2015-07-02. Korean Times
(308) Daily Fortune
By Janet Shin
Have you tried fortune cookies? I used to enjoy reading messages on the small slips of paper, popped out from inside the crispy cookies. In those days, they were not sold at any Korean stores or restaurants. Actually they were served as a dessert in some Chinese restaurants in the United States or other Asian countries. It didn’t matter who sold them, but the short memos often referred to the day’s happenings, although we knew they were just random sentences. They were sometimes famous Chinese phrases or aphorisms to teach people to do good deeds.
In the event of an important business meeting, people may reflect on what is written in the fortune cookie messages for fun. The messages also contain some lucky numbers or colors, and even suggestions on what clothes to wear. I would put on certain colors guided by them and sit next to someone who had my lucky signs. There was no harm in doing that.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t a routine to try and follow the advice of the fortune cookies because most of time they were just for fun, or advice to follow once in awhile. By the way, many people nowadays read their “daily fortunes” in newspapers and on web sites. They are based on oriental zodiac signs, meaning the animal symbols of one’s birth year, while Western horoscopes are based on one’s birth constellation signs. People may want to compare the fortune telling of the oriental zodiac ways with that of Western astrology, but actually the basis for the two are not identical. Strictly speaking, both are considered rather pseudo-science.
Anyway, the oriental zodiac daily fortune is composed according to one’s birth year of either the lunar or solar calendar, while that of Western horoscopes is tied to birth months. Obviously, both can’t be elaborated upon because there are not much data used in getting the results, whereas saju, by comparison, has eight elements to yield one’s full life stories. Yet, the daily fortune seems to be the most familiar way of greeting a day. Some even say that they are quite accurate.
Why do people want to refer to their daily fortunes? Is it because they are logical and scientific? Do people find any validity behind them? We all agree that the answer is ‘no.’ It may be owing to humans’ instinctive infatuation for divination. Fortune telling is required for certain events when people have a hard time making decisions, not only for their significance but for their ambiguity. There are many instances in which people need someone else’s advice in order not to be biased and at least they want to evade the sense of guilt when things don’t go well. They may just utter a sigh of regret but won’t be blamed. It is only caused by their luck or bad luck instead of prejudice or malice.
Everybody begins the day without knowing what will really happen. Owing to the advancement of science and technology, weather forecasts tell us if it’s going to rain and what the temperature will be so that we can be prepared in how we dress and whether to take an umbrella. But there is still a lot of uncertainty, which can be serious when you are dealing with crucial issues. That bothers contemporary people a lot.
It would have been worse in ancient times, when there were frequent attacks of wild animals and unpredictable climates. This urged primitive men to seek a divination and its manual and tools.
It is a human nature, derived from ancient culture, to do fortune telling, and the daily fortune may be most frequently read divination around the world nowadays. It may be similar to the fun of fortune cookies. While the fortune cookies do not refer to any data related to yourself, the daily fortune is achieved by certain signs of your birth, influenced by the sun and the moon activities in association with other planets in the universe. What is your fortune today?