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Shopping for futures | page 1, 2
As the 10,000 won bill soaks into the water, Miss Choi asks me the date,
location and exact time of my birth. She writes this information into a
book, then takes a string of cedar beads into her hand and begins to rock
back and forth. Softly, she begins to make bird-like noises, and as the
chirping gets louder, she begins to talk. "You are lonely, but smart and kind," she says. "You have a job helping
other people, but soon your job will change. Your father is gentle, and
your mother is like an Oriental; you have two older sisters. You are not
married, but you will be soon." Miss Choi stops for a moment and asks me if her predictions are correct so
far. Though nothing she has said is exactly right, I'm not interested in
accuracy so much as the novelty of her impressions. I nod, and tell her to
go on. Her chirping gets louder, and she scribbles a bit in her book.
After a while she begins to speak again. "In two years you will get married, and your wife will not be an American.
You will have one son very soon, and when he grows older, you will realize
that you want more children. Then you will have three more sons. All of
your sons will be smarter than you, and will help you when your wife becomes too sick to work. After the birth of your second son, you will go home to America ..." Miss Choi continues like this for 20 minutes as the money slowly stretches
out into the water. In between the chirping noises, I learn that I will
move to California and lose my hair after the birth of my final child. I
will work for an important company, then quit to start my own business, then
become rich from investments. I will do great things and be very generous
and die from an ulcer at age 72. When the 10,000 won bill is completely flat, Miss Choi stops and smiles at
me. "Do you feel better?" she asks. Though I didn't feel bad to start with, I can see how this could be a kind
of therapy. "Yes," I say. "Thank you." By the time we put on our shoes and head out the door, I am smiling at the
thought of myself as a rich, bald 72-year-old, surrounded by sons and dying
from an ulcer. By Korean standards, I will have lived a perfect life. Mrs. Kang seems pleased with my cheerful attitude. "Did you learn lots of
interesting things about who you are?" she asks. The question catches me off-guard, since from the start I considered this
more an exercise in self-indulgence than self-perception. As an American
with American prejudices, I never expected self-knowledge to come from a
stranger who clutches wooden beads and tweets like a bird. Insight into who
you are is much more likely to come from people who know you in ways you
don't know yourself. And that's exactly why I've found it so difficult to make a simple phone
call to my ex-girlfriend. "Sure," I tell Mrs. Kang. "I learned lots of interesting things."
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