My Books > The Great China Quest > Challenge 1: ACCOMPLISHED!
Challenge 1: Seek out a fortune teller to predict your future.
In the end we found three fortune tellers, the third of whom, Teacher Li (introduced to us by Dr. Yang), we couldn’t afford to consult about our futures (fees started at 500 yuan). But he still graciously agreed to answer a few questions about his profession through which we gained a vastly expanded view of the world of fortune tellers. It turns out he’s a nationally syndicated columnist and author on the subjects of fortune telling, Yìjīng, and other aspects of Chinese culture.
The other two fortune tellers (one outside a Buddhist temple, the other inside a Daoist temple), who did actually tell our fortunes, were consulted separately and disagreed on almost everything including:
- where our trip will take us
- what we’ll do
- who we’ll meet
- Albert’s future extra-marital affairs
- Adrian’s impending bad luck due to his birth day
They were both, however, eerily in agreement that:
- we will accomplish exactly 9 of our 15 challenges
- we will certianly find a girl taller than Albert (narrowed down to a girl in her late 20s by the second fortune teller)
- we will absolutely, definitely not encounter any snakes on our entire trip
In other news today:
- we found a shop selling dried snakes (for medicinal purposes?)
- we browsed the “Grand Bazaar“
- we noticed that the clock at a mosque was two hours behind the official “Beijing” time (more on this later)
- Albert tried to learn some of the Arabic-based Uighur (pronounced “WEE-gurr”) language
- Adrian finally found a camel
Videos
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8 replies on “Challenge 1: ACCOMPLISHED!”
Looking forward to seeing which 9 of the 15 challenges you accomplish!
You “absolutely, definitely not encounter any snakes on our entire trip…” and then the next post is that you immediately encountered dried snakes in a shop. Very funny!
How’s the food? “Albert learning the local language from a restaurant owner” picture looks like really tasty food there. Hmmm. Time for my lunch.
Congrats on completing Challenge 1! I’m quite enjoying this trek of yours, Albert!
Great work lads!
Just a side note… I know your minimalist tendencies, Albert, but I think it’s time to spring for a new shirt 🙂 I think you’ve had that one for a few years now 🙂
One down, apparently eight to go! I’m looking forward to hearing about the time zone rebellion of Urumqi.
What an amazing experience u had!What the fortune tellers said were exactly funny.Do u believe what he said?Actually,most of the people in China really like to ask some question about their marriage,study n wealth status in the present or future.I also had the experience of it,which was puzzling,about my study.I’m not sure his words were true.
Funny!Indeed, Chinese people like to tell their fortunes. Just for me, sometimes i couldn’t decide what i will do or confuse what i want, i will go to temple and find some fortune teller outside to predict my fortune. some predict according to your birth, and some predict according to your hand. i think you can consult their words, but don’t believe in all the words. But some fortune teller is very bad, they will ask for very expensive fee, in that way, keep them away.