Subscribe
Translate
Who's Online?
Bangkok Weather
Blog Post
A Visit to the Mor Doo Fortune Teller – Part 3
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Part-3
Here’s something to think about: How come you never see a headline like ‘Psychic wins the lottery’? I’m convinced this could well be a great form of entertainment, but surely it can be harmful when people are unable to sort out what is real and what isn’t. For example sat there just watching the twinkling in my tee ruk’s eyes and her dimpled smile as the fortune teller proceeded to inform us both of a ‘special’ marriage package he could perform for us at the ‘special’ rate of only five hundred baht (£7 or $12). Something told me he was making a very good living out of the vulnerable people sat before him. It also occurred to me that just by being there and supporting his cause made me feel I was in many ways encouraging other people who can least afford to spend money on such ‘psychics’. I quizzed him, ‘Five hundred baht?’
‘Yes…Good price… Special price’. He answered.
My fake Ray-bans fell from where they had been perched on the top of my head landing quite appropriately over the bridge of my nose, conveniently hiding my now bulging eyeballs. This guy was beginning to grow on me like he was a colony of E. Coli and I was room temperature British beef. Before I had the chance to translate ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ into Thai, my loved one placed her hand on my knee and started to caress it. I guess her doing so was to console me in someway and accompanied with her soft tones ‘mai pen rai dear’ (no problem, don’t worry) we swiftly, to the approval of everyone but the farang, moved on.
Without further ado Mr Dunn reached over his shoulder and took a large leather bound book from the bookshelf that stood behind him and using a small white handkerchief as he blotted the sweat from his brow with one hand he started to fumble through the pagers of the book with the other.
For the next few minutes or so they talked, I listened. Or rather, I pretended to listen as I let my mind wander. A rich aroma had worked its way up from the ground floor filling my nostrils with Thai cuisine… Nice I love that smell. Then another of my senses was alerted, I could hear music, the gentle tinkering of Thai music started to swell in my ears. I started to drift a little more. Glancing around, my radar working perfectly, I homed in on the CD stall across the aisle. A xylophone, or perhaps a Ra nad (the Thai equivalent) tinkled softly. Rather like the Thai language it just rolled along in a nice ever so relaxing, therapeutic way. The choice of music was excellent as if playing it just for my benefit. If the prophet sat before us had been forced to pick the choice of music for the setting he couldn’t have done any finer.
‘What time you born dear?’
‘Huh?’ I grunted, I was startled from near sleep, ‘What time was I born? Erm…’ I realised obviously my answer would have some significance as to where Dunn’s stubby almost sausage like fingers had come to rest deep within the book… ‘Not sure,’
‘Need time na ka’
Forcing a smile I took a stab, ‘Dinner time’.
Tilting her head slightly to one side and closing one eye she glanced up at the ceiling as she converted my birth date, time and place into Thai. (The Thai calendar starting 543 years earlier then the Gregorian made out for me to be born in 2504). ‘Goa Ganyayon Song-Pan-Ha-Roy-Se, ahan yen’ she spoke my birth details with much speed and assertiveness (she’s very rarely wrong where the need for any adding or subtracting is concerned). Dunn rummaged round in the desk drawers and produced an old antique looking wooden box. I was impressed it all looked very professional. Harry Potter eat your heart out, I half expected an owl to come swooping in and perch on his shoulder, that is until the moment he took from it a bright red plastic stamp and ink pad. Removing my sunglasses to get a closer look I did wonder just what cereal packet they had dropped out from.
After much line drawing, head scratching and lots of scribbling later he eventually sat back in his chair arms folded across his chest and giving himself a self-satisfying look he prepared himself for what he was about to say. I threw tee ruk a quick glance her eyes were narrowing with keen interest. I joined her gaze towards him, my eyes narrowed also, though more with intrigue than interest. He smiled back at us both.
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it (sorry, stick with it.). I kept on steeling glimpses at my tee ruk as they talked, she kept on flashing her pearly whites back at me, good news I took it. My head skipped from side to side, back and forth, back and forth for the next ten minutes or so as tee ruk and our mystic guru friend exchanged more Thai chat, as he spoke she scribbled away making notes. Unable to pick up on more than just a few odd words here and there I decided to sit it out, listen to the Thai CD playing in the background and wait for the verdict.
———-/———-
Half hour after entering the Mor Doo we were saying our goodbyes and making our way towards the exit but not before stopping and buying a copy of the CD from the stall across the aisle. I still play it from time to time to this day and it never fails to bring back fond memories of the British heavy weight boxing champions’ grandson and my tee ruks sparkling eyes as he rambled on.
So I now hear you ask the all important question. Am I any wiser about my future? Our future? Or to use my tee ruks words, ‘Do I believe in something I can’t touch?’ Well, I do believe that Sheffield United Football Club can once again (someday) gain promotion to the English Football Premier League and return to playing top flight football, and anyone who can believe that will believe anything.
Okay I’ll try to be serious.
If someone were to ask me today whether this particular story, our relationship, our marriage, our future together ends in happiness I wouldn’t know what to say, does anybody? All I can say is - so far so good.
I love my wife dearly and I believe she feels the same for me. I also strongly believe ones future is in their own hands. In my opinion life’s not like in the movies, life goes on unmindful of beginning or end. To find happiness you need to work together, work towards your goal and build on it each day as it comes - brick by brick, day by day. Or as Claudius once put it, ‘Every man is the architect of his own fortune’.
As for Mr Dunn’s foresight, well in truth one or two things he predicted had proven to occur. Unfortunately one of them being the miscarrying of my tee ruks first child and another one of his premonitions on a lighter note being the fact that as a couple we should be ‘very careful with our money’ as because of our character people will take advantage of us… ‘You don’t say’. Well, he got that one right I thought to myself as I handed over the 500 Baht note. As for some of the more pleasurable things; on the 28 July 2007 my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby boy, according to the Mor Doo the first of six! I guess we wait in anticipation for the other five to turn up.
So to sum up, I’m not totally convinced that any truth lies within Mr Dunn’s box of tricks. I really would like to think so if not only just to give this particular story a magical ending; unfortunately however the jury is still out. I like to think that I’m an open-minded sort of guy but sometimes to engage my rational thinking things do need to be explained to me in fine detail to enable them to register inside the old grey matter between my ears, this can and does in most cases take time.
Now it has to be said in all honesty it did appear the fortune teller had given us the most general and in many ways the most obvious of fortunes, just by admitting that somehow makes me feel a little guilty that I am dishonouring my promise to give him the benefit of the doubt. So after some time and deliberation and in my tee ruks defence I have come to the following uncontroversial sitting on the fence conclusion.
I do understand that one of the greatest emotions of mankind is fear, this can come in all different shapes and sizes, the heart thuds, the blood races, small children cover their eyes with their hands and peek through their fingers but still fear, terror, seems to have a positive effect on us, I think in a lot of ways it startles and enlivens our senses. We are all creatures of reason until the lights go out (well most of us). It doesn’t have to take a door to creak or the eyes on a portrait to start to follow you round the room before you realise a feeling of unsettlement. Like children watching a scary movie we as adults may soon become unsettled when we get the feeling of uncertainty towards an illness, some misfortune, a failure, or simply maybe just a fear of the unknown. If you can escape that fear, or better still avoid it in the first place then it would be wise to do so, right? Well that’s my tee ruks logic anyway and she’s Thai so I have to agree with her or at least pacify her with a smile and a cursory nod.
If you can’t beat em… Join em. - Welcome to Thailand.
———-/———-
The End.
© Bill Bobby
Popularity: 6% [?]
Leave a response
One response so far
June 5th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I was talking to a couple of thais outside a temple at a street restaurant, one day.
Suddenly, they noticed an old man (with one foot in his grave) sitting on a carpet under a tree, asking a fortuneteller questions.
One of the thais ironically asked the other, what on earth the old guy expected his fortune would be.
Turned out he was asking the fortuneteller if he had the winning numbers on his lottery ticket.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t hear the fortunetellers answer.