Chinese Fortune Telling! 算命

Hi everyone! Today, we are going to delve into the subject of fortune telling or as it is called in China, 算命suànmìng. Fortune telling is not only limited to those fortune cookies you find when ordering Chinese food takeout, so I will tell you all more about it in today’s post!

First off, 算命 literally translates into “calculating life or fate” in English and it is a big deal in China. The most common reason people decide to visit these fortune tellers is that they want to find out their auspicious days for any event. The majority of Chinese people are very superstitious (you can find out more about Chinese superstitions in my previous post) and will listen to the fortune tellers’ advice. By using birthdays and face and palm readings, they are able to discover which are the best days to get married, to open a business, to buy a home, etc. Astrology is also used mostly to determine if a person will be lucky and wealthy in his or her future.

A very popular method of telling someone’s fortune is a practice called Bazi(eight words). Fortune tellers use the person’s birthday, birthmonth, and birthyear to determine an individual horoscope. The specific birthday is also used to reveal in which animal year he or she is born, if the year is a feminine year, yin, or a masculine year, yang, and so on.

As previously mentioned, there is also a method called face reading. Chinese people consider the middle of the face, the nose, to represent a very important aspect, wealth. Thus, if you have a “big” nose, you are known to be very successful and wealthy in the future. Also, another interesting point is that your ears are supposed to play an important role. Rather than small ears, people with big ears and long earlobes are considered to be very lucky in the future (This is why you see big ears and long earlobes on Buddha statues!)

If anyone is skeptical as to how accurate these methods are, I’m on the same boat. However, there are many people who are very superstitious and will believe anything that the fortune tellers tell them. This is why people are sometimes conned of their money, so be careful if you decide to get your fortune told!

I hope everyone learned a lot from today’s post! Make sure to tune in next week!