Everybody who has frequented the narrow, dirty streets of a Chinese
town must be familiar with one figure, unusually striking where all is
novel and much is grotesque. It is that of an old man, occasionally
white-bearded, wearing a pair of enormous spectacles set in clumsy
rims of tortoiseshell or silver, and sitting before a small table on
which are displayed a few mysterious-looking tablets inscribed with
characters, paper, pencils, and ink. We are in the presence of a
fortune-teller, a seer, a soothsayer, a vates; or better, a quack who
trusts for his living partly to his own wits, and partly to the want
of them in the credulous numskulls who surround him. These men are
generally old, and sometimes blind. Youth stands but a poor chance
among a people who regard age and wisdom as synonymous terms; and it
seems to be a prevalent belief in China that those to whom everything
in the present is a sealed book, can for this very reason see deeper
and more clearly into the destinies of their fellows. It is not until
age has picked out the straggling beard with silver that the
vaticinations of the seer are likely to spread his reputation far
beyond the limits of the street in which he practises. Younger
competitors must be content to scrape together a precarious existence
by preying on the small fry which pass unheeded through the meshes of
the old man's net. Just as there is no medical diploma necessary for a
doctor in China, so any man may be a fortune-teller who likes to start
business in that particular line. The ranks are recruited generally
from unsuccessful candidates at the public examinations; but all that
is really necessary is the minimum of education, some months' study of
the art, and a good memory. For there really are certain principles
which guide every member of the fraternity. These are derived from
books written on the subject, and are absolutely essential to success,
or nativities cast in two different streets would be so unlike as to
expose the whole system at once. The method is this. A customer takes
his seat in front of the table and consults the wooden tablet on which
is engraved a scale of charges as follows:--
Foretelling any single event . . . . . . . . 8 cash
Foretelling any single event with joss-stick, 16 cash
Telling a fortune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 cash
Telling a fortune in detail . . . . . . . . . 50 cash
Telling a fortune by reading the stars . . . 50 cash
Fixing the marriage day . . . . . . . According to agreement
In case he merely wants an answer on a given subject, he puts his
question and receives the reply at once on a slip of paper. But if he
desires to have his fortune told, he dictates the year, month, day,
and hour of his birth, which are written down by the sage in the
particular characters used by the Chinese to express times and
seasons. From the combinations of these and a careful estimate of the
proportions in which the five elements--gold, wood, water, fire, and
earth--make their appearance, certain results are deduced upon which
details may be grafted according to the fancy of the fortune-teller.
The same combinations of figures, i.e., characters, will always give
the same resultant in the hands of any one who has learned the first
principles of his art; it is only in the reading, the explanation
thereof, that any material difference can be detected between the
reckonings of any two of these philosophers, which amounts to saying
that whoever makes the greatest number of happy hits beyond the mere
technicalities common to all, is esteemed the wisest prophet and will
drive the most flourishing trade.
Fully believing in the Chinese household word which says "Ignorance of
any one thing is always one point to the bad," we have several times
read our destiny through the medium of some dirty old Chinaman. On the
last occasion we received the following advice in return for our 50
cash, paid as per tablet for a destiny in detail:--"Beware the odd
months of this year: you will meet with some dangers and slight
losses. Three male phoenixes (sons) will be accorded to you. Your
present lustrum is not a fortunate one; but it has nearly expired, and
better days are at hand. Fruit cannot thrive in the winter. (We had
placed our birthday in the 12th moon.) Conflicting elements oppose:
towards life's close prepare for trials. Wealth is beyond your grasp;
but nature has marked you out to fill a lofty place." How the above
was extracted from the eight characters which represented the year,
month, day, and hour of our birth, is made perfectly clear by a sum
showing every step in the working of the problem, though we must
confess it appeared to us a humbugging jumble, the most prominent part
of which was the answer. We found among other things that _earth_
predominated in the combination: hence our inability to grasp wealth.
_Water_ was happily deficient, and on this datum we were blessed in
anticipation with three sons, to say nothing of daughters.
And this is the sort of trash that is crammed down the throats of
China's too credulous children--the "babies," as the Mandarins are so
fond of calling them. For this rubbish they freely spend their
hard-earned wages, consulting some favourite prophet on most of their
domestic and other affairs with the utmost gravity and confidence. Few
Chinamen make a money venture without first applying to the oracle,
and certainly never marry without arranging a lucky day for the event.
Ignorance and credulity combine to support a numerous class of the
most consummate adepts in the art of swindling; the supply, however,
is not more than adequate to the demand, albeit they swarm in every
street and thoroughfare of a Chinese city.