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A Fortune-Teller Told Me
Earthbound Travels in the Far East
Tiziano Terzani
For Angela, always
Table of Contents
CHAPTER TWO A Death that Failed
CHAPTER THREE On Which Shore Lies Happiness?
CHAPTER FOUR The Body-Snatchers of Bangkok
CHAPTER SIX Widows and Broken Pots
CHAPTER SEVEN Dreams of a Monk
CHAPTER EIGHT Against AIDS? Raw Garlic and Red Peppers
CHAPTER NINE The Rainbow Gone Mad
CHAPTER TEN Sores Under the Veil
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Murmurs of Malacca
CHAPTER TWELVE An Air-Conditioned Island
CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Voice from Two Thousand Years Ago
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Never Against the Sun
CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Missionary and the Magician
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Hurray for Ships!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Nagarose
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Buddha’s Eyelash
CHAPTER NINETEEN The Destiny of Dogs
CHAPTER TWENTY A Ship in the Desert
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE With my Friend the Ghost
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Peddlers of the Trans-Siberian Railway
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Better than Working in a Bank
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Rhymeless Astrologer
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE TV for the Headhunters
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX New Year’s Eve with the Devil
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Spy who Meditates
Life is full of opportunities. The problem is to recognize them when they present themselves, and that isn’t always easy. Mine, for instance, had all the marks of a curse: ‘Beware! You run a grave risk of dying in 1993 – You mustn’t fly that year. Don’t fly, not even once,’ a fortune-teller told me.
It happened in Hong Kong. I had come across that old Chinese man by sheer chance. When I heard his dire words I was momentarily taken aback, but not deeply disturbed. It was the spring of 1976, and 1993 seemed a long way off. I did not forget the date, however; it lingered at the back of my mind, rather like an appointment one hasn’t yet decided whether to keep or not.
1977…1987…1990…1991. Sixteen years seem an eternity, especially when viewed from the perspective of Day One. But, like all our years (except those of adolescence), they passed very quickly, and in no time at all I found myself at the end of 1992. Well, then, what was I to do? Take that old Chinese man’s warning seriously and reorganize my life? Or pretend it had never happened and carry on regardless, telling myself, ‘To hell with fortune-tellers and all their rubbish’?
By that time I had been living in Asia solidly for over twenty years – first in Singapore, then in Hong Kong, Peking, Tokyo, and finally in Bangkok – and I felt that the best way of confronting the prophecy was the Asian one: not to fight against it, but to submit.
‘You believe in it, then?’ teased my fellow-journalists – especially the Western ones, the sort of people who are used to demanding a clear-cut yes or no to every question, even to such an ill-framed one as this. But we do not have to believe the weather forecast to carry an umbrella on a cloudy day. Rain is a possibility, the umbrella a precaution. Why tempt fate if fate itself gives you a sign, a hint? When the roulette ball
