Former South Korean president Park Geun-hye was predicted to have good ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but less so with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. And South Korea should have reached the semi-finals at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, instead of being eliminated in the group stages.
Why? Because South Korea is “tree” and Brazil is “water” by nature, according to the traditional Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing, which uses the interaction of elements to explain and predict everything from health and medicine to the movements of heavenly bodies – and politics, of course.
These were some of the predictions that fortune-tellers, from whom the disgraced Korean former leader regularly sought for advice while in power, handed to elite South Korean police officers to pass on to the presidential Blue House.
Copies of these executive-level reports were released to media this week, confirming that Park was indeed lending an ear to mystics while in power, said Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Jae-jung.
According to Lee, if Park liked the predictions, her government officials would reward the police officers with career promotions.
And while many South Koreans still consult fortune-tellers – though this practice is waning as the country’s modernises – Lee said Park’s decision to involve police in her beliefs was “absurd”.
“Is it a government role to consult fortune-tellers for the country’s fate? Intelligence-gathering police officers were doing this absurd thing,” she said.
Park is currently serving a 24-year jail term for a corruption scandal that included charges of bribery and abuse of power.
The documents’ release this week came as Kang Sin-myeong, who served as the country’s police head under Park, was arrested for having intelligence-gathering police provide conservative party candidates with information on their rivals during the 2016 parliamentary elections.
One of the fortunetelling reports, filed in December 2014 and titled “Forecast by fortune-tellers about the new year’s national fate”, said 2015 was the year of “Blue Sheep” and thus could be somewhat turbulent because the colour blue meant “vitality” – and sheep, although usually considered peaceful animals, sometimes fought each other to mate.
“However, the president will embrace troublesome forces with her motherly grace [and thus prevent troubles] as her facial features suggest she will stroke the belly of the sheep to calm her down,” it said.
In a section under the heading “Diplomacy and national security”, one of the reports said cooperative ties with China would remain in place and the issue of reunification of the Korean peninsula would come to the fore.
The Wu Xing theory – also known as five elements, or five phases – has it that wood feeds fire, fire creates earth, earth bears metal, metal collects water and water nourishes wood. Further, it says wood parts earth, earth dams water, water extinguishes fire, fire melts metal and metal chops water.
“Judging from face features of all the leaders, Madame President [who is ‘metal’ in her nature] and Abe [who is of ‘fire’] are in xiang ke [mutually overcoming] relations, and therefore improvement of diplomatic ties between the two countries won’t be easy in the near future,” it said.
Moon Jae-in begins third year in power with hard sell on North Korean reconciliation but has his signature policy failed? “In the meantime, relations with President Xi Jinping, who is ‘earth’ in nature, are of xiang sheng [mutual generation], and Sino-South Korea ties have therefore been smooth so far, including the successful signing of the free trade agreement. Cooperative ties will continue into [2015].”
The report also referred to concerns among conservatives that Park’s government might be leaning too far towards China, at the cost of ties with the United States. “Nonetheless, diplomatic ties with the US are expected to remain warm as the president’s facial features have cheekbones that embrace the nose, and this suggests her social relations will be amicable.”
Concerning the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, it said Park would “not be in bad terms” with Kim, because Kim was ‘water’ in nature.