Changing fate
David Lin, an expert in onomastics and numerology, is another technology expert who has moved from science into fortune telling.
Lin’s family is an important influence, having been involved in onomastics for three generations. So it seemed a natural career move, even for someone who has master’s degrees in electrical engineering and business administration from NTU. Lin says that his study of business helps him to explore human nature, and his engineering skills mean he’s good at numbers. Numerology happens to be a combination of both.
Lin’s fortune telling website veryname.com.tw is aimed mainly at the Taiwanese market and has about 2 million members, among whom the largest demographic is 25 to 40-year-old females (the male to female ratio is about 2:3).
He notes that when members were spending lavishly during the rise of the Internet from 2004 to 2006, annual revenue peaked in nine-figure numbers. However, the market is now saturated, and spending has become more restrained.
Although traditional Chinese numerology has gone through various changes, it never moves away from its fundamental methodology of bazi, comprising the year, month, day, and hour of birth. Ziwei doushu and onomastics are inexorably tied to bazi.
In fact, Chinese onomastics is derived from the theory of bazi. Lin points out that based on the principle of the progression of the four seasons and the 24 solar terms, everyone’s bazi will become unbalanced due to particular energy flows from the elements of the Five Phases (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). When one’s Five Phases are well balanced, one will enjoy good fortune, but when they are out of balance, one will be confronted by difficulties. “If your name can balance the Five Phases of bazi, you will enjoy a relatively trouble-free life.”
Quite a few Chinese change their names in the hope of improving their fortunes. So is there any noticeable difference after the change?
Lin cites himself as an example. His academic performance always ranked near the bottom among the 50-plus students in his classes from grades one to four. Lin’s father, a numerology expert, found this very strange. He wondered why the apparent intelligence levels of his two sons were so different. So one day his father checked the Kangxi Dictionary to count the strokes of his son’s name characters. He was shocked to find that he had previously counted the number of strokes wrongly. He quickly changed the name, and Lin’s academic performance improved dramatically. “I never really understood why my name was changed in elementary school, but I do remember that suddenly in the 5th grade I began to understand the lessons very well.”
Chinese onomastics encompasses profound knowledge. As if the complex balancing of yin and yang and the Five Phases were not enough, people are often confused by the strokes used for characters. For example, the character 梁 (liang) has a dot in the center, but 染 (ran) has none. And does the character 斌 (bin) have 11 or 12 strokes? A difference of only one stroke could lead one’s fate in an entirely different direction.
A certain Ms Chen was feeling down—the aftermath of a divorce and the fight for custody of her daughter. One day, she visited a fortune teller at the Longshan Temple in Wanhua District. The fortune teller asked for her bazi, and then told her that she was predestined for a divorce. She accepted the fortune teller’s advice to change her name, and although it had come too late for her to avoid the divorce, she felt that the change of name helped her to save money and regain control of her life. She believes it really made a difference!
Perhaps it’s a psychological effect, the feeling of starting anew with a new name. Many indeed believe that changing their name will also change their fate. Lin points out that you don’t have to actually change the name on your ID card; even if you just use your new name as a nickname, as long as you recognize it in your mind as your name, it will have an effect.
Compared to the highly skilled traditional Chinese fortune telling methods like ziwei doushu and onomastics, Western astrology (interpreting a person’s fortune based on their birth month) and tarot (describing one’s fortune through images presented on cards) seem less complex to master, so are becoming popular among young people.
To use the tarot, the 78 cards are spread out on a dark cloth, and using the left hand, three cards are chosen to represent the past, present, and future.
Miss Li was embroiled in a love affair with a married man, and was somewhat distressed about how things were going. When she sought advice from a tarot reader, she continually drew a “morality” card, so the fortune teller asked her directly: “Is your lover married?”
The card revealed that Miss Li was in a disturbed and uncertain state, both mentally and physically. The fortune teller advised her to end the relationship in order to make it through the crisis.
“I was really convinced by the tarot reading, and was able to make the difficult decision to end the relationship. My life changed completely as a result!” says Miss Li.
Tarot divination has become very popular among young people in recent years. But while it may look easy, in fact it’s quite difficult to master. The photos (top to bottom) show tarot masters Sky’s the Limit, Eiffel, and Xiao Wang.
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