On Chinese almanac...

Chinese almanac (通勝) has not crossed my mind for a long time. But when I read the New York Times article about English translated copies of it, it brings back some fond memory of years past.

Before my parents were converted to Christianity, they used to observe traditional rituals rather religiously on every Chinese festivals and important days. We used to live right across a very popular Taoist temple. I liked to sit high up at home watching the faithfuls waiting for the temple gate to open at 6am in the morning, bringing with them food (you have to have whole chicken, with head intact, for offering), incense sticks, candles, paper money etc, all for the temple patron or their ancestors. Some prayed for fortune, others for protection, yet more for predictions. I like the smell of burning, it feels peaceful to me.

Back then, my mom believed in the powers of fortune-telling, though she never exploits it much. All her life, she has only had her fortune told twice, once as a gift from a monk when she was very little after grandma gave the monk some food, the other time was to ask if she should send my brother, her only son, to college overseas. To this day, long after she's taken to Christianity, she still holds the belief that those two fortune-tellers told the truth. (As Christians should not worship idol gods, she has relinquished all those ancestral rituals these days.)

The monk had patted head, and told grandma that if this girl (my mom) were a boy, she would achieve great things. Pity she's a girl, he said. Mom strongly believes it still. And yes, she's a decisive woman, and highly independent in her times. In modern days, she would be called headstrong, even willful, but she's also sensible and practical, though she's quite risk averse. Maybe there's some truth in it.

In the second time, a fortune-teller told my mom, if you sent your son to Canada, you would never see him again; but if you sent him to Australia, he would attract unwanted woman (with a somewhat derogatory term I can't quite find a translation in English). My brother was thus sent to Australia for college and, lo and behold, he was involved with a woman almost ten years older, and they eventually married. Their marriage never gained approval of my parents. To add insult to injury, she has been unable to bear babies. My dad never forgave them for the inability to carry on the bloodline or the family name with offsprings. Oh well, I guess every family has their woes. In any case, that was the last that my mom ever deals with fortune-telling.

One of the things that my mom shows me, was the Chinese almanac (通勝). Its annual prints are a must-have for farmers who rely on it to tell the weather pattern in the coming years, based on the study of the Sun, stars, and constellation. Through five thousand years of study and trial-and-errors, the almost inch-thick booklet does contain quite some wisdom in that regard one would think, although I'm not so sure about the predictions about "this day (whatever date that's marked on the lunar calendar in the almanac) is good for long haul journey" or "wedding" and some such, which sounds more like superstition than anything else to me. A lot of Chinese still adhere to it though, with those days that are marked for weddings would become popular for wedding banquets. Yep, better safe than sorry, as most folks see it.

There is a lot more details contained in a Chinese almanac, some of which are the same in every prints. One of those is a tabular table for 稱骨. In essence, this table helps in measuring a very very broad prediction of your life, fortune-selling for you from an essentially 100,000-feet birds' eye view since your birth. With the input of your birth date (in lunar calendar) and time of birth, you can come up with a number, ranging from 2.2 to 8.1. Each one of which comes with four verses that would describe your life. The heavier you are (ie. the higher the number you get), the more blessed your life is. Supposedly, 8.1 is almost likely to be the emperors, princes and lords, while the 2.2's are for beggars and the very poor (throughout their life).

There you have it, most people's destiny is set right at the time of their birth, although I was once told by someone who has "studied" fortune-telling who says that yes, it's a birds' eye view, but the exact path is not set. That's where other studies come in, like palm reading. And if we care to look, we would see the lines in our palms will continue to change throughout our lifetime. He says, "do you notice your hands are never in "straight" palm position? That's because when your palms are bent, or half-closed, lines continue to form, and change. And that's how you control your life, literally." I heard that when I was very young, but I still find it fascinating, from a philosophical perspective. At least we all have some measure of control over our destiny, rather than deferring to the four verses that describe us (some six billions people on world, no less!) in such broad terms as can be dimmed meaningless. It's however cold comfort for those who are born as a 2.2 and who will never rise too much above their station.

As my mom sees it, her four verses describe her life perfectly. Now that she's pushing 90, it's safe for her to look back and make some tentative conclusion. Essentially, her verses describe her fierce independent spirit, my rough life when she's young, but she'll have a very peaceful and good life as she gets older. Maybe there's some truth in it afterall.

As you can see, there are billions of people on this planet, and for this table to describe anyone with some measures of accuracy, however small they might be, the verses have to be understandably vague, and they have to describe one's whole life. It's no small task.

(I'm not quite that old yet, but when I get to that point, I would probably look back and see the truth in my four verses as well.)

I've often wondered how many people in the younger generations even know their existence or how to use them, even those who grew up within China. How much of these knowledge, even the benefits of knowing about the superstition practiced in generations past, would be lost in the younger generations' relentless push to modernity? Is that a fair price to pay in terms of civilization?

Of one impediment, is the fact that most old manuscripts and prints are in complex Chinese characters which to most, if not all, of those who grew up in China learning only the simplified Chinese characters, would never be able to read or write. Yes, the simplified characters might make it easier to learn and to write, but they would have lost that part of history and traditions since they would never be able to learn. Chinese almanac is always printed in complex Chinese characters, in keeping with traditions, but maybe one solution is to reprint it in simplified characters, much like translated English version. But is it really the same?

It is thus ironic to see the mention of the Chinese almanac, and the translation of it, being made in the western world, in an English medium like New York Times. Would the tradition of one country be preserved by and in a foreign country because its homeland country can't shed those traditions fast enough? From the look of it, it increasingly looks that way.