Bungee Jumping in Ecuador

Author's note:

Superstition thrives in moments of uncertainty, unpredictability, and terror. When society blooms and the people are free of worry, we find ourselves enjoying, living in the moment. But destablize the walls of comfort, remove the security of food and water and fuel, shake the grounds, introduce adversaries and setbacks and periods of uncertainty, in times of economic depression and raging war, we put our faiths to the turning of tarot cards and reading of palms. The heart is weak, and though the mind likes to believe that reason and logic defeat all mirages of irrationality, one cannot always effectively deny and suppress the in-explainable cries of the heart. 

I come from a relatively religious family, and it has been my experience that the barrier breaking apart the substance of religion, and the sludge of blind superstition is all but a thin porous membrane. Sometimes, the two overlap. Watch them merge, melt, combine, mix, atoms colliding with each other like thrashing of waves between the Baltic and North seas. And occasionally, if you squint hard enough, you see no discernible differences.

I originally wrote a piece on my experiences with religion, but soon upon re-reading, I decided that it does not strike me as smart that I share the entirety of it. Parts of it are controversial, and would definitely stir up some debate with the right audience. Other parts are way too personal. But I decided to include an excerpt of what I have written below, which I think is worth sharing with the wider public. 

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Each year, before the start of the new year, my parents would invite a Feng Shui master to visit our home. (Feng Shui means "wind and water" if you take the literal translation from Chinese, but this is a term to describe the superstition beliefs in China regarding the orientation of one's life in accordance to nature to maximize luck and fortune.) The doorbell rang, my parents rushed to grab the door, greetings were exchanged. The master walked into our home, his eyes wandering around every spot of our place, occasionally nodding or shaking his head. Behind him, two other people, (different each year), followed him through the door. His apprentices. Students who would rather pursue a profession in scamming than applying for any other proper job. They held notebooks and followed the master wherever he went like loyal dogs, writing down every excruciating detail that came out their master's mouth. They probably noted down the exact times he opened his mouth to yawn.

Would you like tea, my parents offered with a smile reserved mostly for outsiders, and they poured each of our visitors a cup of our finest tea. The master walked to the centre of our living room, and his eyes performed a 360 scan, taking in a full glance of the living room he's in. In his hands held an enormous compass, one the size of a pizza that could feed a family of five, of which its perimeter was engraved with layers and layers of tiny writing. Even the slightest tremble of the fingers would move the needle from one reading to another. He lay the compass flat, waited for the needle to orientate and rest. And he began his well-practice and well-tested routine of pulling things out of his ass. 

He pointed at the wooden chair in the corner. "This is the 5th year of the 2nd era of the Water", he would say, "And the golden path will come from the hills this year, so move this chair away as it is currently obstructing your flow of cash." 

He proceeded to the table. "Move it to the other side of the room because the north star has entered the golden house."

My parents and the disciples took notes of every word uttered like reporters at the White House. Meanwhile, my brother and I stood far from the scene with our backs to the wall, not making a sound and observing this strange and surreal scene, of pupils jobbing down notes of some weird man making predictions based on a circular stone whose only reasonable purpose is to identify where North is.

Turn this plant sideways. Can you put this painting in your bedroom? You should put an ornament here.

Furious note-taking sounds in the background...

It was a full ten minutes of lecturing before he then decided that there were enough arbitrary changes made to our living room for the year. What followed next was the investigation of our individual rooms. We started with my brother's room. This was also the moment where instead of just pointing out random alterations to furniture, he would start providing unsolicited predictions about our prospects for the year. He executed a quick look around my brother's room and nodded to him. This is a good year for you this year, I smell good success in your studies.

I smelt bullshit in his words.

When he came to my room, his brows furrowed in disgust at the sight of the many stickers littered across the walls of the room. See, I was a bit of a childish kid, and I still practice the habit of applying stickers to my wardrobes to make the overall ambience of my room more cutesy and homely. It's not dissimilar to how most people cover their walls with posters of cars, rockstars, or centerfolds models. Recently, my mother bought a collection of stickers of cartoonish hamsters, and I have been applying them all over the place. Mr Feng Shui was not a fan of hamsters. "You shouldn't be close to rats. Your zodiac sign does not mix well with rats."

It took me all my strength and willpower to not mention that my father was born in the year of the rat.

The advice did not stop there: This does not seem to be the best year for you. You should try and stay in Hong Kong and avoid travelling to other countries. You do not have the protection of the gods of safety with you this year so it is best that you avoid most possibly risky activities, even like going on roller coasters at amusement parks. 

The disciples behind him nodded their heads like puppets without their puppet master behind them. Yeah yeah, they chirped in harmony.

I made a mental note to travel to Ecuador to go bungee jumping later that summer.

Before he left, he decided to make a grand exit by bestowing some final wise advice for the family. You should not travel to Japan this year, he suggested. "I say this to all my clients, but they never listened. And look how dangerous it is in Japan these days. Just after my prediction, it was hit with some of the worst earthquakes in recent years." There was zero hesitation on my parents' part as they rushed to grab the nearest lying notebooks and marked down his advice of not going to Japan in big bold fonts. There was temptation on my part to remind the Feng Shui master not to return home in a car because most car accidents occur with cars. When all one says are tautologies, it's quite hard to be proven wrong.