Tea Leaf Journals

Tell me something I already know

 

He was a big man, wearing a big Hawaiian-themed floral shirt with parrots or macaws or something on it, I can’t remember, and he wore a smile so genuine it was hard not to smile back.

In his left hand was a folded piece of orange paper triangle, which looked to be quite used or worn even though I knew not what it was used for. It had some sort of ink on it, some kind of writing. It looked like a talisman.

My then-boyfriend (now-husband) looked at me and I looked back, and we both looked up from our steaming hot noodles and coffee at the Sikh man in the green turban who had the world’s most irresistible smile.

“Tell fortune?” he asked, taking a seat across from us, uninvited.

Uh-oh, I’d thought. Con man about to rip us off, sounded the blaring alarm bells. Loke, who was always better with the firm but polite declining, started shaking his head and waving his hand in a dismissive manner. I just had a sort of confused confounded look on my face, I think, half my brain was trying to think of a way to help Loke get this fortune-teller away from us and the other half wanting to help the man out. Maybe he really believed in his, erm, craft. Most certainly he had bills to pay like the rest of us. Perhaps even three hungry kids at home?

“No no, thank you, no thank you,” Loke said, waving a hand over the talisman indicating we were not interested.

“Seriously, I tell fortune. I can see you are going to get married soon!” the Sikh with the talisman said, smiling that annoyingly happy smile again. I found myself nodding, agreeing, charmed. Loke maintained his stance.

“No no, thanks,” he repeated, shaking his head although he had already cast his eyes down at his bowl of noodles, a little embarrassed because the restaurant we were eating in (we call it a “coffee shop” in Malaysia although there’s a lot more than coffee to these establishments) was deserted and we were the only patrons. So we were causing quite a scene among the two other tables which were occupied by the coffee shop owners, and the various noodle and rice stall owners who were trying not to notice a Sikh man and his charming smile suddenly sitting at a table where a Chinese couple was trying to have dinner.

Wasn’t Loke a little intrigued though? How the heck did the fortune-teller know we were getting married?

Oh, the engagement ring. Damn I’m slow.

“I can also see you are going to be a very happy couple. You ARE already very happy, I can see,” he smiled even broader, shaking his head from side to side as if to emphasize our obvious state of happiness with undisguised disbelief.

Loke was chuckling in polite but fake amusement and then he shook his head. But he said nothing else to dissuade the man.

“And I can see you are going to be very successful in your job, young man,” said the Sikh, his smile a little less broad now. He seemed even a little more serious. I looked at the crinkles at the sides of his eyes and a few strands of greying hair sticking out of the sides of his turban. He suddenly looked tired and old. He must’ve been walking all day, asking to tell people’s fortunes from coffee shop to coffee shop. I made up my mind. So what if we didn’t believe in this crap? It made for good entertainment. Clearing my throat, I spoke up.

“How successful?” I asked, putting my chopsticks down, not wanting to be rude, eating when our guest was not eating himself. He might’ve even been starving.

“He will go very far. You will leave this country,” he said, lowering his voice. His stare shifted from Loke to me. I felt the first stirrings of goosebumps.

I looked at Loke and he was still nodding or shaking his head, I can’t remember, but I knew he was getting a little annoyed but could not say anything since I’d taken over with my “okay, I’ll bite” stance.

“And what about me?” I asked.

“You…you are a very lucky woman,” he said, stroking his talisman with his thumb. “You are also a very kind woman.”

I blushed.

“You have a very kind heart. But your mouth,…”

I stopped blushing.

“What?”

“You need to be careful of your words, Miss. You must learn to…not say what you think.”

Lokes was beaming now and I could see his interest was piqued. 

For 20 minutes, we sat and listened as the Guru told us about our own characters. At the end of the 20 minutes, he charged us RM50 for the session. At the time, we’d expected to be ripped off, but when he told us RM50, it was a little much still because hey, it wasn’t like we invited you to sit down with us.

It also seemed at the time that he had somehow split us open and looked inside, but were talking about people we’d never even met. I thought some of the things he’d said about me was inaccurate. For example, he told me my sister and I were not really as close as I’d imagined or fantasized it would be. He also said that Lokes was an intensely proud man, which at the time, did not seem accurate.

It’s been almost ten years now since that fateful evening, an unremarkable incident that has somehow stuck with me all this time because for RM50, which is about US$15, this man had managed to read Loke and me like an open book. And not just Loke and me ten years ago. He had pegged us for what we would be ten years later. 

Some will say this is self-fulfilling prophecy. Others who are inclined as the Guru, would believe something else. I believe that I’d always known all those things about me, it’s just that I had a hard time admitting to them. That like my engagement ring and the fact that Lokes drove a nice car with a Microsoft tag, he had used all these cues to take stabs at who or what we were or will be. He was a good observer.

No, he was one of the best.

These last few weeks have taught me to be a better observer of myself and my family. That if it took a total stranger to see me for who I am, something was wrong. I should not need to hear it from a random person, albeit one with very specialized training. It’s like one of those game shows where you’re asked to say what your spouse’s or child’s favorite color is or favorite dish is, and you wished suddenly you hadn’t called in. What’s worse is, what if your spouse can’t even tell what your favorite color or dish is? Yes, I will strive to know myself and my family better.

And if all else fails, I will attempt to locate a Guru. Or perhaps do what many Americans do and locate a psychologist!

Read more of Jennifer Tai’s writing at The I’mPerfect Mom or enjoy her photos at www.jennifertai.net. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for Tea Leaf Journals, email jenn[at]theimperfectmom[dot]com.

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