with me riding pillion on her motorbike, she would bring us to a caf\u00c3\u00a9, where she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d treat me to coffee in exchange for conversation. Linh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favourite pastime is visiting soothsayers to hear her fortune. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably been to every single one in and around Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf.<\/p>\n

One evening we hunched over her notebook, the few lamps and candles in the coffee house offering just enough light for her to write any new vocabulary. She put her pen down, leaned back, and looked at me, eyes sparkling with reflected candle-light.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Teacher, have you ever had your fortune told?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, have you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Many times. Would you like me to bring you to a fortune-teller? \u00e2\u20ac\u009d The shadows on her face shifted, her features rippling in the flickering light.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Were they right? Have their predictions come true?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Some were bang on. Most of them aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t very good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but I can tell you who to avoid. Some just guess, or tell you general stuff that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss, like if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a teenager, they say you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll marry soon. But some are amazing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hm. So, who would you take me to see? I keep hearing about a guy named Cao who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s famous around here. You know him?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Linh was surprised that I knew about Cao, but she said that he was so famous, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meet with just anybody.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153His specialty is Feng Shui, so people consult him about which direction their new house should face, or when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s auspicious for a business opening. He works at the Centre for Artifacts, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the official geomancer for Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf, and he only does readings for good friends and high ranking people.<\/p>\n

Linh switched to Vietnamese. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a guy on the old Bao Vinh road though; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be good but you have to get there at 3 a.m. and line up to see him. I went once. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he was very good. Maybe I was too young, only twenty-four, so he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much to say. They say the older you are, the more accurate his readings are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I had noticed our waitress inching closer and closer, and now she was seated at the next table, openly staring at us. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to having people listen in on my conversations, mostly because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re surprised to hear a foreigner speaking Vietnamese, but this girl looked like she would fall over if she leaned any more forward. After a while, I returned her gaze. Taking this in stride, she asked if Linh had taken me to see the young man who was making quite a name for himself in the tourist quarter of Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so interesting. I heard so many people say how good he is, I went to see him myself. He tells your fortune from a leaf.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She dragged her chair over to our table.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A leaf?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes. He tells everyone to pick a leaf from a big tree outside his house. You just pick any one you want. When it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your turn, he reads your fortune from your leaf. So many people were waiting to see him; I went several times before he read mine.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Linh, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I went about seven times before I was able to see him. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only in his twenties but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s famous. He speaks English too, so sometimes tourists go to him. After he came back on holidays while studying in Singapore, a spirit possessed him suddenly.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been fortune-telling ever since. He never even went back to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcSing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The waitress looked down and began to fiddle with the hem of her shirt.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little bit strange though. He has a deep voice, but when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possessed by the spirit and telling fortunes, he speaks in a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you want a good fortune-teller\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, said Linh, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a man on the east side of the citadel who reads the I Ching. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing. You walk into his house, he just calculates something and he comes up with a prediction. Some fortune-tellers insist you make ceremonial offerings, but he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it when they want you to leave stuff at their altars. I think they just want the free fruit and things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know you have to make offerings sometimes. You know so much about it; maybe you should become a fortune-teller,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said to Linh.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh no Teacher, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be too scared.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She shook her head. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if a spirit possessed me?<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re scared? I thought you went to fortune-tellers mostly for fun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Linh nodded. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s both. I think most of them aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re entertaining. Some are real, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re very accurate, but then they lose their ability. After that, they lose their customers too. But the I Ching guy, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really high level th\u00e1\u00ba\u00a7y b\u00c3\u00b3i.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I told her I thought most fortune-tellers just try to read their customers, watching how they react to what they hear, to gauge whether the guesses are going in the right direction. It gives the fortune-teller an idea of what to say next.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right about that\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in fact, we call that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcph\u00c6\u00b0\u00e1\u00bb\u203ac ch\u00e1\u00bb\u00a7 may th\u00e1\u00ba\u00a7y<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>, which means that if the customer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happy, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good for the fortune-teller.\u00c2\u00a0 If the customer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lucky, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s due to the b\u00c3\u00b3i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s predictions. If customer and fortune-teller suit each other, the fortunes will be accurate. In fact, when I go to see one, I find I can often predict what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to say next.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Just then, Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n entered the coffee shop. She and Linh are friends, and she also met with me regularly to practice her English. While Linh is bursting with self-confidence, Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n is shy and I have trouble hearing her when she speaks.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost thirty-two and still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a boyfriend. You know, last year a soothsayer told her she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too yin, too surrounded by negative energy. The woman told her it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because the man she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s destined to marry is already dead. His spirit loves her. She has to make offerings to beg him to let her go, to change her destiny.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n shook her head.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That woman just read my hand and read the cards. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she was right. I wanted to see the woman who tells fortunes near where we eat b\u00c3\u00a1nh b\u00c3\u00a8o<\/em> all the time, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about to have her baby She won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be seeing any customers for a while.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Heavens! Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t visit her\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, Linh said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she used to be good, but she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anymore.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyway,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find a boyfriend because of my bad skin. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what causes my bad luck. That woman could see that right away. She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to read the cards to know. Anyone can see.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take chances. You better just make the offerings and pray.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The owner of the caf\u00c3\u00a9 slipped in through a side door. The waitress whispered to her, and then she came to our table, flashing a wide grin at Linh and Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n. Linh told me the woman was gifted at telling fortunes. I wondered if I was being set up, but the woman just chatted briefly with Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n, then got up to serve some newcomers. Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n said she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the woman told fortunes, but rather just made them up.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Linh. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I find she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually right, but she gets a weird look in her eyes when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing it. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of scary. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the spirit, taking over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Returning, the woman asked Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n if she wanted her fortune retold. Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n blushed and mumbled that she was too tired.<\/p>\n

Linh spoke up:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You could read my English teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s palm.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe in fortune-telling, but the woman turned to me with a broad smile.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do free,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said in English, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No money. Only free.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Linh explained that the woman never accepted payment, because she took her soothsaying abilities seriously and felt that taking money would detract from her predictions.<\/p>\n

The woman knew nothing about me. She took my hand and studied the palm, her brow creased with concentration. Finally she looked up.\u00c2\u00a0 I could see what Linh meant; her face was an expressionless mask, eyes focused somewhere far away. I thought it was a good act. Then she told me things about my past and my family that I had never told anyone in Vi\u00e1\u00bb\u2021t Nam. I wondered how she had guessed. She mentioned a specific relative, asking why I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spoken with that person in such a long time. She gazed at my forehead and said she could see I had worked in several different professions. There was more, along similar lines. How did she guess these things?<\/p>\n

She made many predictions, mostly things anyone could have made an educated guess at, armed with the knowledge that I was an expat living in Vi\u00e1\u00bb\u2021t Nam. It was the few statements she made about things no-one could have known that gave me pause. I was careful not to react to anything she said, but after her initial distance, she began to watch me closely, searching my face as she spoke.<\/p>\n

After what seemed like a very long time, she stopped speaking, tucked a wayward lock of hair into her ponytail, and stood up. It was only now that I noticed how tiny she was. Her eyes had been almost level with mine, and as she stood, her height barely changed. Without a word, she drifted to the front of the caf\u00c3\u00a9, skirts swishing around her calves, and sat down in an armchair, staring off into space until new customers arrived.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153See? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she amazing? I told you she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Linh. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she right about everything?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to say. I was loath to tell her the woman had been right about a number of things. I really didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to start believing in fortune-telling.<\/p>\n

Hi\u00e1\u00bb\u0081n pushed her long hair from her face and in her soft voice, said that the woman had obviously been wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you see, Teacher didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say a word the whole time. If the fortune-teller was right, Teacher would be excited.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disagree, but let them argue it out between themselves.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now that you see how it works, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to bring you to another b\u00c3\u00b3i next week\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Linh. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One who can read your facial structure. He looks at the twelve areas of your head. Each one relates to a different aspect of your life; family, wealth, health and so on.\u00c2\u00a0 And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a new one near the citadel who reads the future with software.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I thought about my brother-in-law and his fianc\u00c3\u00a9e. When they planned their wedding, the b\u00c3\u00b3i assigned them a date that was almost a year later. A month before the ceremony, the fianc\u00c3\u00a9e\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandfather grew ill. This became the single topic of conversation among friends and family for two weeks, at which point the grandfather died, and the wedding had to be postponed for six months. Then the grandmother took ill and died too, postponing the wedding a second time.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, they consulted the b\u00c3\u00b3i. When the wedding finally took place, it was almost two years later than originally planned, and had required three trips to the fortune-teller.<\/p>\n

I mentioned all this to Linh, and told her I thought my mother-in-law, with her market-woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s salary, could have better spent her money elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, she was right to consult before their wedding. And yours too.\u00c2\u00a0 If she hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, you might have married on the wrong day. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have an unlucky marriage. And what if your brother-in-law chose to marry on a day too close to the funeral? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be a disaster. You should come with me. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go to the man on L\u00c3\u00aa Du\u00c3\u00a2n Street who reads the I Ching. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best. Then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll change your mind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I declined her offer, and we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t discuss it again for a long time. Then I returned to Canada. The last time we chatted, Linh told me she was making a list of several new fortune- tellers that I should consult.<\/p>\n

I began to reconsider. To really know a culture, you have to see it from the inside. Friends and family members in Vi\u00e1\u00bb\u2021t Nam so often tell me about how they consulted this or that fortune-teller, and since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve no personal experience (other than the woman at the caf\u00c3\u00a9), I can only try to imagine the details. For the sake of research I should go, I told myself, especially if he would allow me to take a few photographs.<\/p>\n

Besides, I was curious to see if any others would be able to do what the coffee-shop owner had done. On the other hand, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want any more reason to rethink my stance on fortune-tellers. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to start believing. Granted, the woman at the caf\u00c3\u00a9 had been eerily accurate with information she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have known. But what good is information about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already happened? As for the future, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not so sure that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s set in stone.<\/p>\n

The next time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in Hu\u00e1\u00ba\u00bf, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take Linh up on her offer to visit the I Ching specialist. Not so much to hear about what lies in my future, but out of curiosity, and to experience firsthand something that is such a widespread practice in Vi\u00e1\u00bb\u2021t Nam. In any case, the b\u00c3\u00b3i my mother-in-law consulted must have chosen the right date and time for my husband and I to marry; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had no disasters so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linh and the Fortune-Tellers Chris Galvin My Vietnamese mother-in-law believes there are good days and bad days for everything. The date and time of any undertaking, she insists, have a significant effect on the outcome. When my husband and I first told her we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d decided to get married, she nodded, saying she would consult a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":339,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-958","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/958\/revisions\/960"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}