As we crossed over into the year 2011, many of us must have been wondering what kind of exciting encounters awaits us in the next 12 months. Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to experience fortune-telling for the first time in my life by a modern Japanese fortune-telling talent unit – not for sale.
not for sale consists of seven members including 4 fortune-tellers, 1 MC, 1 DJ, and 1 VJ. Each of the four fortune-tellers tells one person’s fortune simultaneously in their own respective styles: Western-style astrology, Eastern-style astrology, Palm Reading and Tarot cards, among other styles. While their fortune-telling salon is located in Shibuya, one of the shopping and entertainment districts in Tokyo, Japan, they were invited to Singapore last year to attend the Anime Festival Asia 2010 and they returned again this round to set up a limited one week “fortune-telling booth” at Liang Court.
Since all the members of not for sale are Japanese, the organisers engaged translators for the customers.
My fortune was told by Sugar, who specialises in Western astrology and Sabian astrology. I was expecting to see an ancient crystal ball or some star charts, but Sugar is actually way more tech-savvy and used a laptop to tell my fortune. We had to make sure that he wasn’t just checking out some random astrology website on Google.
I requested to find out more about the fortunes of my working life and whether I was going to be successful. Sugar drew this interesting chart based on my birth-date and used that to explain my fortune for the following five years. He used the example of a new moon to illustrate that my life was entering a new phase and I could expect things to pick up starting the middle of this year. He also shared with me some useful tips on how I should enrich my spiritual self so that I could attain the goals I seek to accomplish in life.
Generally, the entire session with Sugar was very comfortable and he was meticulous in making sure that I understood what he was talking about, especially when he was talking about the more abstract areas of spirituality. Even though the fortune-telling method was based on Western astrology, there were certain Japanese analogies used, and it somehow felt more refreshing than simply reading plain old horoscopes that you can find in any entertainment/tabloid magazines.
I believe that there are legit fortune-tellers and psychics who have the special abilities to foretell our futures, and this was further exemplified when Sugar surprised me by mentioning certain aspects of my life that I was quite certain he didn’t know about. Of course, I left the session feeling good knowing that good fortunes will be heading my way.
Unless you are a skeptic like Sheldon Cooper from the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” who defines horoscopes as the “mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality”, then I would say with confidence that everyone should keep an open mind and try having your fortune told at least once in your life. And if you pass by Shibuya someday, you might just want to drop by and check out what these stylish fortune-tellers from not for sale have to offer.
At the end, it is important to remember that ultimately we control our own lives, and we should live our lives to the fullest and believe that good things always lie ahead of us. Then we won’t even need a fortune-teller to read our fortunes since we will know that all will be well.