[TL;DR theme plays]
Martina: Danielar d asks: Simon: 'Can you explain more about Tarot Cards?
When I watch Korean shows, people go to get their cards read.
How popular is this in Korea, and have you ever done anything like this?
First off, I would say it's pretty popular, actually. Right. I see it a lot more here in Korea
than what I'm used to seeing in Toronto. And the second thing I would say
is that we have never done it ourselves, but we know that SooZee and a bunch of other people
we know have done it, so we had a chance to pick their brains.
One of the very interesting things about how popular it is in Korea
is you could walk around Hongdae and find a whole bunch of different tents with them,
a whole bunch of different coffee shops, and they don't actually fit the stereotype
that I'm used to when it comes to fortune telling people
I think people get a stereotypical image of Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter.
With unruly hair...beads. Very teased, puffy hair;
A one piece monochrome suit with maybe some cupcake patterns on,
their giant glasses, and beads. Lots of beads!
Maybe, like, three different cats, and she'll say about how intuitive her cats are well.
Don't forget scarves, people who wear like, headscarves...Are we describing me by chance?
No, because you don't talk about how intuitive Meemers is,
you talk about how much of a fat-ass he is. [Martina laughs]
However, I would say that these kind of hippie stereotype, doesn't exist in Korea.
It's like a normal dude who looks like any ajusshi or ahjumma on the street.
They're wearing normal street clothing. Anybody on the street could be a fortune teller.
And they usually either go inside of a glass shop, and there's no coffee or anything,
There's just someone sitting behind a table. With cards.
Or, they even have a plastic tent that look like the dukbokki stand, like the food tents.
They're really popular in the Sinchon and the Hongdae area, actually.
But you can really find them anywhere in Korea.
Ok, there are a couple different kinds of fortune telling in Korea,
the first one we're going to talk about is:
Not Suju, which are Super Junior, but Saju, which are Saper Junior
[horn honks] Oh, Simon!
I predict more cheesy jokes, Simon. Simon: It's gonna happen.
I predict Simon will fart in the future.
Spudgy will drool on someone's face.
Saju is closer to star chart reading, when we talk about it in English.
It's not like astrology, like when you're reading your sign. Taurus, Aquarius, it's not like that.
So Saju is something that's like unchangeable, it's based on the year you're born,
the month you're born, the hour you're born.
And then it's combined with what's happening that year. So, for example-
So it's kind of like a Numerology combination thing, which gives like a final result,
that's like, immutable for the year.
So it relates, apparently to letters and then those letters form combinations,
which then have your future to be told.
Kind of very interesting in relation to the number 666.
Back in Numerology times, it was actually 616, which represented Nero,
because Nero was a giant d*ckhead back in the day, but he was also 'Neron',
that extra 'n' was 50 points, hence the '666', and you just got yourself a little history lesson.
[Fart sound] - #whoa-oh-oh! I love my life
#As a dickhead!# So, Soo Zee was saying that it's actually
pretty popular for people to do that at the beginning of the New Year.
So it's like 'Oh! I wonder what my luck is going to be like this year, let's get our Saju checked.'
People do it on a yearly basis, kind of like a New Year tradition.
Also something really interesting is that sometimes Saju is used as a compatibility check.
If people are really into it, like the parents of the family really believe it,
and you have a boyfriend or girlfriend that you wanna marry,
they might actually take your numbers in and get it checked using Saju,
then if it turns out like: 'Oh, it's going to be a bad marriage...'
'The numbers don't match up right.' Then the parents will recommend that you don't get married.
And might actually be very strong about it. I mean, like I understand
that people believe, like everyone has beliefs around the world, but like
Kinda like with horoscopes, people believe that different sides are compatible.
Yeah, but I mean, I can't imagine if you just really got along, and love somebody,
and then your family's like: 'You can't marry them because of your sign.'
So moving on from Saju would be Tarot card reading, which I would say is
the most popular version that you can get. What's really cool
is that you can go to a coffee shop and they're like: 'Coffee? Tea? Tarot card reading?'
And they are starting to add Saju to the list as well.
I would say Saju is something that people can kinda learn through books,
but are supposed to still have a little bit of inside in,
while Tarot cards reading is like, either you have it or you don't.
Kind of like an intuition, while Saju's more along the lines of just math.
So Tarot card readings are usually between $7-15 depending on if it's in a coffee shop,
or if it's on the street in a tent, and people use it for the near future.
So, for example, it's near a lot of universities, because students will go before their exams.
Right, and they want to know 'How well am I going to do on this exam,'
or 'am I going to date this guy that I have a huge crush on.'
Yeah, I don't really know why you would check to see how you will do in an exam though, because it's like,
did you study or not? I mean like, what if you don't study?
Hey, how 'bout you stop spending your god damn time getting your cards read and hit the textbook!
Another fairly common one is is Palm reading. We're pretty much all familiar with palm reading as well.
It's called 'Sohngeum'. Now we're talking about
the different scope of each, so Tarot cards are usually for short-term things.
Saju is mostly for the year that you have and Palm reading is more along a life span.
'You're going to have this many kids,' or 'you're going to have a long life.' or something along those lines.
Now, apparently it's harder to find someone who just does Palm reading,
and I heard that a lot of the times, it's service, which means that it's on the house, or it's free.
If you do Saju or Tarot card readings, so they might be like: Ah! Let's throw in a Palm reading!'
'Ah...My palm says-' 'Two babies-'
'You know what, the previous reading I said was right. Ba-da-boom, Ba-da-bing!'
'Done!' So, supposedly, a lot of Korean people
know a bit about Palm reading, so like if they look at the palm,
they can locate your life line, or your talent line, while for me,
I don't know anything anything about it. Oh, actually, my mother was really into Palm reading,
so these lines between this and this right here, tell you how many kids you're going to have.
I'm supposedly going to have- A Spudgy and a Meemers?
Two and a half. So it's supposed to be your left hand. How do you know?
You've never done this before? No.
Ok, so you... We'd better have two and a half children!
Two and a half! Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing!
[Martina laughs] Spudgy, Meemers and a hamster.
Hamsters are quite tiny. They're pretty much half a child.
What's interesting about Palm reading is that there's a rough equivalent in Korea to how,
like you know really cheesy pick-up lines, like 'What's your name?', 'What's your sign?',
trying to pick you up like 'Ooh, I bet you're an Aquarius, girl.'
They have something similar to that in Korea, where they don't ask you about your sign,
but a guy might hold your hand, and he might like read your palm or something along those lines.
But isn't it just an excuse to touch you? It could be, you know, try to be sensual, like:
'You know what I see in your hands?' Did you say 'sensual'?
Sensual! It's sensuality. That's what it is.
I'm pretty sure girls all around the world know that this is all cheesy.
Like if a guy was reading your palm, every single girl would be going back out.
Exactly! There is an amount of cheesiness to this, the same way that in like, Astrology pick up line,
has cheesiness, that's kind of roughly equivalent.
Last one, which I find the most interesting is: Which is actually face reading.
As in, your face shows your future, the way that you are, your personality, it says everything about you.
Apparently, it is tougher to find a face reader, because it is something
you have to be taught from someone else who knows how to face read,
and it's not just something that you're like 'Er, you got big eyebrows, you're going to be famous!'
'You know what? You're a beautiful girl, I bet a lot of guys are going to pick you up.
'Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. We're done.' Face reading is so specific, that they even
if you have a birth mark under your eye, it means something.
The area underneath your eyeballs can represent children that you're going to have.
Supposedly high cheekbones mean like more people are around you, or something along those lines.
Your nose shape determines if you're going to be wealthy or not. Your eyebrows-
Warren Buffett supposedly has the best nose according to this.
I'm pretty sure this is a Chinese-Korean thing as well. It's not just a Korean thing.
There was even a really famous Korean movie which I actually watched on the airplane,
called 'The Face Reader' and it was about a king hiring a face reader to determine
who should be in his inner circle because someone was going to betray him.
It was such an interesting movie. He just looks at you and he knows if you're a liar, if you're tricking him,
all that kind of stuff, and then they knew that- Hey, hey, hey! Don't spoil the rest of the movie
for the people that haven't seen it. It's a really cool movie, if you wanna see it.
It's something that's really difficult to learn because even something like your eyebrow structure,
the amount of eyebrow hairs you have in certain areas,
all this determines what you future is. I count 47.
What's really interesting about face reading as well is that you can change your future,
if you get plastic surgery. Oh, right!
It's really fascinating because I would think that there's something like natural about it,
but supposedly the structure of your face, if it's artificial or if it's natural,
will change your outcome, which kind of makes sense in many ways.
The better looking you are, the more people will be attracted to you.
Yeah, but I read from like, a face reader's perspective on it, he basically said that he's concerned about
making these changes with plastic surgery because having a new face can change a new future,
and so they said you might get a nose which you think is pretty, but that nose might make you become
suspicious looking. Someone who looks at you might be like 'Now you're not trustworthy'.
It's not necessarily even like a beauty look, like for example, Warren Buffett has a big nose.
He doesn't have a nose that Korean people go- He's not a hottie, though.
Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't matter because the way that his facial features come together,
it represents someone who's wealthy and successful and way it'll be.
It's not just as basic as most beautiful people have best futures,
there's a lot more subtlety to it than that. We're going to talk about another one
on our blog post, specifically shamans and their bodies being taken over by gods.
It's a bit too difficult for get into in this video. So make sure you click on the link here
so you can read more about it. So here's my question for you guys.
If you've been to Korea: 'Have you ever gotten your fortune read by somebody?'
and if not from Korea: 'What's the fortune telling scene like where you're from?'
Is it looked down upon? Is it something that's common? Is it something that weirds you out?
Let us know in the comments section. Or is it only crazy hippies that wind up doing it?
Oh, poor crazy hippies. A couple of TL;DRs' ago,
we wound up talking about technology in South Korea, and about all the things that fascinate us
that are really cool and new here. On our website, sweetmelodies left a comment
about the technology where you drive up in a car and it tells you if there's a free parking spot.
It turns out that Toronto has got that now,
Missisauga's Square One, and Yorkdale also has this
apparently, so that's really cool. On the other hand,
SweetCherry wound up confirming what we wound up saying
about Dubai about how awesome their technology is.
We're talking about parking technology,
supposedly in some malls in Dubai, parking lots are
that it's very easy for you to lose where your car was,
so what winds up happening is when you drive in,
your license plate is taken a picture of and then when
you try to find it, you just type in your license plate
into a touch pad, and it'll tell you where your car is!
That's amazing! That's really cool!
No jetpacks though. One day.
Oh my god, I can't believe that I actually forgot this, there's a really important face reading thing
that's happening in Korea as well. We're talking about like moles under the eyebrows,
but supposedly in the middle of your forehead, if you wind up having like a scar
that looks like a lightning bolt, you will defeat the One-who-cannot-be-named.
Ok, alright, we're done here. We're done here.
I think it's called 'Harry Potter'.
OK. Boldemorter.
It's true.