Fortune Hunter
By Harriet Ann Dy

Because most Chinese are superstitious by nature, many believe having good luck is as much an integral part of success as hard work.  If luck doesn’t exist, they definitely would have invented it.

My earliest concept of luck canbe traced to my grandmother’s huat ke (fortune cakes).  I remember golden rice cakes being steamed in big aluminum baskets, and set against red Japanese paper, to be offered t the kitchen gods for Chinese New Year.  Although I loved them as a child – they tasted like puto, but denser, sweeter, and stckier- what I really wanted to do was to take the old Filipino series peso coins that she would bury between the puffy folds of the cake, andkeep them.  My grandmother gave me Goya chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil instead.  The real money, in crisp new bills, would be tucked in small red envelopes called angpao and given out after the big family dinner.

As a third generation Chinoy, I grew up with the idea of hok (“good luck” in Hokkien) because it was part of my culture.  I wore red on happy occasions because the color was hong (“bright” in Hokkien); it was synonymous to prosperity and happiness.  I ate steamed fish at lauriat dinners because I actually enjoyed deboning the fish head; I also read somewhere that the “yui,” the Mandarin character for fish, sounds the same as the character for “more.”  When I got married, I let my grandmother pick the most auspicious date based on my then fiance’s and my Chinese horoscopes.  And though I haven’t gone as far as rearranging furniture because of feng shui ( I did move a tabletop fountain once, at the suggestion of my mother), I didn’t find anything wrong when the now hubby said “no” to houses that face north when we were house-hunting.  Bad feng shui for his sign, he said.

These were just some of the basic beliefs that I distilled and reinterpreted from a long laundry list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to suwerte compiled by many Chinoys.  Because most Chinese are superstitious by nature, many believe having good luck is as much an integral part of success as hard work.  Chinoys have been known to adapt universal beliefs, like obtaining auspicious numbers like six (“liu” in Mandarin sounds like the character for “flow”), eight (“pa” in Mandarin sounds like the character “fa” or wealth), and nine (“jiu” in Mandarin sounds like the character for ‘long lasting’) to enhance their business or health.  Many local stores and restaurants would also have the Maneki Neko, or Japanese Fortune Cat, waving at customers and inviting Lady Luck to help the establishment prosper.  Interestingly enough, this good luck charm is not even Chinese.

But perhaps (or maybe because) of the perception that Chinoys possess the magic touch when it comes to entrepreneurship, peddling luck itself has become a booming industry.  In fact, Chinese New Year is a good time to shop for luck-related merchandise or food.  Even sidewalk vendors along Ongpin Street have gotten creative in peddling suwerte:  among items sold on the street are kiet-ahs, miniature oranges strung together with small onglais (literally, “luck, come” in Hokkien) and pineapples forming a wreath to hang on doors to welcome the lunar year, a Pinoy take on two lucky fruits.  Even Chinoy delicacies like tikoy and hopia, as well as traditional sweets like buchi, huat kes (literally, “blossom cake” in Hokkien), and a distant cousin, the peach blossom cake, for long life, have been in the limelight as auspicious food.
The cakes signify expanding wealth and the round shape is said to be reminiscent of lucky coins.

Luck has become so commoditized these days that feng shui specialty store chains like World of Feng Shui (WOFS) have sprung up, promising to let the public in on how to make more money or live longer by channeling the energy of the universe.  “(Feng shui) is the art of living in harmony with your environment,” says Marites Allen, CEO and president of WOFS Philippines in a previous interview.  “It is the balanced energy that surrounds us.”  Some of the items being sold at WOFS are wealth vases, good business amulet coins, and a feng shui staple, the pakua.  Prior to Allen, other geomancers like Merlina Merton and the late Paul Lau, have also been popular among Pinoys.

Traditional Chinese history and lore is replete with tips on how to get Lady Luck on your side.  Unlike the Celts and their four leaf clover, however, luck is often dependent on many factors for the Chinese, beginning with your horoscope.  I am reminded of Teresita Ang See’s story about when she, together with Merlina Merton, were guests at a talk show to celebrate Chinese New Year.  Merlina was showing a peso bill with words “bayarang panlabas ng Bangko Sentral” and doing a feng shui analysis on it.

“How can the Philippines be rich if its money says money is going out before wealth is brought in,” she asked.  To which Teresita responded, “Henry Sy, Lucio Tan and Jamie Zobel use the same money anyway.”

Knowing this, however, doesn’t stop me from inverting my framed hok print, to have “good fortune come back to me,” which is what an upside down hok sounds like in Mandarin.  I don’t consider myself overly superstitious, but maybe doing so can get Lady Luck to rush to my side.  Who knows?  Suwerte din yon.