As the Lunar New Year of the Monkey swung into action yesterday, fortune tellers foresee 12 months of political and financial turbulence at the hands of the mischievous, unpredictable creature.
Hong Kong’s feng shui masters expect an incendiary mix as the monkey combines with the fire element, but also say the year ahead will be a boom time for clever innovation and women will be in the ascendant.
The monkey is seen as belonging to the hard metal element, while fire represents the sun, Hong Kong-based celebrity feng shui master Alion Yeo (楊天命) said.
Photo: Reuters
“When the two things combine, it creates an extremely high temperature. We have to be prepared for a lot of disputes, sickness,” he said.
“One can even associate fire and metal with missiles, bullets or rockets,” he said.
Feng shui is influential in many parts of Asia, where people adjust their lives and renovate offices and homes to maximize their luck and wealth according to its tenets.
It is based on ancient philosophy and the belief that all events are dictated by the varying balances in the five elements that make up the universe: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
Feng shui masters in Hong Kong also combine astrology into their art. Hong Kong-based soothsayer Thierry Chow (周亦彤) warned of shocking events at the hands of the “fire monkey.”
“Fire is dominant in the five elements. When fire is atop monkeys they will be swinging around, they will be difficult to predict. A lot of things will be unexpected,” Chow said.
The last fire monkey year happened in 1956, when Britain and France invaded Egypt during the Suez Canal crisis, a pivotal event that historians believe marked the demise of British imperial power.
While the money might bring instability, it could also herald major innovation, as technology falls into the “fire” category, Chow said.
“There could be major breakthroughs in solar-powered energy, fire-related technologies, or the Internet,” she said.
The lunar calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and Chinese folklore ascribes 12 animals in rotation. The monkey is in the ninth position.
In its annual tongue-in-cheek “feng shui index”, CLSA, one of Asia’s leading brokerages, predicted a “volatile ride” for financial markets.
“There are going to be a lot of ups and downs. The monkey is a creature who is tricky and cunning,” Cherry Ma of the firm’s feng shui team said.
“There will be fluctuations, but it also means opportunities for fast movers,” she said.
Last year — the Year of the Sheep — saw turbulence in global markets and a rout in China stocks with fears of an economic slowdown on the mainland.
Yeo predicts that this month and August will be the roughest times for investors, as the months clash with the presiding cosmic deity of the year, known as the Tai Sui (太歲).
“There will be a transfer of wealth [this month and in August]... money will be lost,” Yeo said.
The Year of the Monkey may look foreboding, but feng shui masters say women may benefit, as they fall within the fire category. This is particularly true for Taiwanese president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), born in a fire monkey year in 1956, Chow said.
Tsai won a landslide victory last month, unseating the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party to become Taiwan’s first female president. She will take the reins in May.
“Women are compatible with the fire element. They will be empowered. They can go to the front of the stage or get promotions,” Chow said.
The year promises a “big change” and “house moving” for Tsai, she added.
It could also spell trouble for US presidential hopeful Donald Trump — heavily criticized for his sexist views — as he campaigns for the Republican nomination. Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton is campaigning for the Democrat nomination.
“The divination for the US is that the sun will be eaten by the moon... the sun represents men and the moon represents the women,” Yeo said.
“The sun eaten by the moon means the woman will dominate and win,” Yeo said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS