(9-96) If you want to know women's status in China, the best place to find out is in the field of fortune telling. It is a peculiar field. There's no formal education, there's no definitive methodology, there's no clear discipline. There is a few formulas and ideas that's been passed down from generation to generation. The formulas and the ideas seldom change, and the interpretations are almost always the same. I believe this is the field that is purely Chinese and untouched by Western influence.

After reading a few books on fortune telling, you cannot help notice that women's fate are pathetic in China. You don't have a chance to be an official that is considered the best profession to have traditionally. You don't have a chance to be a craftsman, a carpenter, or an artist. You don't even have a chance to be a businessman which has the lowest status in traditional Chinese society. Your fate is determined by your husband and your son (notice that not daughter). Therefore, your fate is determined by whether you will be a good wife or mother. Your fate is not determined by your ambition, your persistence, your talent, your intelligence or least of all your IQ. Your fate is determined by whether you are capable of bearing a child, and whether you are capable of being faithful to your husband. That is why Chinese prefer women with big hips. That's definitely a good sign for bearing a child safely. On the other hand, I have never seen any male sex organ being discussed as a determining factor of their fate.

If women's fate is largely determined by her role as a mother and wife, it is inevitable that her sexual attitude is the most important determining factor. There is only two ways to characterize her - she is either yin (overindulging) or qing bai (clean). Guess what? More than 90% of the women are predicted to be in the category of yin. The first woman emperor, Wu Ze Tian, in Chinese history is being categorized as yin. She reigned Tang dynasty for almost 50 years with terrific records. She left instructions that after she dies there will be an epitaph with no words on it. What an ambitious mind; I haven't seen a man who can match that record yet. However, if you have the same birth date, and the same fortune chart. You will be classified as overindulgent (in sex), and you will be doomed.

I remember when I was in junior high, I passed by a park after school. A fortune teller laid out two big pictures of human face, one male, one female. On the face there are moles placed in different positions with comments of what they mean. I have a mole right underneath the corner of my left eye. I checked it out. It was the word yin. I left with the urge of trying to cover my face with my left hand. It was a sentence that I carried for years. I tried not to flirt with boys, but I still get a nick name to the effect of being foxy. I felt doomed and terribly guilty for something I did not do. It's a scarlet letter on my face, and I haven't even commit the crime yet. I was too young to realize that fortune telling, like many other things, is merely an art of interpretation. It was dumb of me to let my fate being interpreted by an ill prepared discipline. I am over 40 now, and I still don't have wrinkles on my face, that's another sign of "yin". I say: "Thank God, almighty. I am blessed. I am an overindulgent woman."