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A Visit to the Mor Doo Fortune Teller - Part 2
Part-2
It does seem that superstitions and Thailand go together like peaches and cream or may be that should be curry and rice. The way they seemingly embroil and twine together weaving their way across the country like a fine piece of tapestry. As a westerner one could be forgiven for describing such superstitions more like a germ or even like some kind of air born contagious virus thriving on the innocent, but not an instant malicious poisonous one, more a gentle drip feed one.
I couldn’t begin to start to list the weird, wonderful and just plain crazy ungrounded beliefs my tee ruk (darling) comes out with. It’s only over the many years now I have learnt not to fight it but roll with it. These days I choose to just smile and nod my head when she speaks of such things and not think too deeply into what the hell she is on about. ‘Oh okay, thanks, I’ll have to remember that one dear.’
You have probably gathered at this point that I personally am not a big believer in taboos or superstitions. Come to that I am not great believer in ghosties, ghoulies or things that go bump in the night either. I find it irrational to believe that future events are influenced by specific behavior patterns such as dreams, handwriting, or any celestial heavenly bodies. furthermore nor do I have the belief that anybody by looking into my palm, tea leaves, flicking through Tarot cards or by simply gazing into a crystal ball can dictate my future.
I am however a great believe in Thailand, in fact I openly admit I am all too eager to jump to its defence when I read or listen to anything untoward said about it. Sometimes I find myself defending the most absurd and ridiculous things just because someone happens to be condemning
Thailand or Thais in any way. Well they do say love is blind, must be true, must be love. So with that in mind and the date of our wedding looming ever closer on the horizon, I half-heartedly agreed to visit the local Mor Doo (Fortune Teller).
So off we trundled my tee ruk and I to the Old Siam Plaza down on Pahurat Road Bangkok. We spent the next hour taking in the colourful sights and sounds of Pahurat market place. Apparently the Pahurat area was previously known as the Indian quarter and as I was soon to find out, was now currently the home to street vendors, lots of em.
The streets were a noisy maze of pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, tuk tuks (the open three wheeled kamikaze taxis) and pretty much every other type of transportation you can imagine all meandering around various tightly jammed stalls and shops. The smell of hot spicy food I love so much blended with the stink of diesel fumes that hung in the air after having been spluttered out from the rear of the tuk tuks.
The order of the day did seem to lean towards traditional Thai products catering for the Thai rather than the farang (foreigner, generally of western appearance). One thing was for sure, this was a place for the local grannies, the blue-rinse brigade. A little old lady reached out with a folded length of brightly coloured Thai silk and with a tilt of her chin she mumbled something in Thai along the lines of ‘Kuna parp dee’ (good quality). Her beautiful toothless grin on her old lined face never altered as I spoke back, ‘wai wan na’ (another day). I had been groomed well; my tee ruk always keen to show me the ropes at every available opportunity, something to which I will always be eternally grateful for - thanks dear.
Scanning around I couldn’t help but notice there were sellers of stationary equipment in abundance, what’s all that about? Anyway if you should ever suddenly get the urge to require a couple of thousand wedding invitations for your big day, whether it be your first, second, third, forth or fifth marriage then the inexpensive looking gold and silver embossed invitation cards can be ordered within twenty four hours… Or so I was reliably informed by every other vendor.
I was sweating more than a whore in church as that great big yellow thing in the sky started to beat down on the huge melting pot Bangkok, I prompted tee ruk to swiftly make for the air con. Hurdling the final obstacle of a sleeping sorrowful looking mutt in the doorway we eventually found our way inside the Plaza.
Inside life pretty much went on the same as outside, that being apart from the red hot branding iron had now seized to stop searing the back of my neck. We made are way through the plethora’s of shops and stalls to the second floor where if the fortune teller was any thing to write home about, was already preparing for our arrival.
I’m not quite sure what I was expecting to see as I turned the corner and walked into the small parlour where he resided. I had mixed visions of some small bald-headed blind guy with an orange robe and stave, surrounded by lots of candles. I guess a bit like that Chinese bloke from the seventies TV series ‘Kung Fu’. You remember, what’s-his-face the grandfather with all the answers. Well, either him or some Merlin warlock looking character from King Arthur, long white beard, pointy hat, cape and a wand.
I couldn’t have been further from the truth as my tee ruk smiled with excitement and exchanged greetings with a rather stern looking; short, round-faced, round-bellied, rotund man, smelling vaguely of some tropical fruit I couldn’t quite recognise. His age - like the fruit - was also difficult to pinpoint. It’s always a difficult one guessing a Thais age but my guess would have put him in amongst the late fifties basket. Wearing a dirty old t-shirt and pair of jeans to match, but minus the pointy hat with the moon and star shapes on, he turned to face the sweaty, flustered looking character (me).
His face brightened in an instant, he turned his palms upwards, then tilting them slightly in a downwards motion he prompted us both to pull up a pew. As he seated himself down behind his desktop across from us I looked around. There were half a dozen or so folded chairs leaning up against the wall, pulling over a couple of them and parked my weary arse down.
Hailing from the north of England I do struggle from time to time within in my Northern native tongue to string together more than a couple of audible sentences so you can imagine the incomprehensible dribble that comes out of my mouth when trying to speak Thai. And as our little psychic friends English was about as good as my Thai, we decided to let tee ruk do the translating. After a few Sawadees (hellos) and one or two brief verbal exchangers my tee ruk turned to me,
‘Dear, fortune teller tell me he have grandfather in UK, do you know him? His name Dan’
‘Dan? …Err… No, can’t say I do’.
The psychic scribbled down a few letters on a slip of paper spun it round and slid it across the table towards me.
‘Oh, Dunn? I corrected my tee ruk’s pronunciation, ‘Yes, I know him,’ I lied.
I had however once heard or read somewhere of such a name and asked with a cheeky grin, ‘The Boxer, Richard Dunn’? Well it was the only Dunn I’d ever heard of and hey, he did live in the UK. He just so happened to be the not so famous British heavy weight boxing champion who unsuccessfully fought the great Mohammed Ali for the world crown back in the Seventies.
‘Yes, yes, Richard Dunn my grandfather’, he quipped, his smile broadening like a Cheshire cat with all the cream.
I exchanged a glance with tee ruk who too was smiling from ear to ear. I brought the ball of my hand up to my mouth but failed miserably to hold back the contagious smile being passed around the table although mine for a different reason. I couldn’t help thinking there was one slight flaw within his family ancestry. Richard Dunn (at least the Richard Dunn I was talking about) would have been born in the mid-forties, at a guess around about the same time as the alleged Mr. Dunn junior sat opposite me which gave me a somewhat puzzled look.
‘Are you sure? Dunn the boxer who fought Ali? ’
‘Yes, Richard Dunn… My grandfather fight Ali, you know him?’… More smiles.
I did think at this moment that if he couldn’t get his history right how on earth could he possibly have any success with my future? It was one of those moments again while over here in Thailand I was asked a totally absurd question. It seemed somewhere along the way our conversation had been lost in translation and had been sucked up into that big black hole of cultural no-mans-land. Having gained much experience in the ‘ask a stupid question’ department over the years I answered him in an equally senseless way. ‘Yeah, I know him… Him and Santa Clause’. Typically Thai and unwilling to admit lack of comprehension he gave off a quizzical look accompanied with half a smile and an uncertain nod. Worked a treat, I nodded and smiled back.
Pleasantries over I thought it best we should move swiftly on to nitty-gritty of the proceedings… The fee.
———-/———-
(To be continued)
© Bill Bobby
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4 responses so far
October 27th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Great article
October 27th, 2007 at 3:37 am
October 27th, 2007 at 3:38 am
[...] Bill Bobby placed an interesting blog post on A Visit to the Mor Doo Fortune Teller - Part 2.Here’s a brief overview:His age - like the fruit was also difficult to pinpoint. It’s always a difficult one guessing a Thais age but my guess would have put him in amongst the late fifties basket. Wearing a dirty old t-shirt and pair of jeans to match but … [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
“i wanna no if my boyfreind will get a long timm in jail and dose he love me
like he says and dose he look at other girls plz get bk love samantha xxxxxxxxx”
Dear Samantha, I’m having to reply to your above comment on ‘a visit to the fortune teller part 1′ on this submission as for some reason the site won’t let me post a reply on Part 1.
Anyway, in reply to your comment, i’m no Cupid, Agony Aunt or for that matter Fortune Teller. I thought that would have been plainly obvious after reading this trilogy of short stories.
Nevertheless in answer to your comment/questions I will say the following…
Unless your boyfriend walks around Thailand with his eyes shut, (then like most men) it’s unlikely he will not look at other women, unfortunately, such is the nature of the beast.
As for your other questions, regarding his jail sentance, I really think you need to be speaking to his parol officer about that and as for the ‘love’ thing well I guess you’ll have to see Mr Dunn to find the answer to that, (see A Visit to the Mor Doo Fortune Teller–Part 2)
Chock dee na Krab, Good luck