Saju Reading in South Korea

I want to say I don't believe in superstitions. That means astrology, horoscopes, tarot cards, palmistry, all of them, I've never believed in.

So when our host and owner of Zen Backpacker's Hostel in Busan, June, told us he can give us free fortunetelling, we skeptical at best. However, it was just a harmless fortune and it's not like we had to believe them. At the very least, it'd be a fun way to pass time before our night out on the town.

The 5 Elements of Saju

Perhaps I should explain his method of fortune telling. It's called Saju or the four pillars method. It requires your birth year, month, day, and time. Within each category, there are two corresponding characters based off of the Chinese Zodiac. These form the four pillars. Each character has one of five elements. Each element represents a season: Spring is wood, Summer is fire, Autumn is metal, and Winter is water. This makes sense, but what is the fifth element? In between Summer and Autumn is the mediator, Earth.

After inputting my birthday specifics into a computer program, June was able to see right away something different about my reading. Out of 8 possible (4 pillars of 2 symbols each), 5 were yellow. I was a majority Earth.

Like the idea of yin and yang, ideal people should be balanced. As Four Pillars Korea says, "Saju is the four pillars of destiny. If we consider the five elements as a happy life, the four pillars make the destiny of a life incomplete." I'm not. Not even close. The fact that I'm mostly Earth meant several things according to June.

His biggest takeaway for me is that life comes easy. I am skilled at many things and can adapt easily. When he  asked what my future prospects is and I responded with, "I don't know," he said that's good. It's better that way so I can pursue anything when the opportunity comes.

June also mentioned that people look to me for leadership (he mentioned that the current Korean President has a similar reading) and people will "bow" down to me (his word, not mine). In other words, it's easy to influence people to do things and I'm influential in my circle of friends.

The downside, though, is that it may make me lazy. Because I don't have to worry, I don't work very hard. Like the current President, he's not super successful or spectacular but at the same time, no one has any complaints about him. There's flexibility in my life to an extent but he mentioned that because of this, I can be too picky. A lot of opportunities present themselves to me but I have a hard time focusing on one. I pass up a lot of chances that other's would have taken.

After he finished with me, some of my other friends got their fortune told too. It was interesting hearing each other's fortunes--we all had a good laugh about the predictions and personalities traits he described. One thing I could shake though, was how mine seemed scarily accurate. How much of it was true and how much of it was me making his reading fit me? I'm not sure, but it hit me hard enough for me to decide to write a blog post about it.

So here's to my fortune and seeing where fate takes me. And I'll work on being less picky but no guarantees...